Recently, Instagram told me that they had updated some advertising terms and that I needed to give my consent again. Until I accepted the updated terms, Instagram wouldn’t let me use the app. Since I didn’t like Meta’s decision to change the terms, I decided to protest by refusing personalized ads this time.
After that, I started encountering some very curious behavior from both Instagram and Facebook. When showing me ads, they began introducing an Ad Break — a several-second period during which I couldn’t do anything in the app except watch the ad. They claim that Ad Breaks are part of the experience I “chose” as a user who opted out of personalized advertising.
What can I say? It would’ve been fine if they were simply punishing me as a user, but the problem is that when I see this Ad Break, it stands out from the rest of the ads. I notice it first, not the ad itself — which means I have time to close the app before watching the ad. So, the guys who came up with this have basically shot themselves in the foot in every possible way.