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No Opt-Out For Ads On New Kindle Fires

Posted by Soulskill on from the aside-from-not-buying-one,-anyway dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Lost amid the announcements for Amazon's new tablets and e-readers was the news that their latest Kindle Fire tablets would include advertisements. So-called 'Special Offers' would place ads on the devices' lock screens in a similar fashion to the lowest price Kindle e-readers. However, on the e-readers, you had the option to 'buy out' the ads by simply paying the difference in price between the cheaper device and the regular version. But Amazon has no confirmed there is no way to opt out of the ads on the new Kindle Fire tablets." Update: 09/09 03:02 GMT by S : Reader Aoreias sends words that Amazon has now changed its mind. A spokesman announced that users will have the ability to opt-out for a fee of $15.

8 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Expect more of the same by NixieBunny · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ads will take over the world. We'll have to jailbreak our devices with illicit ad-blocking software.

    --
    The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
    1. Re:Expect more of the same by ultranova · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wonder why ads bother people so much.

      Ads lower the signal-to-noise ratio by saturating the environment with irrelevant misinformation. Even if every ad was 100% honest and trustworthy, they would still distract you from more relevant inputs. But of course they are typically extremely dishonest and manipulative.

      Furthermore, ads perpetuate the idea that life's purpose is to work your ass of so you can consume an endless stream of useless (and sometimes actively harmful) crap. They do their part in making people waste their lives chasing after a winning lottery ticket for the benefit of the 1% at the top who run the lottery. They feed various neurosis and addictions to manipulate people into spending their hard-earned cash to try and fix imaginary problems by illogical means of buying an unrelated product.

      An ad campaign is basically information warfare. People disliking them is simply their self-protection instincts at work.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    2. Re:Expect more of the same by ljw1004 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It bothers me that overt $2000/person/year is spent on adertising in the US per inhabitant, i.e. including all babies, children, adults. That's a huge waste, a kind of regressive tax.

      Also, ads to me are an unwanted intrusion into my personal space. They're forcing their way into my perception and consciousness. I'd rather keep those two things clear for what's more valuable to me.

    3. Re:Expect more of the same by pla · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What hint would that be, that you want the site to be run by magic pixies that don't have any server costs, don't have any bandwidth costs and don't have any costs creating the content?

      Nice strawman, but I have my own website. And not a crappy LiveJournal blog, but a real, live, actual website. Costs me a whopping $10 a year.

      Does YouTube differ somewhat from my own website? Sure it does! Do I, however, give the least fuck about whether or not Google makes a profit on a collection of content provided for free by its community

      Nope.


      See the disconnect here? People will provide content. The internet existed before its "monetization". Advertisers want to cash in on us, but honestly, we have very little use for them.

      Google may have a use for them. I... Do not.

    4. Re:Expect more of the same by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nice strawman, but I have my own website. And not a crappy LiveJournal blog, but a real, live, actual website. Costs me a whopping $10 a year.

      Yeah, I know quite a few people too who run their own website. Some even have their own actual business website. You know why it costs you $10 a year? Because no one visits it. A popular website can easily run a grand in monthly hosting costs. At that point, you either make sure your business can support the site as a marketing expense, or you make money off of each person visiting the site.

      People will provide content. But they will provide it only for as long as doing so doesn't bankrupt them.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
  2. Re:Mostly meh, but some Grr by nurb432 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Give them an inch, they will take a mile. This is similar to the trial balloon where they were optional, and if no one protests they are mandatory, expect more intrusive ones the next round.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  3. Re:That will make the choice simpler by teg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think this will help Google Nexus sales. I am not aware they come with built in adware.

    From a 30000 ft view, Android is just an ad delivery mechanism. If you zoom in, it's a mobile OS, but it's sole job is to enable delivery of Google's ad service to users from it's customers. And as always, you are Google's product, not their customer.

    Now, I use google mail, google docs, google talk and chrome... but I know they're doing this to sell me.

  4. It's opt-in by Fuzzums · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "there is no way to opt out of the ads on the new Kindle Fire tablets"

    Actually, you opt-in by buying that tablet.
    Your opt-out option is not buying that tablet.

    Easy.

    --
    Privacy is terrorism.