Slashdot Mirror
Advertising Hits Arizona County Government Website
Combuchan writes "Just when you thought that pages on your local government's website were the last bastion of the advertisement-free WWW, that may soon change. Maricopa County (seen on slashdot before), home to 3.4 million people in the Phoenix metropolitan area, has seen their GIS website "become an every day tool for realtors, developers, mortgage and title companies, appraisers, inspectors, attorneys and many other professionals associated with the real estate industry." As a result, they are now accepting bids for Web advertisements. As the county is one of the best-run in the nation, this could set quite the precedent."
Someone's got to pay. I don't see the big deal.
How much revenue would advertising bring to the site? Would it be worth the degraded image that advertising will bring? Do they really need that extra money?
This won't help lower taxes, it will raise them. You see someone (political connected) will 'have' to be hired to managed the ad program. And since the persons salery will come out of a different budget pool they will still make it look like the ad program is bringing in more than it is.
Ain't goverment budgeting wonderful? It makes Enron's accounting look legal by comparison.
A government earning money instead of forcing its citizens to supply it under threat of force.
What on Earth will we do?!
Love it...
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
As long as my Adblock still works they can advertise all they want.
Ad-Block
Yeah, right.
I'd much rather keep my money for myself to spend on the products the corporations make than contributing to the country I live in. What a horrible concept!
Unfortunately, now I won't have anyone to complain to when things start going wrong, because I'm not paying them.
Isn't advertisement at the government level a bit wrong, as it implies the government has a bias over one product/company?
It's an important question to ask. Is this really what we want our country to become? It seems that many people here don't really care. Let me assure you, in 50 years time, it will make a huge difference. It just might mean the difference between 98% of the population living in abject poverty, and 2% of the population with more money than they can dream of.
As always, ye who gives the county much needed revenue through advertising gets special treatment when you need a favor from the country should something go arwy. Same thing as cop cars with coporate advertising awhile back; if there was a protest at the local mcdonalds, and the cop cars adorn the corporate logo of mcdonalds, the cops would be there quicker to help out mcdonalds than, say, some local woman who just got raped.
I spose this is what we get for putting people in power who want government to make good business sense.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Has anyone noticed that the site actually prevents non win98/nt/xp/me/ie4 from viewing it. It doesn't just not work it actually is prevented. It smells like discrimination to me. OF course /.ers won't think so because they acn change. But then /.ers are wrong and stupid.
Hint mod this down so I don't have excelent karma and get more mod points.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
Let Maricopa County have advertisers on their real estate website. That will distract people from the fact that they're buying land in the desert
Eh.. That's why I installed the AdBlock extension for Firefox. problem solved..
What is your penile percentile?
But where I come from, government providing preferential treatment to businesses or individuals in exchange for monetary sums is called "corruption".
...it seems that few people are actually following any links before posting corporate conspiracy theories.
Now, I will admit that there's something slightly unsettling about a government giving official coverage to particular businesses. Though, as pointed out above, it may be better than taxes.
But in any event, these ads are specifically for their GIS (Geographic Information Systems) portal. That's relatively specialized stuff - people visiting it (property owners and developers) have a pretty high probability of needing some kind of service the businesses advertise there. If they don't see the ad there, they'll go to the Yellow Pages - so who do you want the money to go to, the local gov or the telecoms?
While this still strikes me as a little odd, it's not like Aunt Tilly is going to be checking a web site for the garbage pickup schedule and be confronted with flashing ambulance chaser ads or something.
They put ads on city buses too.
Ads are good for covering costs, however they are also completely inappropriate for any service rendered by state authority. I'm not into US or Arizona or this particular county legislature, but if somebody would be able to promote itself on government owned web site, while somebody else couldn't, the whole thing could be seen as a governement endorsment of certain business. This in my eyes would be alost like Bush renting the White House lawn for McDonalds arches. He might be a monkey, but certain things event this monkey can't afford to do.
If the county wants to render public service, they can cover the costs with taxes or with fees. I don't expect it to be free beer, but I'm certainly disgusted by something that could be seen as a government endorsement of a particular business. If they want to put ads on it, they should spin off a privately owned company and be done with it.
How could I know the burgers were a health hazard? I've seen their advertisement on the gov. site, so I thought you checked them out... With all the lawsuits galore, this is just behind the corner.
Maybe it's just me, but government and advertising really don't mix together.
Anonymous Cowards Unite
If you think about it, anyone looking for info (say you're thinking of moving there) might appreciate some links to local real estate agents, plumbers, etc.
Obviously there's room for graft and abuse, but I'm from NJ so I guess we're used to that. (bada bing)
The revolution will NOT be televised.
The Hohokam had a peak population of less than 50,000 people, and their society collapsed. Some people think the Hohokam society collapsed because their irrigation technology overextended the population, which was then wiped out by drought and poor soil management. I see a parallel with Maricopa County. Yes, technology allows 4 million people to live in the desert. But in adverse conditions, the Maricopa County society is just as apt to evaporate as the Hohokam did 600 years ago.