Dear all,

I don’t know how many of you have observed this or for how many of you this is true, but of late, all of the ad slots on my blog have been taken up by ‘Advani for PM’ ads.  I noticed this on blogs of quite a few friends on lj too.  A friend who happened to read my blog for the first time wanted to know since when I started promoting Advani’s campaign!
Let me tell you why I think of these ads as a slur and a malicious act.

A lot of my posts are about Formula One and hence my blog often has ads related to Formula 1 merchandise, tickets, hotel reservations and the like and I have no complaints about it.  This is the reality of targeted advertising and we often welcome it, as by principle, one will not see unrelated and inappropriate ads.  I don’t write about the fastest means of increasing the length of certain anatomical parts with pleasurable results and ergo don’t expect to see ads promoting such solutions on my page. 

However,  since each and every one of us has been exposed to targeted advertising, we tend to associate the ad somehow with the content which belongs to the author, and maybe even with the thoughts and feelings of the author.  It is at this point that this particular ad-campaign becomes inappropriate and even malicious.  I hate politics and politicians in general and use my blog to highlight their foibles whenever my blood boils and I certainly would not want to use my blog to promote politicians of any color, caste, creed or nationality, nor would I want to happily sit and watch my blog being used for such a purpose.  I know we don’t enjoy the privilege of deciding the actual ads which go on, when using a free version of lj, but I hope lj won’t resort to using such means of advertising which is no different from spamming.  Livejournal does give us a means to provide feedback about the ads that are posted on our blogs. This is the link.  I have made my opinion on the matter very clear and hopefully, the ads, which to me are repulsive, will be removed.   If you truly endorse and welcome this manner/content of advertising, well, you don’t have anything to do, but if you feel as I feel, I request you to take a minute and fill in the feedback.