Ad Choices is Not My Choice

   I was looking up lawn care products online, especially weed killers because I’m overrun with dandelions. I cut them down but they pop right back up and get twice as big before I can get the lawn mower back into the shed. Someone asked me why I don’t use this yellow bonanza to make dandelion wine. Because I just don’t have the space for thousands of gallons of the stuff, that’s why. That’s how many dandelions I have. Apparently the pre-emergent I put down in March didn’t work. Or maybe it did and these are just the survivors, their headless stems rising in mockery of me and my lawn mower. Either way, we have a serious weed problem at the old homestead and I was looking for a solution.

   Several websites I clicked on had the words “weed killers” in green with two underlines and a square that had an arrow pointing to its upper right corner. Thinking I was going to get some deeper insight into the process of eradicating lawn pests, I clicked one of them. All that got me was a link to an ad. This particular ad let me know that Amtrak has wider seats. Every one of the “weed killer” links led me to the same thing. When you’re knee-deep in dandelions twenty minutes after cutting the grass, your last concern is how wide the seats are on a train.

      These intrusions, called AdChoices, are placed by an outfit called Vibrant Media. In conjunction with Google, they “…provide you with a more relevant online experience. Vibrant may deliver ads aligned with your current interests. Your interests are identified by words displayed on web pages you visit and/or by the webpages you have recently visited, along with the ads that you have viewed and clicked on.” At least that’s what their website says. Please explain to me, Vibrant Media, how the width of the seats on a train going anywhere is relevant to keeping my lawn weed free.

   Wait. Wider seats? Are they telling me my ass is fat? How would they know? I haven’t looked at any websites that show you how to shrink your ass. I haven’t searched “ass shrinking” on Google either. Honest. Maybe they have some kind of sensor in my desk chair. I wonder if they know about the size of any of my other body parts. Moving on.

   Delving further into the Vibrant Media website I learned that these intrusions into my surfing experience can be disabled by the use of “cookie technology.” (What happened to the days when cookies weren’t technology?) Yes, the good folks at Vibrant Media will leave me alone if I put their cookies on my computer. This is a company that spies on my internet activities to place so-called “relevant” advertising as roadblocks on the information superhighway. And they want me install their spyware on my computer?

   I have a better idea. I won’t click on their AdChoices anymore. That’s my choice. And if I choose to do a search on “ass shrinking,” it’s my business, not theirs. 

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