Advertising Exploitation

I am so sick of the way advertisers can legally exploits any fear they wish to generate profit. Nothing new I know... It's the AOL adverts which have prompted me to write this, they make me want to throw the TV out of the window (not that I need any help with that). They make the internet seem like a dark sordid place where your personal information, your kids, your identity etc is constantly at risk. Of course there is a reality to this, but as long as you have a good firewall and virus checker you are pretty well protected. They imply that you need the ultimate protection to be truly safe, which is of course only having access to the content they want you to see. As can be seen in the previous posted link (alternet), they are part of a group of companies wanting the internet to be basically a constant commercial break. From this angle there is no need for personal freedom or anything that does not generate a profit. Another side effect is that smaller businesses will not be able to afford the advertising rates, and so it would be a huge leap forward for globalization.

Of course there will probably always be companies which do not operate this policy and as a an end-user the choice will still be available. But how many people use AOL now? I think I'm right in saying that they are the largest internet provider in the world, and any new users having seen these adverts will believe that they will have a safer environment to surf in. If AOL decide that this site, or Alternet, or Prison Planet etc... are not sites they want their customers to see then these users will not even realise that these sites exist. If they type in the url they will recieve a 404 error or similar and just think the site has gone. I know that these companies have already dabbled in this with infowars.com, which includes AOL and tiscali (from memory), but after complaints they have been re-instated.

Back to the subject of this story, one of the AOL adverts states that George Orwell was right and that Big Brother is here, and yet this AOL's dream? They are right as muti-nationals buy up multi-nationals we are rapidly heading towards 'The Company' but they are one of the key players, that use 1984 as their strategy guide. The link on the adverts is to a discussion page which looks like they are dipping their toes in the water to get an idea of how many customers they will lose, in other words Market Research... What a wonderful world the globalists have in store for us.