Ban
Surveillance
Advertising
Join the fight for bold reform.
Big Tech’s toxic business model is undermining democracy.
Join the fight for bold reform.
Big Tech’s toxic business model is undermining democracy.
Tech companies turn massive profits by endlessly tracking and profiling us, determining how to keep us hooked, and then hyper-targeting us with ads. These platforms manipulate each user’s information flow – and boost false and divisive content – to maximize engagement, so they can show us more ads and learn more about our behavior.
Big Tech is making billions off surveillance advertising; society is paying the price.
This is not a partisan issue: 4-in-5 Americans support a ban on surveillance advertising.
As a diverse coalition of leaders across issues and industries – backed by an army of grassroots supporters – we are calling for an end to this toxic business practice.
"Surveillance advertising has robbed newspapers, magazines, and independent writers of their livelihoods and commoditized their work – and all we got in return were a couple of abusive monopolists. That's not a good bargain for society. By banning this practice, we will return the unique value of writing, audio, and video to the people who make it rather than those who aggregate it.”
"As software developers, we recognized the deep harms endemic to the surveillance advertising industry – from malware distribution and slow site performance to algorithmic discrimination and the rampant abuse of personal data – and decided to build an ethical alternative. Our ad network depends exclusively on contextual targeting, and with over 100 advertisers and publishers thriving in this ecosystem, we are proving that surveillance-free models can work for all involved."
"The creation of so many modern harms – from the violent extremism growing in our societies to anti vaxx misinformation – is rooted in Facebook and Google's toxic addiction to surveillance advertising. Ending invasive snooping on users and the sale of users' intimate thoughts and feelings to advertisers would remove the financial incentives that drive so much online and offline harm."
“Tech companies continually fail to center their policies on protecting the vast majority of their users from hate, harassment, and harm. Because to do so would curb their ability to make a profit under their current business model. The Ban Surveillance Advertising campaign goes right to the heart of this problem. It's long past time for Big Tech to stop exploiting extremism and disinformation for profit. We need to hold them accountable.”
“‘Big Social’s attention-based business model creates addicts of its users to drive advertising revenue. Addiction occurs because the finely-tuned algorithms on these platforms prioritize extreme, controversial, and polarizing content proven to keep us scrolling and sharing. The consequences of social media overuse have been severe and include dramatic increases in depression and suicide.”
“Data surveillance has become an increasingly harmful tool that lines the pockets of tech executives at the expense of our privacy, safety and security. In order to keep on hauling more profits, Big Tech wants to keep Americans addicted to their devices feeding people content that is extreme in nature. As we have seen in the last year, this creates irreparable harms in our communities and our democracy. Big Tech must stop this practice.”
"Facebook and Google possess enormous monopoly power, combined with the surveillance regimes of authoritarian states and the addiction business model of cigarettes. Congress has broad authority to regulate their business models and should use it to ban them from engaging in surveillance advertising."
