• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, August 10, 2016

When you are Facebook, you can pretty much do what you please. If you don’t think so, imagine if Your Favorite Website.com announced, “We know you have ad blockers, but we are going to show you ads anyway.”

You would be appalled by that consumer-be-damned attitude. It brings to mind that famous, mid-70s Lily Tomlin sketch  in which rude and ruthless Bell System operator Ernestine tells customers in no uncertain terms to go pound salt.  “We don’t care, we don’t have to,” she chortled. “We’re the phone company.” Facebook announced it will still carry ads on its desktop version even if you don’t want ads and subscribe to an ad blocker. About 70 million of us in this country use blockers --roundly about one out of four Internet users.

Facebook will try to save face, so to speak, by tweaking its ad preference tool so that people can better choose “relevant” ads rather than the full boat of ads that you tell Facebook you don’t want to to see. But you will see ads. 

Marking that preference gives them more data about you. But since Facebook probably already knows where you work, every member of your family, your birthday, the places you vacation and your political beliefs, what if it knows you prefer hard liquor to Miller Lite? Thanks for sharing.

I have no trouble with Websites that ask a user to shut off their ad blocker, or block certain material because someone is using a blocker. I think the quid pro quo is proper: It says, “This site employs people and spends money on content. Ads pay the way. Please, do the right thing.”

But if I don’t, it’s rude to just cram those ads at me anyway. I’m repulsed when I’m asked if an ad I’ve seen is “relevant” to me. To take the time to ponder the relevance of an ad is part of the disruption I’m trying to avoid.

Facebook earns $1 billion per quarter on desktop ads, according to Recode. That’s a lot of money.  

Wouldn’t it have been much more upfront for Facebook, already in a position of great strength, to simply tell its users,  “We’re sorry. We can’t let you block ads. It costs too much. But we’ve added some filters that may at least make the experience as enjoyable and useful as possible.”

As a gatekeeper--a virtual staple of life these days--Facebook had the ability to teach its users a fact of business. It’s there to make money.

Instead, it danced. I enjoyed the lack of logic in two successive sentences from Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s

VP of Ads, explaining the decision.  

First sentence:  "When we asked people about why they used ad blocking software, the primary reason we heard was to stop annoying, disruptive ads.” (Translation: Our users don’t want ads because they find them annoying and distracting.) Second sentence: “As we offer people more powerful controls, we’ll also begin showing ads on Facebook desktop for people who currently use ad blocking software." (Translation: We are going to show you ads anyway.)

Facebook hired Ipsos to study consumer attitudes about ads they are served.

“Across ages and geographies, consumers want more control over ads online, and agree that increased control will improve their online experience,” its director Adam Jacobson wrote in a Web posting issued as Facebook was doing theirs.

“For instance, eight in 10 people (79%) agree that they should be able to opt out of seeing ads on specific topics (e.g. football or politics) if they want to. Providing additional controls to people can be a way of providing them with a positive, personalized experience while also building trust.”

That kinds of answer can only come when the question pre-supposes you’re going to see ads. But in the real world, that is not the only option.

pj@mediapost.com