Trend: Deceptive Relevant Ads

submission from guest author John W. Burris

Ahhh… Internet advertising. This new medium has transformed the
practice and standards of advertising. Advertising can now be valuable
and useful for content consumers. The infamous “JK Wedding Entrance
Dance” video is an example of how advertising provided a useful
service for consumers while creating revenue for the advertiser,
Amazon.com. How? Relevance. Relevance actually adds value to the
advertisement.

However, the display of relevant ads can be deceptive. Take, for
instance, Google’s “Sponsored Link” section that preludes the search
results. The shaded background and the hardly noticeable description
to the right of the title are justified by their “relevance” to the
term being searched for. Is this a useful service to consumers, or a
dangerously deceptive advertising practice? Let’s take a serious term
such as cancer:

adsGoogle

The first “result” is for an “Advanced Cancer Treatment” linking to
Issels.com. Here’s the problem. “The Issels Treatment is considered
ineffective against cancer by the American Cancer Society”.
(Wikipedia) That’s right. Google is hocking snake oil. Bing is guilty
of the exact same practice:

adsBing

So the question is this: Is the integration of design, content and
advertising destructive? As I sit here smoking this mild and
refreshing Pesterfield cigarette, I think that the design industry
should address this. After all, I will be here for a long time since 9
out of 10 doctors agree that the Pesterfield brand has less damaging
chemicals than any other leading brand of cigarette.