Could anyone explain to me why a site dedicated to the abolition of NGDs is advertising them on it's home page please?

There is a very good reason and I'm sure someone else who can explain the technical reasons why this happens re Google Ads better than me will respond.

However I would like to ask an added question:

As this is a very valid issue and as this gets asked repeatedly and if those asking it only represent a very small percentage of those who come into this site and wonder why this happens and as this would discredit the site in some eyes shouldn't a prominent explanation be put on the home screen to explain to all those new to the site why this happens.

Thanks Keith, I am sure it may be to do with Google ads or something (and I know this site has to be funded somehow) but that isn't really an excuse, as I am sure the technology exists to block certain ads from a site. After all, you are unlikely to see religeous sites with ads for porn. Presumably almost everyone who visits this site does so because they are fed up with paying for services which, morally, should be entirely free (as in paid for by the company as a cost of sale expense) For this site to allow, for any reason, ads which promote the very thing it exists to stop is at best embarassing and at worst hypocritical and more importantly damaging to the cause.

You are right though, the least we should see is a prominent and detailed explanation of why this cannot be avoided.  

scatman wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 11:38am:

You are right though, the least we should see is a prominent and detailed explanation of why this cannot be avoided.

http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1114723746

Thanks for the link Andy9. It would seem that this debate has been going on for sometime. However none of the responses address the issue I raised before. That is that there must be some way of filtering out inappropriate adverts for sites with a particular focus. I repeat the religeon/porn example. If Google or any other ad provider is so all powerful that they can overide the needs of the site owner, then this whole site is pointless. We may as well not protest over anything anymore. The point is that the use of non geogriphic numbers is so abused that in any ethical society they should be banned. The only people who have a right to make money from provision of telephone lines are the service provider, and companies who offer non-essential services that we can choose to use or not e.g. directory enquiries and other informational databases that are saving us the trouble of looking something ourselves. This would/should exclude helplines, government bodies and people who want us to use them.  The owners of this site have an ethical duty to not propogate the use of NGDs in any way whatsoever.  

Most people can choose whether to read them, and your suggestion the whole site is pointless is rather over-dramatic.

Would you stop buying a newspaper or the Radio Times because of one advert from a product you did not like?

Google ads will always do contextual searches, and you could block them being displayed if you wished.

Perhaps I am being over-dramatic, but yes one of the criteria I use for buying a newspaper is it's advertising tastes. This is because it sometimes (but by no means always) is an indicator of it's editorial policy. I do not buy the Sunday Mirror for instance because I can buy another paper without two pages of chatline and other adult services in a paper that my children can pick up and read. Perhaps I can block the ads myself (not that I know how) but surely you can see that that misses the point. This is not like a tv channel that you can choose not to watch. This site, and therefore this forum, exists to specifically reduce and eventually abolish the use of NGDs. It is incumbant on the site owners not to propogate the growth of that very thing in any way at all. That no effort is made to stop it or at least explain it, is quite frankly ridiculous and insulting to those of us who are trying to support the site and it's goals.

When looking at this displayed page, I can read either your post or the adverts

andy9 wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 1:40pm:

When looking at this displayed page, I can read either your post or the adverts

What adverts?

I never notice them.

I come here for a purpose and that doesn't included reading adverts.

that's what I said

Flipping heck! How many more times? Whole heap of point missing going on here! You wouldn't go to an anti-smoking clinic and expect to see the Marlborough Man on the wall! Or go to the dentist and see adverts sponsered by Cadburys and Coca Cola. Whether you see them or not, and whether you can turn them off or not, is irrelevent. They should not be here! If this forum is just going to be a load of angry people sounding off, I'm not gonna play anymore. Debate is good when it advances knowledge or advances a cause, but useless when you just going round in circles.

scatman wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 10:07am:

Could anyone explain to me why a site dedicated to the abolition of NGDs is advertising them on it's home page please?

I support the point you are making regarding the ethical inconsistency of the advertising on this website but can you tell me what you think you are referring to by NGD?  They are normally referred to as NGNs which stands for Non Geographic Numbers.

scatman wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 5:17pm:

Flipping heck! How many more times? Whole heap of point missing going on here! You wouldn't go to an anti-smoking clinic and expect to see the Marlborough Man on the wall! Or go to the dentist and see adverts sponsered by Cadburys and Coca Cola. Whether you see them or not, and whether you can turn them off or not, is irrelevent. They should not be here! If this forum is just going to be a load of angry people sounding off, I'm not gonna play anymore. Debate is good when it advances knowledge or advances a cause, but useless when you just going round in circles.

I'm sorry, if you consider the wording of my post above classifies me as an 'angry person' who is 'sounding off' then, perhaps, not 'playing', as you put it, might be better.

My post was a statement, was not offensive and was not antagonistic.

Scatman's argument reminds me of something which has been testing my ethics: if one is strongly against animals being used in labs for research, it is very unlikley that you can just enforce a ban without a long hard slog but - in the meantime - would it be justifiable for such a person to have shares in, say, Huntingdon LS so that your dividends or capital gain when selling them would be earmarked for donation to the ALF?  This is a matter of life and death, but the situation that Scatman's discussing, we all have the choice to read the posts, or be swayed by the ads, or do as I say, not as I do.  I like the idea of the member who suggested the get-your-own-back technique of giving orgs and co.s your own non geo number to call you on.  Though of course I would never do that .......

scatman wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 5:17pm:

Flipping heck! How many more times? Whole heap of point missing going on here! You wouldn't go to an anti-smoking clinic and expect to see the Marlborough Man on the wall! Or go to the dentist and see adverts sponsered by Cadburys and Coca Cola. Whether you see them or not, and whether you can turn them off or not, is irrelevent. They should not be here! If this forum is just going to be a load of angry people sounding off, I'm not gonna play anymore. Debate is good when it advances knowledge or advances a cause, but useless when you just going round in circles.

scatman,

[edit]NGMsGhost disagrees with the views expressed by andy9 and Heinz and considers that this website is wrong for promoting "products which are morally and ethically inconsistent with the aims of this site".[/edit]
… I cannot see how people can with a clear conscience lobby against the immorality of businesses having hidden premium rate numbers while this site then tries to derive an income from displaying click thru banner ads to the firms that sell them.  Also it has been explained before that Google does have a facility to block out appropriate ad banner links.  However the site owner has chosen not to make use of this.

I know you are a new forum member but have you not also already seen the horrible banner ads on the top of the page for "Grab A Grand" which lead to a very dubious website run by an outfit called www.winthecash.co.uk  This professes to offer some form of free entry in a lottery syndicate but the main criteria for entry is to provide your name and email address.  Now you can only imagine what probably happens next in terms of your inbox then going crazy with unwanted share tips and viagra purchase opportunities.

I find the whole ethics of GrabAGrand and its slogan "Live A Little" thoroughly tawdry as you have almost no hope of winning the alleged prize (if it even exists) but the absolute certainty of disclosing your name and email address to this commercially dubious outfit concerned.

Unfortunately certain members of this site are more than a little blinkered in their outlook and all they want to do is avoid calling 084/7 numbers because it costs them personally money and they simply don't want to think about the wider ethical irrationality of this site promoting the very scam 084/7 numbers we hate calling or repeatedly promoting the Live A Little/Grab A Grand/Win The Cash grab your name and email address banner scam.

It seems some members of this site are motivated only by saving money and are utterly blind to the wider moral and ethical issues of the site promoting other commercial scams.

~ Edited by Dave: Personal comments edited out. Edits shown in edit box or italics.

catcoddler wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 5:34pm:

I like the idea of the member who suggested the get-your-own-back technique of giving orgs and co.s your own non geo number to call you on.  Though of course I would never do that .......

If you do that you unfortunately still profit the revolting telecoms middlemen who always hang on to the majority of the call price on any NGN call and only at best pass 40% or so on to the called party.  You receive a much lower percentage of the call price than this though if you only have a low volume 084/7 number.

I never said it was, nor was I referring to any one posting in particular. I was referring to the general attitude as perceived by a brand new user. I just don't understand why anyone contributing to this forum (and this topic in particular) would bother arguing about the whys and where-fores of these adverts. Surely we are all here because we think these numbers are economically unfair and ethically wrong. The very presence of an advert selling non-geographics on a site dedicated to the abolition of them makes my head spin. It would be funny if it wasn't so wrong.

Thanks Ghost. I mean no offence to anyone. We are all entitled o our views. However, some of the views expressed seem to be at odds with the means they are using to express them! Either we want non-geographics gone or we don't. See y'all

scatman wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 5:48pm:

Thanks Ghost. I mean no offence to anyone. We are all entitled o our views. However, some of the views expressed seem to be at odds with the means they are using to express them! Either we want non-geographics gone or we don't. See y'all

Some people on this web forum only have a very narrow and blinkered self interest sadly scatman and they then seem surprised when the purveyors of 084/7 numbers also exploit them with a similar ethically lacking and selfish form of narrow self interest.

Quite a few posters on this website only seem to care about avoiding 084/7 numbers, because they call a lot of them, and seem to be utterly mystified by the suggestion that it is wholly inappropriate for this website to also be involved in deriving income from other equally  dubious forms of commercial practice.

scatman wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 12:17pm:

... However none of the responses address the issue I raised before. That is that there must be some way of filtering out inappropriate adverts for sites with a particular focus. I repeat the religeon/porn example. If Google or any other ad provider is so all powerful that they can overide the needs of the site owner, then this whole site is pointless. ...

And why must there be anything? For quite obvious reasons, porn ads an be barred. So you can hardly bring them into the debate.


scatman wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 12:17pm:

[edit]NGMsGhost disagrees with the views expressed by andy9 and Heinz and considers that this website is wrong for promoting "products which are morally and ethically inconsistent with the aims of this site".[/edit] … I cannot see how people can with a clear conscience lobby against the immorality of businesses having hidden premium rate numbers while this site then tries to derive an income from displaying click thru banner ads to the firms that sell them.  Also it has been explained before that Google does have a facility to block out appropriate ad banner links.  However the site owner has chosen not to make use of this.

NGMsGhost, it has been mentioned that the exorbitant termination charges by mobile networks are infact a 0870-type rip-off and that calls to them should be charged at geographical rates and that the receiver should pay to receive calls as in the US. Do you agree with this and do you use a mobile? It is not always possible to avoid those things we object to.

The site admin has explained banner ads in this thread.

Basically, this site does cost money to run and costs more money to run now than it did when first set up due to increase in visitors.

Yes - in a perfect world there would be no adverts but we don't all live in a perfect world.  The technology is called "google adsense" or something and works by taking a look at what we discuss on the website and displaying adverts related to what we're discussing.

This is where the problem begins because we discuss 084/087 so therefore we get adverts about 084/087.  The site admin has managed to filter some things out but even if it was possible to filter all adverts concerning 084/087, then the running costs of this site would increase simply because no adverts (or very few) would likely be displayed because we mostly discuss is 084/087.  The site admin has already stated he already has to pay towards the costs of running the site but without adverts then there would be the full running costs of the site to pay.

Now personally speaking, if I was the admin and everyone wanted an ad-free site then I would introduce some other way of funding the running costs of the site.  I like to think I'm a generous person but it comes a point when I would like some way of recovering at least some of the costs of running the site - not to make a profit - just try to recover some of the costs of running the site.

If you don't like the adverts, etc then why take any notice or why even visit the site?  The problem is because everyone wants the site to remain (for obvious reasons) and ad-free, then someone please explain to me how it could be funded and would anyone else go for it?

How about the Site admin introduces sign-up fees and/or restricts the database/forum to only those members that have paid a sign-up fee or something?

Other non 084/0870 adverts have been on this forum but there is nearly always someone complaining of them as well.  Regardless of what the site admin does to try to recover some of the costs of the site, no one will ever be happy!

I use this site to save me money and it has/does save me a fortune.  If it didn't exist then I would be paying more so as a result I voluntarily contribute to this site.

I understand what you are saying and that of course the site has to be funded. It is a sad fact of life that many fewer people would access this site if they had to pay to do so. This is principally a public service site for people who think NGNs are wrong. You say that the choice of advert is down to Google, and I understand the logic of what they are doing. However, it should be possible to tell Google that this method of selection is flawed. If this were a site promoting the use of say, low energy light bulbs and other energy saving devices, you would welcome adverts from people who made them not from people trying to sell conventional energy inefficient products. The line of logic Google seems to be following allows any number of ridiculous situations to arise. For instance, a forum which talks about anti-smoking issues could attract cigarette ads, a forum which talks about anti-fox hunting issues could attract adverts for saddles and hunting dress. I know nothing of the technology Google adsense uses, but I find it very hard to believe that by consulting with Google, some means could not be found to deal with this anomaly. If we have to choose between a site with these ads, and no site at all I have to say it is better to have the site. My only point is that when a new user comes to the site, almost the first thing they see is an ad promoting the one thing they have come to it to avoid. Few people will bother to ask why and will simply use the service of the site and leave contributing nothing. This is very damaging to the credibility of the site and devalues it's achievements. I am just saying that efforts need to be made to eradicate this.

scatman wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 7:34am:

My only point is that when a new user comes to the site, almost the first thing they see is an ad promoting the one thing they have come to it to avoid. Few people will bother to ask why and will simply use the service of the site and leave contributing nothing. This is very damaging to the credibility of the site and devalues it's achievements. I am just saying that efforts need to be made to eradicate this.

Scatman,

It is good to hear from someone who feels exactly as I do on these issues and feels that the site management badly lets itself down by being prepared to show adverts from anywhere, including 084/7 number vending merchants, and also the equally suspect GrabAGrand strange elottery promoting ad banners.  Both the subject matter of GrabAGrand and the marketing approach used would be bound to look like an unethical scam to many people who consider 084/7 numbers to be a scam.  I have no problem with the prominent top of the page web link to www.energlinx.com as they offer a useful and accurate gas and electricty switching site likely to appeal to and be ethically in tune with most visitors to this site.

I believe Google AdSense can be far more finely tuned to cut out certain types of advertisement but the site owner seems to have neither the inclination or the ethical sensitivity to realise that this is necessary.  This is why we end up with prominent ads for people like 0870Advice, a firm actually dedicated to selling yet more of these numbers to the world at large. :o :'(

Scatman all I can say is that some of the regular users and moderators of this site do not unfortunately seem to share our ethical sensibilties and have the very narrow blinkers on that say that as long as the site turns out 084/7 number alternatives it doesn't matter what other conflicts of interest take place.  But rest assured there are several other vigorous anti 084/7 campaigners who feel just as we do about these inappropriate advertisement links on this website and who in a number of cases have largely or wholly terminated their participation in the site as a result of their concerns.

Everyone seems to have missed the irony of the situation.

Because of the crude 'flawed' means by which Google AdSense chooses 'suitable' adverts, adverts for companies which promote NGNs appear on this site.

So, companies which promote NGNs pay to keep this anti-NGNs site alive!

I think that is highly amusing and truly wonderful!  (no, that comment is not meant to be sarcastic)

bill wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 1:09pm:

Because of the crude 'flawed' means by which Google AdSense chooses 'suitable' adverts, adverts for companies which promote NGNs appear on this site. So, companies which promote NGNs pay to keep this anti-NGNs site alive!

Unfortunately it's true.

It's only 'flawed' in this case because of what this site is about.  However, all (must be nearly all now) other websites funded this way then it isn't a problem.

Would everyone like the site admin to start charging by other means instead?  Maybe a sign-up fee as mentioned earlier and to block non fee members access to the forum/database?  If he was that way inclined then he would definitely make an actual profit from it because although many people post on this forum - many, many more just search for alternatives from the database.