Windows 10 has a lot of built-in advertising. This isn’t just about the free upgrade offer: Even if you purchase a new PC that comes with a Windows 10 license or spend $200 for a copy of Windows 10 Professional, you’ll see ads in your operating system. You can, however, disable a lot of it.

Google’s ad blocker, far from a benign offering, is another step toward dominating the internet itself.

Digital ad revenue in the U.S. grew by more than 20% last year to a record $72.5 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. That's the good news.

The bad news—at least for those who dislike duopolies—is that some estimates by other industry experts show that virtually all of growth in digital ad spending went to Google and Facebook, which already account for more than three-quarters of the U.S. digital ad market.

So a brand like McDonald’s will know if you’re hungry, eating the competition, and more. Yeah it’s weird, but will it make online ads better?

Facebook has officially relaunched the advertising platform Atlas in a new incarnation that will allow marketers to track users in new dimensions, according to a blog post from the company. Atlas will offer the ability to not only synthesize information about where users are seeing ads, but also to see how and whether those ad views play out into a purchase, even if it's offline.

"The core business of the plaintiff is to deliver ads to its visitors. Journalistic content is just a vehicle to get readers to view the ads." – Axel Springer’s lawyer

A Tactical Tech project which aims to increase transparency about the online data industry by illustrating who tracks us when we browse the internet.

It was only a matter of time before Facebook Messenger would start testing ads, after rumors of its plans to do so leaked nearly a year ago. Earlier today, it announced that users in Australia and Thailand will begin seeing sponsored content in the coming weeks, with the experiment being labeled as a way "for people and brands to engage on Messenger." What this means, really, is that you and your friends should expect to see targeted ads in the app soon -- which won't be hard to miss, judging by the image above.

AdNauseam: Fight back against advertising surveillance

As online advertising is becoming more automatic, universal and unsanctioned, AdNauseam works to complete the cycle by automating all ad-clicks universally and blindly on behalf of its users. Built atop uBlock-Origin, AdNauseam quietly clicks on every blocked ad, registering a visit on the ad networks databases. As the data gathered shows an omnivorous click-stream, user profiling, targeting and surveillance becomes futile.

Ad buying agency Publicis Media was told by Facebook that the earlier counting method likely overestimated average time spent watching videos by between 60% and 80%