Criteria for Inclusion on the 🚫 Shopping List
Quick Summary: We identify companies whose advertising strategies intentionally compromise user autonomy or capture attention through manipulative design. A company qualifies for inclusion if its ads meet any of the following criteria:
- 5–30s – Ads that demand 5 to 30 seconds of your attention before they can be skipped.
- Premium – Ads that play on services where you pay a subscription fee.
- Unskippable pre-roll video – Ads that can't be immediately skipped or bypassed.
- Fake content – Promotional material disguised as legitimate content, e.g., fake Reddit posts.
- Auto-playing video or audio – Online ads that begin playing as soon as a page loads.
- Forced engagement to proceed – Ads that require user interaction (e.g., “Touch screen here”) to proceed.
- Interstitials or pop-ups that block content – Overlay ads that interrupt and obstruct the user experience.
- Atrocious – Ads so awful that no one should ever have to be subjected to them — like the Mitsubishi freestyle rap commercial.
Companies have more than enough resources — and more than enough creativity — to market their products without resorting to tactics that exploit, manipulate, or coerce users. Exposing these practices empowers consumers to reclaim control of their attention and make informed choices about which companies to engage with.