United Airlines passengers to see targeted ads on seat-back screens
United Airlines is personalizing in-flight marketing as the carrier seeks to cash in on passenger data.
For those of you contemplating ways of covering up the ads:
This is the same airline that beat the shit out of that doctor because the airline overbooked the flight. For your own safety, do not cross this airline.
The Chicago Department of Aviation did that. The same way if the police ends up killing someone, it was not the person calling the police.
i think we should make them afraid to cross us
That seems incredibly stupid. A doctor can afford to sue.
he wasn't white, so they didn't assume he was a doctor
I got screeched at for covering up a super bright blinking light on a red eye. Their FAs are next level stupid.
And they break guitars
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Overbooking should be a mandatory minimum compensation of the greater of 1000x the ticket price or $20k. It's a truly fucked up practice to disrespect people's time like that.
Oh, we'll just refund you the cost of the ticket. That was the whole cost, right?
Dude, you can just turn the screen off. Its OK.
This should count as violation of human rights. You're chained to the seat for hours and have no other option than look at this screen or force your eyes closed. Holy shit, people should get really mad. Flashing ads on a screen you don't look at directly are still very annoying, even if you look on your phone.
I need to start a business selling rectangular shaped covers for these displays. I’ll even make one that serves as a holder for an iPad, so you can substitute your own screen.
You can turn off the TV dude
In my experience, that's only temporary. The screen will always wake up again on United flights.
I am just so, so tired of being constantly inundated with being told to CONSUME.
Can it ever just stop?
Yes, for a monthly subscription!
We tried that in the 80s already. Here's how it went down.
1980s comes along, and people had been seeing commercials on tv for years. So along comes this new concept. Now you can PAY to watch tv.....without ads. GREAT!
So people started paying for this new "cable tv". Then the cable operators were like "I know they're paying to not see ads......but what if we STILL showed ads, and STILL took their money????"
So that happened.
Then after some decades Netflix came around, originally with liscensed tv shows from all over tv.......except now you could PAY to watch them, without the ads. And then they drastically lost their liscensed content, and produced their own original content.
After a few decades, Netflix said "I know they're paying not to see commercials.......but what if we STARTED showing commercials, AND raised prices every few months."
Man, I can't wait for the next guy to charge me money to not see ads. Only to inevitably show me ads a few years later....
Targeted, individualized, advertising should be illegal. This will gut a lot of the motivations for the privacy invasions and data harvesting. This is how advertising worked for thousands of years. I think it could continue to be just fine.
The amount of resources humanity is spending on targeted advertising is extremely depressing when you consider the opportunity cost. There are thousands of engineers and product managers that spend all day on this stuff instead of anything useful.
This is an interesting idea!
So I am going to sit down and the screen will be full of penis enlargement pills? What will all the hot singles in the area think?
You'll be in a new city by supper. Who cares what they think?
If you're getting targeted ads for penis enlargement pills, then the system thinks you have a small pp. If this is an error, you should submit photographic evidence to their office to prove you don't have a small pp.
Insert penis here
..that will now reflect the information United has compiled on individual travelers, like where they live and destinations they've traveled to.
I, for one, can't wait to have my personal info proudly displayed to whatever randos they seat next to me! /s
Classic late stage capitalism, where humans' sole reason for existence is being advertised to. Soon we'll start putting ads in incubators too, and invalidate this Onion article: https://www.theonion.com/17-days-in-incubator-longest-time-premature-baby-will-g-1851456014
About a decade ago Fox News got brought to court, and had to defend themselves against the idea that their content wasn't actually factually accurate most of the time. Therefore not "news".
Fox responded by saying that their program wasn't meant to be news. I forget the exact quote, I'm sure duckduckgo is your friend, but it was along the lines of "No reasonable person would ever consume Fox News content and believe it to be trustworthy accurate news. It is an opinionated entertainment show about the news."
I don't remember their tagline at the time, but it was something along the lines of "Fox News is your only outlet for unbiased news!" Something to that effect. I just remember Jon Stewart calling out the hypocrasy of their tagline being the exact opposite of what they said in court.
If Fox News is entertainment meant to push the agenda that the right is right, and if CNN is entertainment meant to push the agenda that the left is right, then I don't see why The Onion can't join them as entertainment meant to push the agenda that the whole world is fucking stupid.
Still operating as a "real news source", except it's all bullshit like Fox News and CNN. Just entertainment.
Same thing happened with "VitaminWater", a product in the category of "enhanced water" (a term reminiscent of "enhanced interrogation technique"). Coca-Cola argued that, despite the name, no reasonable person would believe it's actually healthy. They settled.
More to consider when selecting an airline. Greedy fuckers, I hope their stock takes a nosedive thanks to this
It'll probably take a small dip and then rise quite a bit once profits from implementing it start rolling in
‘Capitalism breeds innovation’
The innovation
Seriously. It's nearly a sure thing. I should buy on Monday and see how it goes. People are sleepwalking about adtech shit so they'll continue to fly United. There's already a dude in this thread telling people to chill and just don't fly if they don't like it. The ad revenue should be pretty juicy, too. They have a bored captive audience identified by full name and credit card number.
What's the ROI on ads anyway? I feel like ads are just a way to funnel money between corps. People who are forced to see ads are really not even the point anymore. This is like corporations subsidizing other corporations. Don't even matter that you buy that item being shown to you.
I always wondered this too.
Found a website saying Youtube adviews are $100-300 per 10k (ad views, not video views). That's 1-3¢ per view. If we assume an ad is 10seconds, then your time is worth 0.1-0.3¢ per second, or $3.60-10.80 per hour.
An A380 looks to be 380-615 seats. I'd imagine they're more often optimising for space, so let's say 550.
Long haul flight, 10% of people at any time using inflight stuff, 8 hours, 4 ads per hour = 5500.18*4 ads watched. 1760 ads. There will be a massive premium for planes, but surely only one order of magnitude more (e.g. 10x). That's equivalent to give or take 20k YouTube adviews which would be $200-600 per flight.
There are a lot of planes in the sky every single day though....
The thing is, it's only a ROI if any of those passengers converts to a buyer. The act of seeing an ad creates no value for the manufacturer unless they are converted to a buyer. What you are describing is a market that has the consumer (ad watcher) almost completely removed from the conversion of capital. Being forced to watch an ad, in this case, only benefits the airline by their receiving ad revenue. The passengers are nearly supflourous.
“I’m sorry ma'am but could you please remove your jacket from the seat? It’s obstructing the ads and we have a very clear policy about that”
🙃
They could come up with some bullshit like, obstructing your screen is interfering with the display of critical airplane safety information or something.
To begin the flight, please drink Mountain Dew Verification Can.
Verification Can Invalid. Please drink Mountain Dew Verification Can.
ERROR! Passenger attempting to steal Premium Ad-less Flying Option! Adding your name to the No Fly List and automatically deducting penalty fee from your credit card.
ERROR! Credit Card Declined! Alerting TSA! Alerting FBI! Alerting Sky Marshals!
Including the opt out link in the announcement article is a good guy move on the writer's part. Thanks, Kate. You're a pal.
I requested opt out and they requested my ID. lol! So they’re demanding more info to opt out of info collection.
Remember when the assholes at United overbooked a flight and sent someone to knock a doctor's teeth out and carry him off a plane? The doctor refused since he was on his way to oversee the opening of a clinic he founded for veterans.
He and his wife started the clinic as a way to thank American servicemen and women, because he was plucked out of ocean waters by the U.S. Navy as he fled communism in his home country of Vietnam about 44 years ago, he said.
Fuck United Airlines.
United will kill your dog, bust up your guitar, and knock down and drag out your doctor. They've made the headlines for all three of those. And the guitar guy made a song about United.
Unfortunately, the other airlines aren't much better.
"oh no everyone has phones, nobody needs these shitty displays anymore should we remove them and replace them with a phone holder?"
"I have a better idea..."
Don't forget your trusty a4 and duct tape to plane.
This just confirms my decision to never fly United again
Their seats did that for me. I'm 5'11", not a giant, and my knees were straight up jammed into the seat in front of me. Completely insane that they're even legally allowed to sell those to people as seats. They might fit a child.
What did it for me was a long delay that got me landed at my destination after car rental was closed
Not so much the delay itself; that upset me, but I get that things happen
It was the reason for the delay: a simple maintenance thing with the plane had them taking the engine further and further apart while we watched from the terminal, ultimately deciding they weren't getting this thing back up and running again anytime soon and having to get us another plane (which we had to wait for to fly to us)
Why couldn't they figure it out? Because they didn't have anyone who knew how to work on that plane model available
There are so many ways that pisses me off and makes me never want to trust them again
Also, every flight I had with them, including the return trip that I'd already booked from that trip, was miserable
Say what you will about Southwest but they know their damned planes inside and out and overall run their fleet efficiently and consistently. It's like riding a bus that flies
The thing I hate is that all these airline screens usually default to "on", and people tend to leave defaults. I'm a tall person, and can usually see a large number of the screens in front of me. So if I'm on a night flight, even if I don't intend to sleep, the only way to not be blinded by dozens of ads for a few hours is to bring a sleep mask.
I feel so bad for tall people on planes. It's uncomfortable AF for all of us, but you guys have to become human origami just to sit. It's insane that this shit is legal. I avoid flying as much as possible.
It's uncomfortable AF for all of us
Idk, I'm pretty comfortable on planes, and I'm around 5'8 lol
Also, ths taller you are, the more likely you are to be seriously injured in severe turbulence, malfunctions, minor crashes and major crashes.
I'm tall and fat it's a double whammy. Granted one I've done to myself, luckily I generally only fly with my wife so I can get the isle seat to stretch
They also automatically turn the screens back on repeatedly after you turn them off.
I use a baseball cap pulled down. Works well for me
I already dislike the experience of being with other passengers on United. Nothing negative occurred on my part, just noticed how badly behaved other passengers were compared to every other airline I’ve flown.
My point is, I wouldn’t pick United to fly as my first choice.
Airline passengers should have confidence that their personal information is not being shared improperly with third parties [...]
So they are only shared properly with third parties? Great!
Can't wait to see adds for prostate exams or erectile malfunction on a plane when I get older.
Psssshhhhh, you won't see them. It's a 3 hour plane ride where you have no responsibilities, surrounded by people that by this point in the day you already can't stand.
At that age, you're telling me you WON'T fall asleep???
So... How long before tape and blank paper are banned on planes?
I Vaguely recall that in the dystopian world depicted in the Max Headroom TV series it was illegal to turn off TVs. It felt bonkers to me when I was a kid, but now it doesn't seem too far off.
I wear a sleep mask on flights and once my IEMs go in they don’t come out until we’re about to land. In short, I don’t see or hear shit.
IEMs?
Ear buds where the cost goes to quality and isolation as opposed to gimmicks/Bluetooth/functionality.
Airpods are amazing for casual use.
IEMs (with a cable, of course) are amazing for music.
It's what musicians use on stage to hear what everyone is doing (iems and individual mixes are so accessible these days, used to be super $$$$ per iem mix).
They range from budget (1 driver per bud) to decent (3-5 drivers per bud) to esoteric (like 16 drivers per bud).
Most have modular cables that disconnect at the earbud (so when the cable breaks you are paying thousands for a new set. Or to get custom cable lengths).
And all decent brands can be custom moulded to your ear, so you go to a hearing specialist, they will cast your ear, and you send that to the manufacturers and they will send you moulded IEMs. They are very comfy.
Some brands have a DIY moulding process, but I wouldn't trust myself!
If you are into live music & loud gigs, even loud clubs, I really strongly recommend you get a moulded set of earplugs with 10db attenuation. They are for musicians and have as flat a response as is possible, and will take the edge off any hearing damage.
As others have said, "in-ear monitors." However, it's not technically about the quality. Earphones sit in the outer ear, while IEMs go at least a little bit into the ear canal. They do better with blocking out sound, which is better for audio quality, but sometimes you want to be able to hear things around you, so it's a matter of context.
Also, while audiophiles can get wild with it (and there's a lot of snake oil in that area), I just got some Salnotes Zeros for <$20 and they're great.
And I'm sure this in no way will invade people's privacy.
"Hmm, why is the anti-queer politician sitting next to me being served dozens of male underwear ads? Hmmmm..."
"Why is my daughter receiving ads for newborn diapers? Hmmm..."
"Why is my neighbor receiving ads for anger management? Hmmm..."
Why is my neighbor receiving ads for anger management?
He probably gets aggressive when seeing too many ads
Nothing a bit of paper/cardboard and a strip of tape can't fix.
Where's my duct tape and mini tool
Years ago I was on a flight where you couldn't turn this screen off. You could turn off the programming, but the screen still glowed. I discovered that if you take an advertisement from the back pocket and fold it, it can be inserted perfectly into the cracks around the screen and block it completely. Use the ads to block the ads.
"weird, yeah I got here and this screen just had all this sharpie over it, i dunno how it happened"
A very sticky sticker will do a better job
Good luck with that. I’m gonna turn that bitch off one way or another.
Preferably "accidentally" damaging the screen
i read the article and it didn't seem to state. how will they target me? using the personal info I'm required to give them to book my flight? the origin and destinations and seat location? these are entirely different kinds of metrics. one is far more invasive. and is it tying into larger models they've purchased from like google or something? this is stupid and i hate it.
Until proven otherwise, I'd assume the worst. They know your identity to travel, and they link it with profiles from all the major ad networks.
I think you're spot on. In addition to needing to hand over your passport or state ID, your credit card, your email and phone number, what else would they need to target you?
Imagine if you're using your airline branded credit card to get free miles or a seat upgrade and they know all your purchase history.
Does united use the same in flight entertainment system as Delta? If united does they are probably tracking you using the facial detection camera on the seats.
Could be monitoring in flight wifi. I have no idea.
Nothing that some Self Adhesive Vinyl can't fix. They'll have to deal with getting it off the screen afterwards too. Want to fine me for it? Then tell me where you got the data, because I didn't consent to you having my data.
You probably did/do consent at some point, but nobody reads the fine print.
Calling into United:
Hey I see you charged me $400 for a replacement screen? Tell me, where did you buy the targeted ad data you used to display ads on that screen? Oh, an agency that I signed terms and conditions for at some point? Shit, alright then.
I mean, fuck United tho and they will not be getting and damn money from me.
You bought the ticket right?
While in the EU or California, what ever works better...
Time for me to whip out my trusty old Black Sheet'o'Paper and masking tape....
Can you turn the screens off? I haven't flown in 5 years, but I just watched stuff off of my tablet instead.
In my experience yes, but some planes ive notice they turn back on each time there is an announcement, so depending on how many it can be annoying. Eother way advertising is a cancer that plagues our lives more and more.
You can, but I've stopped ever using them because the screen completely stops for every. Single. Announcement.
And now you can have your phone out for take off and landings, so yea no thanks I'll stick with my device that keeps working when they're making some random announcement about drinks or some shit
If you still can, they'll find ways to disable the option to turn them off, because it's time you don't watch an ad.
It is a matter of time before they figure out how to do targeted ads in dreams.
If they do that, I will laser the optics off soviet early warning satellites and start thevnuclear holocaust. I think everyone would like that !
TRAAAAAIIIIIIIINS.
I wish I had train options where I live
I've heard they are great to cross oceans.
Distance between mainland Eurasia and mainland North America is 86 km. But you will have to use 1520 mm gauge.
I'm sure they'll have an option where you can pay for them to go away ....
Basic economy will eventually only let you select any ad in their library. Actual content is for regular economy passengers only!
Cunts
I wonder how long it will be before they start giving discounts on tickets for interacting with the ads a certain number of times during the flight.
Never. The whole ad craze is there to milk profits on top of the things you already paid for.
What you are suggesting would actually be a more fair system.
Free with ads or paid with no ads.
Asshole corporations want paid and ads.
The Ad Algorithm
It knows when you are sleeping It knows when you're awake It knows when you've been bad or good So consume for goodness sake
Fuck this.
nodding off? time for a bright ad with super saturation and lots of brightness variability, they'll strobe you into paying attention.
how much do you have to pay to turn the fucking thing off?
Oh look, yet another reason why not to fly anymore!
Airlines in America really suck, I feel like we have much better options here in Europe
Yup.
My last flight a year ago was so bad I'm just going to drive from now on. I don't care if I have to take an extra day of PTO.
They do and I won't argue that point. It would fly in the face of everything I have seen. Multiple times I have flown on planes based in 3rd world countries to other 3rd world countries and each and every time it was a more pleasant experience than flying domestic in the US. I mean the whole thing. From being dropped off to the airport, to security, to food in the airport, to the comfort levels of the chairs, to the amount of leg room. All of it was better, all of it.
Plus our border is terrible as well. Last year took my family abroad and when we got back to the US my six year old put her little backpack on the scanner too quickly for the Border Guard liking. So the big manly tough guy screamed at my six year old. She proceeded to cry. I wanted to sock him across the face but not as much as I want to avoid a 20 year prison sentence. Next time I will go all Karen and write a letter to go in his file with his badge number. It will make me feel better but fix nothing.
Airline CEOs doing their damnedest to out-fumble eachother.
Fumble what?
It's a completely regulatory captured industry that makes the majority of its profit from being financially engineered gift card style quasi banking institutions via their milage program agreements.
This is just more cash off the top. Free $$$$.
It's truly amazing....they must stand at the front of meetings and just ask "how do we make our passengers hate us most?"
Maybe I don't understand the economics of this move, but are they really going to make that much more money from targeted ads? If it's double the price, I assume it's worth it, but if it's a ~10% gain it's just dumb.
Numbers must go up at all costs. By the time the company's reputation hit rock bottom, the CEO already jumped ship to the next company.
And for the low, low price of $4,99 you will get not one, not two but three ad blocking devices you can use to stop these ads from bothering you! Available in several cute patterns and colors. Get yours now, call now!
(warning: do not wash these cloths above 105°F or there might be ad-spillage while using the ad blocker due to shrinkage)
Me, an italian, i see an underdevelopped species of "coffe" inside a soap dispender and die inside
Most people will be too busy with their laptops, tablets, and phones to pay any attention to whatever ads they put on those screens.
So it’s okay then.
It certainly wouldn't be OK for anyone that actually wants to use the in flight entertainment. I watch whatever TV shows and movies that I downloaded ad free and never turn on the seat back screens.
Finally I won't miss a moment of pornhub.
Man, we should break more stuff.
edit: how to embedd youtube videos?
embedding arbitrary things was disabled a while back due to security reasons. Just link it
I don't want to click the news and give more data for capitalists. Where summary?
The "article" is like 100 words and just restates the title in more words.
Maybe the only information it adds is that they won't target passengers under 18
thanks
Are the ads selling life insurance?
Not if the flight is a Boeing.