But site owners and ad networks don't want you to just view their ads.

They want you to click to, as the ad network then has a better chance of completing.

A sale essentially clicks equal money, and the pursuit of those clicks has helped shape the Internet.

If you're wondering how ads took over, users have been reluctant to pay for online content ever since the Internet first became popular.

Therefore, creators started using adds to monetize their work.

But over time, people got used to ignoring them.

So advertisers evolved new tactics to get your attention and clicks.

One example is Click Pay, which is a sensationalized headline for an ad, article or video of questionable quality.

Since it takes many clicks to earn decent ad revenue, advertisers use outrageous headlines to attract as many readers is possible, which is why Clickbait typically gets more attention than conventional ads.

Unfortunately, Clickbait has influenced how people consume info online to bring in extra traffic.

Mawr and more websites now use Clickbait style headlines for their news and videos, and regardless of its quality or accuracy.

Clickbait also tends to spread quickly on social media, leading to a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding.

Targeted ads used data collected on you to sell you things that advertisers believe you may like.

Because the ad may be more relevant, you're more likely to click.

You may even see the same ad across multiple websites you.

But in the quest to learn more about your buying habits, targeted ads have helped fuel the growth of online data collection.

That's the practice of a website recording your online info and activities, then selling that in photo ad networks and other companies.

Data could be collected via files called cookies that document your activity on a particular site or through the info you share on social media.

Over the past several years, online data collection has become widespread, and it's tough to find out exactly what these data collectors know or how that data is used, which has triggered a great deal of privacy concerns.

For better or worse, ads in the pursuit of clicks have helped shape the Internet into its current form, and they will likely continue to influence it for years to come.

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