Google Unveils Flash Ads

Gailin writes "Google has announced and given some examples of their new Flash based ads. They seem to vary from average size to full screen-width Flash advertisements, with some interactive abilities. 'Gadget ads can incorporate real-time data feeds, images, video and much more in a single creative unit and can be developed using Flash, HTML or a combination of both. Designed to act more like content than a typical ad, they run on the Google(TM) content network, competing alongside text, image and video ads for placement. They support both cost-per-click and cost-per-impression pricing models, and offer a variety of contextual, site, geographic and demographic targeting options to ensure the ads reach relevant users with precision and scale.'"

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Target Market

[ackthpt]

a variety of contextual, site, geographic and demographic targeting options to ensure the ads reach relevant users with precision and scale.

And all that's apparently missing is ensuring the surfer has Flash installed.

Personally I detest Flash ads and for this reason keep renaming the NPSWF32.dll file as NPSWF32.dllfsdfsd (while I don't have an instance of Firefox open, lest it track the bastid) when I have no intention of viewing Flash content. Too many pages are so whizzy with Flash I position the browser so the Flash bit is offscreen or simply don't visit the sites at all. I don't see many company/commercial sites since they apparently all now believe their best way to reach the customer is with some bloated object 500K or bigger (i'm still on dial-up) and all whizzy. So all this means is I'll see some more puzzle pieces, unless they detect no-flash and throw animated (ugh) gifs at me.

I'll just have to wrassle with The Morality of Web Advertisement Blocking for a while.

Lucky for Google, I'm the exception and shouldn't make much of a dent in their stock value.

Google flash cookie?

[rg3]

It would be interesting to see if they start storing a "flash cookie" (not really a cookie) to track your movements on the web. More information on the flash cookie here. Sorry to link my own blog. Text here if you don't want to click:

Yesterday I found out something quite interesting while reading a thread at LinuxQuestions.org. Summary: the flash browser plugin lets flash applications store information persistently on your hard drive. Sorry if this is common knowledge, but I didnt know it and Im quite shocked. That information can (may or may not) be used as browser cookies, as the thread shows. These days many people take their cookies seriously, maybe disabling them or deleting them from time to time or adjusting the browser cookie settings so it considers every cookie a session cookie that should be deleted when the browser is closed. Now, you need to be aware of a new battle front. Under Linux (and probably other Unix systems), these pieces of information are stored under $HOME/.macromedia/. Run find ~/.macromedia -print to get an overview.

I remember one of the reasons people started to care about cookies in the first place was that sites like doubleclick (recently bought by Google) would serve ads for thousands of websites on the net, and those ads would store a cookie in your hard drive identifying you, so they could in theory track what you visited on the net and build a profile. Today the problem would still exist because sometimes ads are served in flash format.

You can, however, configure the flash plugin so it doesnt let anybody store anything in your hard drive. It must be noted that to do so you must visit macromedia.com and adjust the plugin settings from a flash application that is available on their site. Moreover, if you completely disable data storage, you are warned that some sites may stop working. Amazing. So this problem is hard to avoid. My personal recommendation is to use a browser plugin like the typical FlashBlock for Firefox or the Load plugins on demand setting under Konqueror, so every flash application is blocked unless you specify otherwise. And, you may want to delete the $HOME/.macromedia/ directory from time to time, or at least part of its contents (settings are also stored in that directory). Its also worth mentioning that the settings and data are cross-browser, obviously. They are stored by the flash plugins no matter what browser youre running the plugin from.

Its a shame so many websites require flash for basic browsing, as well as the lack of a flash plugin for many platforms. The plugin could also have an option to delete any hard drive data when closing it, similar to the option to treat all cookies as session cookies that many browsers feature.

Google: Do evil if it pays?

[Futurepower(R)]

Google: Do no evil.
is now changed to, "We want to be like the U.S. government."
Google: Do evil if it pays more.

In my opinion, this is the beginning of the end for Google, as the founders lose touch with reality and fly around in their huge corporate jets. If you want responsibility, don't depend on a billionaire to do the work.

Eventually, there will be a new search engine with no Flash ads, and everyone will use that. Eventually, people will say, "Google? What's that?"

The new profit-making Mozilla will probably try to get the U.S. government to ban NoScript and AdBlock Plus and FlashBlock.

The problem with ads is not that I don't like advertising. The problem with ads is that they are nearly always stupid in some way. Some of the ads IBM ran on Slashdot were more than stupid, they were embarassing.

Mostly, ads are written by people with absolutely NO interest in the product they are selling. I'm guessing that more than 50% of ads include at least some dishonesty. It is the ad makers that have given advertising a bad name.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, your usefulness to the world is coming to an end. Please find someone to carry on your original vision, and retire.

Re:Google: Do evil if it pays?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

I think that murdering a human being is evil. I don't think that an easily blockable flash ad is evil. If you do, you must be living a pretty nice life.

"Eventually, there will be a new search engine with no Flash ads, and everyone will use that. Eventually, people will say, "Google? What's that?""
Do you think Google is a SEARCH ENGINE company?

"The new profit-making Mozilla will probably try to get the U.S. government to ban NoScript and AdBlock Plus and FlashBlock."
You're simply insane.

Re:Not as bad as it looks

[bit01]

"Half bad" is not the same as "not bad". Stop pretending it is.

And what on earth makes you think this isn't going to get worse in future? This change is itself worse than previous when flash wasn't used. Despite what you claim.

Google, like most large scale marketers, is just boiling the frog. They are going slower than many but they're still doing it.

This is not particularly ethical behavior, whatever marketers might claim.

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Advertising pays for nothing. "Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.