computers-R-stupid

ads on my vimeo pages - ugh

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Note: this post was originally titled "Amazon Fire puts ads on my Vimeo pages." It took me several emails to Vimeo customer service to determine that Vimeo is actually the source of the ads. See Update 2 below.

amazon_fire_ad_on_vimeo_page

Pardon the bad photo but this was eyebrow-raising. I've been using an Amazon Fire tablet (given to me as a gift) in order to test the responsiveness of my page layouts on a mobile device.*
I popped over to my Vimeo account and discovered obnoxious ads on pages with my "art" videos. I thought with a Vimeo Plus account ($7 a month) this wasn't supposed to be happening. I've gotten conflicting responses from Vimeo customer support. Kaitlin F. says that, yes, "...we do have limited display advertising below the player on some vimeo.com pages. As a Plus member, you won’t see display ads when you’re logged in to your account. However, Basic members and logged-out viewers will see display ads on your page." I asked how long they'd been doing this and got a reply from Bri W.:

Vimeo never displays ads on any part of our platform. It sounds as though you are visiting your video page via the web browser within Amazon Fire, which is the most likely source of the ad placement.

A friend has suggested that Amazon has some backdoor deal with Vimeo, where Vimeo allows them a certain amount of screen real estate, which Amazon uses to send me targeted ads on my Fire tablet. This way both entities have plausible deniability as to who is serving me ads.

Is it possible for the Fire to inject ads on pages of companies they don't have a licensing arrangement with? Anyone familiar with the dark arts of web development and marketing, please drop me a line if you know.

I find this all pretty disgusting.

*i.e., pages of this blahg are supposed to change size and shape depending on what type of screen they're viewed on

Update: Customer support person "Rachel" continues the straight talk:

I can confirm that Kaitlin's previous message is correct, and there is a slight misunderstanding with our last email to you. We do have limited display advertising on Vimeo, however as a Plus member, when you are logged in viewing your own videos or any other videos, you won't see display ads on your page.

Our last message meant to explain that we don't display any third party ads within the Vimeo platform.

If a viewer is on a Basic membership or are logged out, they will see display ads from Vimeo on your page. If you are looking to remove the Vimeo ads on your video page for viewers, our Pro membership offers this.

My increasingly frustrated reply:

Please see the attached photo. (It's an ad for "sidestage.com" placed within my list of personal videos.)

Is this a "display ad"? Is it being served by Vimeo?

I don't understand the distinction you are making between a "display ad" and a "third party ad."

Isn't the ad for sidestage.com both a display ad and a third party ad?

In either case I don't like seeing it and don't think I should have to pay more to get rid of it.

I'll ask my original question -- when did you start doing this? I've never seen ads before on my pages.

Update 2: More straight talk from Customer Support person "Jess":

I think the confusion lies more with the distinction between a Vimeo page and the Vimeo Platform.

We never display advertising of any type on videos in our player (within the Vimeo platform), however as we mentioned Basic members may see display ads on a Vimeo page.

OK, It's pretty clear that Vimeo shows ads to anyone who isn't a member, unless a member, who doesn't want his audience to see ads, pays more than I'm currently paying. This has nothing to do with Amazon. Vimeo doesn't like to admit they're doing this, hence all the bafflegab about "the distinction between a Vimeo page and the Vimeo Platform." Staff claims that serving ads is not a recent practice but they "don't have an exact date of when this started."

please, no facebook money

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We can't go back in time and strangle baby Hitler but there's a possibility that Mark Zuckerberg's fake cryptocurrency can still be stopped.
Banking on Surveillance is a "black paper" [PDF] giving all the reasons why Facebook money is a bad idea:

The Libra project poses three overarching, interrelated threats: (1) mass surveillance of Libra users and business partners, (2) hazardous arbitrage of the financial regulatory system, and (3) the concerted encroachment of Facebook and its partners into the financial services sector, which would violate the traditional separation between commerce and banking, and deepen corporate economic and political dominance.

A few years ago it seemed that people were moving on from Facebook. Yet according to the paper,

Around two-thirds of people in the United States use Facebook, three-quarters of us [ouch -tm] on a daily basis. Overall, ​Facebook accounts for 77% of mobile social networking traffic in the country.

Facebook always had a knack for inflating its monthly user count but those numbers above are still frightening. That's power, like it or not. It would be nice to know how many of the 25% who haven't joined the borg are skeptics, versus unwashed clods. In other words, how many are consciously opting to starve baby Hitler. Their (OK, our) actions, if recognized and imitated, could ultimately be much more effective than legislation or inter-agency government oversight.

your money and your data, please

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If you are ever considering buying cryptocurrency, perhaps because techno-libertarians are always harping on its privacy and superiority to the man's "fiat money," consider this:
In order to make your initial purchase of crypto, you are going to need a place to buy it with your stinkin' fiat money. There are a handful of exchanges that are considered reputable (even considering the small amount of time they've been in existence). They will let you use a bank card or wire transfer but they insist that you give them: (a) scan of photo ID, (b) a "selfie," (c) tax ID, and possibly other onerous requirements. At least one exchange -- Changelly -- uses some hideous product called Google Authenticator to "protect" your account, unless you want to opt out of 2-factor identification.
It's one thing to open a bank account and have them photocopy your ID and put it into a paper file somewhere. Scanning it, however, makes it easily transferable and hack-friendly. Ditto a self-made photo -- more fodder for some government recognition database. Should this even need to be said?
If you have any moolah and/or libertarian inclinations, stick to small banks, put it in a shoebox, become a goldbug -- avoid crypto.

lecturing the help desk (sigh)

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[see update below -- this is still rant-worthy]

Nowadays corporations -- especially tech ones -- don't like to admit they can't do something. Perhaps it was always thus but the snow jobs seem to be getting worse.
Vimeo arranges user uploads in reverse chron order. Fine, it's nice to have an accurate record but what if you had several videos made at the same time and wanted to play around with the order? The support page has no answer. You can create a "profile" which pins several videos to the top of the page, and you can change the order of those, but that's not the same thing.
So here's a classic help desk interaction:

User: I don't want to create a profile. Is it possible to change the order of videos I have previously uploaded or will they always appear in reverse chronological order?

Help: Thank you for reaching out!
You can edit the order in which your videos appear by pinning them to your profile page. Basic accounts can pin up to ten videos, and Plus, PRO, Business, and Premium accounts can pin unlimited videos. You'll be able to pin videos and change their order by clicking the blue "Edit" button at the top right of your profile page, and then choosing "Profile videos." From there, pin videos and drag and drop them to change their order. Any unpinned videos will appear in the order in which they were uploaded, with newest at the top.
By default the first video on your profile page will be a featured video. If you’d like to edit or remove the featured video, visit the “Work” section of your profile settings (link).
Here is another good article that may help you adjust your page: (link)
You can also present and distribute videos in a specific order by adding them to a Showcase. You can learn more about using showcases in our Help Center: (link)
In addition, if you don't want to have certain videos or any videos on your public profile, please check out this article as well: (link)
Let us know if you have any further questions!

User: I'm fine with the way my Vimeo page looks now but I am planning to upload six new videos and might need to change the order. As I said (!), I don't want to create a profile, and I don't want to create a showcase. So, it sounds like the answer to my question is, No, I can't change the order of the videos (if I don't want to use these two features).

Help: Yes, you are correct. Those options in the links I sent are the ways in which you can customize the ordering of your videos.
Otherwise, they will be presented in reverse chronological order, chronological order or by date modified.
You can also choose which video will remain at the top of the page with using those features.
I do apologize for that lack of a feature and I will be happy to pass the feedback along.

User: Yes please pass along the feedback. Also, it would good if your "help" pages just bluntly stated that it's not possible without using these features so people wouldn't be left guessing. I realize it's very "corporate" to always accentuate the positive but sometimes honesty is good, too. People trust you more!

Update: I've been assuming that a "profile" in Vimeospeak means a separate page, a box, or some other graphic means of setting off, or differentiating, the "profiled" videos from the non-profiled ones. I performed an experiment, "pinning" all 29 of my vids to the profile box that is visible in "edit" mode, then saving them in that pinned state in the same order they were before pinning. Turns out the public-facing page of videos still looks exactly as it did before -- that is, without any box, enclosure, or separate page. So I can then drag the pinned vids around behind the scenes to play with the order. Vimeo, instead of just letting me drag icons, creates the extra step of making me a create a profile first, to accomplish exactly what I was asking. This was all clear as mud from the support page and the help desk responses above. Also, someone with 290 videos might not want to use this Rube Goldberg method.

Update 2: Ugh, that doesn't really work. Let's say in your "profile" you order videos 7-6-5-4-3-2-1-10-9-8 (effectively burying 10, 9, and 8, the most recently uploaded vids, at the bottom of the page). When a site visitor clicks one of the videos, a different view appears: a large horizontal black band with the vids arranged left to right. In this view 10, 9, and 8 are still "first" (meaning at the far left). This confuses any attempt to prioritize.

Update 3: Not only that, but "unpinned" vids still appear on profile page, down at the bottom, if anyone actually pages to the end. The only thing "pinning" them does is allow you to play around with the order of the "pinned" videos. If you don't want a video to be seen anywhere you must mark it as private.