So-called 'Web content' is offensive and spurious

I'm not seeing any "body shaming" content, but ads are highly targeted based on your location and various other variables so I can't speak for what everyone else is seeing.

Nobody likes ads, but they're still the only way you can provide a free service. Have you checked out TVmaze Premium? For a small amount of money it'll remove ads and unlock all sorts of premium-only functionality.

If I understand you correctly, you don't actually know what material users of your site are being served. In the present climate, don't you think that's a little risky?

If you allow cookies (no matter the site) to be used while surfing the net, you allow google adwords to track your history. Google adwords, a third party, will display advertisements to you based on your searches/interests. This is solely on your end by allowing them to track you. TVmaze runs google adwords to generate income, unless persons are willing to donate to TVmaze (TVmaze Premium), in which all advertisement will be removed.

To clarify Thomas' point, different people will be served different adverts based on that individuals' activity, so we would be unable to determine what everyone is served.

fenlander wrote:
If I understand you correctly, you don't actually know what material users of your site are being served. In the present climate, don't you think that's a little risky?

I'm not sure what you mean by "the present climate", but in the essence yes you're right. There are quite some safeguards, checks and balances but there's no way for us to know exactly which advertisements are shown to all of our visitors. This isn't great and we'd love to see it differently but there are just no alternatives.

A "present climate" which at least in the U.S. is more sensitive to body-shaming of (at least some, depending on their political persuasion) aging celebrities and celebrities in general. There are also ads that use "hot" men and women photos to sell product, which I suppose is an inverse version of body-shaming people who don't look like the models.

As noted, the way not to see ads is to pay TVMaze not to show ads. TVMaze is hardly unique in that practice and at least allows you to opt out by paying. Many sites don't even do that. If the idea of paying not to be bombarded with advertisements offends... welcome to the Internet.

I know when we were testing, some of the adverts I saw were ... let's just say, questionable. (And I do block tracking and the like) I don't think the issue is that there are ads, but some of them are truly tasteless. With that said, I don't know how or even if the ads folks see on the site are policable by the forum owners.

Hi Fenlander, I understand where you're coming from. Adding to what the other have already said and to give you an idea of what we do behind the courtains:

We actually do block ads that we deem inappropriate. We've done so for over 500 products and countless ads.

We try to be as critical as possible. NO pop ups/under, no autoplay videos with sound, no fixed scrolling ads, blocking certain categories, etc.

And we do our best to limit the amount of ads being displayed per page. Far more than your average site.

David and myself would much rather have TVmaze ad free. But as long as our Premium or another source of income can't ensure the sustainability of the site on its own, ads aren't going away any time soon.

These are not legitimate ads I'm talking about. They masquerade as links to web content with tempting(?) invitations to see how dreadful formerly attractive celebrities have become or to be amazed at how well-known people could possibly have married such ugly partners. The technique is then NOT to show you the content you expected until you have clicked through fifty some pages of rubbish - which is, of course, where the real ads lurk.

I make strenuous efforts to block third party cookies and regularly delete cookies, so I suspect that the selection of topics I get offered is pretty much a default set. Having been lured once and discovered what the links lead to I have never followed one again: the links themselves are sufficiently insulting.

I can indeed become a paying member of the site but I'm not aware of any requirement to do so. I use a lot of sites on an occasional basis and subscribing to all of them is hardly an option. However, please reflect a little on the tactic of serving unpleasant and misleading content to anyone who chooses to not to pay. Using 'welcome to the internet' as a justification for accepting degraded standards and pursuing commercial gain irrespective of taste and decency is precisely why the web is becoming a cess pit.

I run several websites. I have no problems knowing what is displayed there. Claiming ignorance of the content of one's own website does not hold water.

Just had a look now. If you're referring to the revcontent in the "From The Web" section then hover over the offending images and in the top right hand corner of each advert there's an 'x'

From there you can report them as being offensive - https://i.imgur.com/28GBaRs.png

From there you can also click the 'Choose your own content' link where you can select which categories it will show.

That should be enough to not see these - which are most likely the default.

fenlander wrote:
I run several websites. I have no problems knowing what is displayed there.

So what do you do to block out offensive content on those sites that you run, without charging users and funding your site? Simply "knowing what is displayed there" wouldn't address your original complaint.

You exercise some judgement on what is, and what is not acceptable and remove those advertisers that cross your red lines - they're not the only revenue streams available. If items appeared that were clearly racist or misogynistic you would do this. It's just a question of defining the parameters of taste and acceptability you will accept. As a site user, albeit a non-paying one, I'm just waving a flag to show that I, personally, find Revcontent's choice of material unacceptable.

I should add at this point that the 'Revcontent' material is successfully blocked in my usual browser combination of Opera (with ad-blocking on) + Disconnect. However, I cannot block it on my tablet where ad-blocking is, unfortunately, less effective. Gazz911's tip on editing the displayed content also does not work on a tablet. I suppose the moral of that is pretty obvious.

fenlander wrote:
As a site user, albeit a non-paying one, I'm just waving a flag to show that I, personally, find Revcontent's choice of material unacceptable.

I suppose you should complain to Revcontent then, not to TVmaze. You could contact them in different ways, through social networks.

fenlander wrote:
As a site user, albeit a non-paying one, I'm just waving a flag to show that I, personally, find Revcontent's choice of material unacceptable.

That's appreciated. And we've taken note of it.

fenlander wrote:
You exercise some judgement on what is, and what is not acceptable and remove those advertisers that cross your red lines - they're not the only revenue streams available. If items appeared that were clearly racist or misogynistic you would do this. It's just a question of defining the parameters of taste and acceptability you will accept. As a site user, albeit a non-paying one, I'm just waving a flag to show that I, personally, find Revcontent's choice of material unacceptable.

Yep, I understand that from your first post. :) I meant more that after you started talking about finances and your experience, that you might want to post and/or send the site owners a list of your advertisers so they can incorporate them into TVMaze. Determine how much money they make for you (and how much you need for your sites compared to what TVMaze needs), and so on. That's if TVMaze isn't already using them.

Saying that Revcontent isn't acceptable is fine, and I agree with you on it. Providing alternatives on top of that is even better. :)

As far as i can see, currently only one Google Adsense banner is shown on top of the page, while there previously was a 3-ads-per-page limit, Google has removed this limit as result of lazy-loading techniques. (https://marketingland.com/google-removes-adsense-3-ads-per-page-limit-focuses-content-ad-balance-189064)

So why not let Google deliver the 'From the web' ads too? As Google's ads are way more monitored, and ads like this: https://puu.sh/zdPMN/aae66b360c.png won't be provided to your visitors anymore. I have to say, these are really annoying, and eventhough you have the ability to click a tiny cross, to let Revcontent know you don't appreciate that ad, they replace it with identical ads.. And no, i haven't been searching for school lunches, making my family's future guaranteed, or rare pictures inside North Korea.. This is just pure random clickbait ad-content, without any relation to my cookies.. When i browse the site incognito, with ghostery on, i get the exact same type of ads..

Just trying to help here, not trying to burn things down.. :)

I'd agree: Revcontent does not "tailor" ads to what I go to, where I am, and what my cookies are. Or if they do, they do a lousy job of it. I get the same ads no matter what browser, IP, and ID I use, no matter what location I'm at on trips, and on several sites that use Revcontent.

There are adblockers, ways to block popup windows, and such, but a) I've never been clear if advertisers can tell you're using them, and b) I believe TVMaze has asked us in the past not to use them. To take one example out of pretty much all of Revcontent's stuff, it's not like I'm going to click on a link about "Hidden secret that Dutch casinos don't want you to know" (not being in Denmark and all :) ), so I'm unclear what the value of me seeing it is. Does Revcontent and the like want you to see the ads, or is hoping that you'll click on them? The latter ain't going to happen whether I block them or not.