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Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users - Press Gazette
(pressgazette.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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Exactly, adblockers don't block a static on the page with some text, an image and a link. It's only the user-tracking, obtrusive ad-networks they block. Every old-school form of advertising didn't track users and did just fine. Even today, billboards are priced based on the amount of traffic on the highway, not based on checking inside each car and building a profile on each driver (though I wouldn't put it past them trying to figure out how to do that soonish).
God, I can just see the wet dreams of an advertising exec now. If an australian bloke can replicate million dollar systems with $100, the advertising companies can surely wank out the money for license plate readers a quarter mile ahead of their billboard with good identification. The new electronic billboards already switch what ad they're showing every half minute or so now, and I bet they could do what ze big boiz do with the auctioning of ads.
I think right now most of the US doesn't allow random API access to license plate and registration data, but I really have no idea... How much do you think companies would ~~bribe~~ pay for some laws to be changed about that?
Sure, the gov may not allow random API access to license plate registration data, but who knows how many license plates and associated identity are somehow scooped up by some data broker somewhere? You know those parking lots that require an app where you pay parking by entering your licence plate, then logging in with Google/Apple ID, and paying with a credit card? Fuuuuu