CC hypocrisy

It says right below this:

"Calorie Count's mission is to promote healthy and sustainable weight management."

However, Calorie Count has, for the longest time, shown ads for products that use fake numbers, misleading pictures, and basically just blatant false advertising.

On the page I'm currently on now, even, the ad at the bottom says "How I lost 1lb per day" It really wasn't that hard at all - no diet, no exercise! - Jessica

I don't think I have to tell any of you that 1lb per day is not healthy nor sustainable weight management. Most of the ads give similar ridiculous numbers and they're only out to sell a product that doesn't work and take peoples' money.

I understand it's your prerogative to display ads and make money off of the site, but the money you're making off those ads is a cut of the money that your userbase is spending on these products (Probably thinking.. "Hey, it's shown on calorie count, so I can probably trust it"..). So at the same time you so virulently state that you are here to ensure that people lose weight healthily and the right way, you simply become a benefactor of these weight loss schemes that obviously do not work nor do what they claim to do... and the one getting the short end of the stick are the people who are clicking on those ads.. the members of the calorie-count community. How can you be trying to help your users when you're providing a platform for these leeches to rob them? I wish CC would exercise some discretion in the ads that end up on their site... because some people don't realize that 1 lb a day is too much. I've even seen threads of people who bought those products because they saw them advertised on CC and assumed they would work.

i think we're all savvy enough to separate advertising from truth.

Original Post by pgeorgian:

i think we're all savvy enough to separate advertising from truth.

The ads are there because somebody is profiting off them, which means someone is clicking them and buying into them. It may seem like common sense, but to some people, it isn't. Some people are overweight and desperate with a delusion that the "conventional way" won't work, and they get suckered into those scams. If I made a thread here that said you should do xxxx and you'll lose 10 lbs a week, it would be locked shortly.

I'm pretty new here, but what Ibez is talking about is one of the FIRST things I noticed. To be honest, it almost made me rethink using this site.  The ads ranged from donuts (what the heck?!) to Acai Berry and who-know-what-else fad diet ads. I understand the website's need to make money and I understand knowing your target audience, but really. Why not litter the site with ads for healthier food choices, brands or gym memberships and what not. Anything's got to be better than fad diets with misleading, even harmful, information!

for this to remain a free (to us) site they have to submit to some form of advertising. not sure exactly how about.com deals with this, but i'm pretty sure CC has little/no control over ads. i would not be able to join this group if i had to pay, so i ignore the ads (no matter what they are for) and urge others to as well.

CC has NO control over the ads.  CC is owned by about.com who sells ad space to whoever buys it.  It's obvious that the majority of the users here want to lose weight, so ads for crash diets would make sense. 

I ignore them, as much as I do the dating ads and the car ads and all the other ads that blink at me all day long.

Sorry to hear that some ads are in poor taste - we do try to limit those as much as we can. Unfortunately, this problem is linked to the way the modern online marketing works - it is all managed and distributed via 3rd parties. I remember seeing some quite bad text-ads in the early days of Calorie-Count, and some of them very easy to remove, but some other ones we were stuck with for a long time. Either way, please know that we do care.

It all depends on what thread you're in, if you start a thread asking about ACAI Berry there will be ads to the right and bottom giving you a "free trial" Go to a post about the election, Palin and Obama as will be there, etc.

Just ignore them, I do.

Its free, it helps me loose weight and most of the rest of the world is full of ads I ignore also.  This is a great, useful site and would be a loss.  So its funded by ads.  Just keep to your plan and this very user-friendly site.

Well Ibez welcome to the real world of business, it takes money to run a site like this.  I understand that it seems counter productive, but what we learn on CC everyday, tells us to ignore those ads and enjoy the free site.

I too wish it could be another way, but if you notice sometimes even on the sites that charge there is advertisments.

Good luck to you on your journey and just use your own smart filter to keep you on the right track!

Best to you,

Carol

Once again, AD BLOCKER.

http://adblockplus.org/en/

There's even an add on for FireFox for it that you can google for.

If you hate these ads enough to complain about it, I doubt you like any ads. Just do yourself a favor and get rid of all of them.

=)

Original Post by mscarol1:

Well Ibez welcome to the real world of business, it takes money to run a site like this.  I understand that it seems counter productive, but what we learn on CC everyday, tells us to ignore those ads and enjoy the free site.

I too wish it could be another way, but if you notice sometimes even on the sites that charge there is advertisments.

Good luck to you on your journey and just use your own smart filter to keep you on the right track!

Best to you,

Carol

Appreciate the reply, but I should mention I already said I understand they need to monetize their site.. I myself have dealt with the question on advertising on sites I've owned. However, it's bad business to advertise things that ultimately conflict with the userbase's interests. If CC were to advertise things like protein supplements or multi-vitamins that the majority of the users may actually be out to buy, they'd probably be making more money off of it anyway.

At any rate, it's something I thought I should mention... I know systems like adsense simply deliver relevant ads, but even with those systems, you can block undesirable ads from showing up. For example, the ad on the bottom of the page appears to be adsense (googlesyndication), and adsense has a site exclusion function.

Original Post by tincognito:

Once again, AD BLOCKER.

http://adblockplus.org/en/

There's even an add on for FireFox for it that you can google for.

If you hate these ads enough to complain about it, I doubt you like any ads. Just do yourself a favor and get rid of all of them.

=)

I have an adblocker for FF, but I only use it for intrusive or interstitial ads.. I'm not making this thread for my sake, I just thought I would bring it up. It's nice to hear that the CC staff cares, but I'm surprised there would be that little communication between them and whoever is making the decisions on advertising.

I work for and extremely popular website which runs ads and we get complaints from users all the time that the ads are in direct opposition to what their page is saying and the truth is we have absolutely zero control over what ads are shown. We are paid by an ad company that scans the page for key words and puts up whatever ads they have that kinda sorta fit. For example you could have something up about how you think some politician should be thrown in jail and then an ad would pop up promoting that same person at the top of the page. We didn't put it there, we don't know what ad it will be. Even the ad company doesn't directly control what goes up, it's all automated using key words and you must admit that this site is putting out some major diet plan key words.

Etahbear, I understand that, however, like I said in my last post, such ad programs (I'm assuming AdSense, but maybe you're talking about Yahoo ads.. in which case I don't know) allow you to block sites that you don't want advertised on your website.

I know this is an old post, but I'm replying because this is something that's bothered me since I signed up a couple of weeks ago. It's not even the disparity between the message and the ads -- I would be much less annoyed if the ads were trying to get me to buy Haagen-Daz. It's that this site is actively promoting dangerous, unrealistic, and unproven diet fads and outright scams.

I realize they have to make money. As has been pointed out before, site owners do have some control over the sorts of ads that are displayed. By allowing these sorts of links, they are choosing to hand their members over to con artists. It's unethical.

For one final time - calorie count does not have control over what ads go up on this site.  Neither does About.com. All of this has been explained over and over again.  The ads are bundled and bring in revenue to keep the site free.  You actually have more power than the website does because you can install an add blocker on your PC. 

If there is a specific ad you object to - do a screen print if possible.  Use the contact link at the bottom of every page to report it.  State the times you see the ad and as much information as you can gather about it.  The staff will do their best to block it.  In my experience, they get blocked and then pop up again after a while.

Understand that this will take valuable time and resources away from all the improvements that are constantly being designed, all of it free of charge to you. 

Personally, I hardly notice them because I've learned to ignore them. 

You also have even more control over the ads placed on this site.

Talk less about 'diets' - talk less about hating your body - talk less about weight. And you'll get fewer ads about fad diets and scams that take advantage of people with such poor self esteem.

Talk more about healthy foods - talk more about exercise that you enjoy doing - talk more about aspects of improving your overall health and well being. And you'll get more ads targeted at these needs.

The words YOU use drive the ad content of this site.  So think about that the next time you post to our message boards.

Further, if you ever DO see an ad for something that you actually use, consider using that ad link for your next purchase.  The most successful ads from this site will also drive the placement of future ads.

But it's not up to us, really, to tell you what to say. 
Just know that what you say here is what's driving the ad content.

Original Post by nomoreexcuses:

You also have even more control over the ads placed on this site.

Talk less about 'diets' - talk less about hating your body - talk less about weight. And you'll get fewer ads about fad diets and scams that take advantage of people with such poor self esteem.

***

But it's not up to us, really, to tell you what to say. 
Just know that what you say here is what's driving the ad content.

Point taken, but it quickly rides to paradox. If CC is to educate, these topics have to be discussed. If we didn't talk about this, CC's sole purpose would be bonding, which is only a third as effective without good info.

Likewise, I disagree - okay, wait, as far as I'm concerned, if you haven't developed the critical thinking skills to discern ad from copy on the internet, it's a skill that you should learn, and preferably quickly - but I cannot approve of the "our hands are tied" attitude.

I've seen websites with disclaimers around the ads, lines to more clearly define where the ads end or begin, and websites that pre-seed keywords to steer the ads closer to mission.

Personally, though, you're doing a fine job and I don't think this is worth the bother.

I'm just wondering how someone loses a pound a day. At the weight I am right now, even if I ate exactly NO food in the day and with a substantial amount of exercise, I probably wouldn't be able to pull off dropping pound every day.

Maybe they're trying to break into the burgeoning market for Crack?

"TRY CRACK™ - THE ULTIMATE DIET SUPPLEMENT!"

Experts agree, CRACK™ is the diet supplement of the future! Get yours today!

(hmmm... if our content drives the ads, will we now start seeing ads for High Times and whatnot on the site?)

It's easy.  Lose water weight.  I've "lost" up to three pounds in one day as all the water I've been retaining flushes out.  The so-called diet pills are frequently fancy laxatives - which is why you gain it all right back within a couple of days.

So, a suggestion.  FaceBook, which is also a FREE site with ads, at least has a system that allows users to give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on the ads it runs.  So, if you see one of the many ads for the acai berry scam, you can give it a "thumbs down" and report it as "misleading."  And after a while, those ads don't show up for you any more.

I don't buy the "this is a free site so we have to run ads for scams, we don't have any choice" business.  If about.com or caloriecount.about.com truly wanted to, they could put a good feedback system in place, because other free sites seem to be doing this without any problem. 

At the very least, there could be some sort of disclaimer acknowledging that ads could be scams, could trigger ED issues, and so on.  In the forums, folks are very quick to pile on posters who are falling for or promoting scams, fad diets, and ED behaviors--why is it somehow unacceptable to question these same things in the ads we see here?