A word of warning about uBlock for those who aren't aware: uBlock Origin forked off of uBlock some time ago and left the Safari version behind. For Chrome and Firefox uBlock Origin is great, but for Safari I personally suggest Wipr[1].
We started blocking ads because they had become 1. obnoxious, interfering with the fruition of the actual content; 2. dangerous, being a vector for malware and disrespecting our privacy; and 3. costly, for those with a slow or metered connection.
Most people accept ads, if they are acceptable.
They are the first company to actually push through with a plan to restore this market to sanity, so it's only natural they would take a small profit from it. Other well-known technology companies grab well into the two digit percent off other people's earnings.
People talk about the ad blocking arms race, but they forget that advertising itself is an arms race. Often it doesn't even benefit the advertisers!
For example, everyone would buy food even if it wasn't advertised, so the food industry as a whole might well be losing money on ads. (If you're feeling nitpicky, substitute "cheap food industry" for "food industry".) It's a kind of prisoner's dilemma situation where each firm keeps spending money on ads to avoid losing market share to competitors, but all firms together would be happier with a blanket ban on advertising. I suspect that many online ads are also fighting for a share of a fixed-size market, and would benefit from a ban as well.
Ad blocking is a gradual way to institute such a ban without requiring everyone's consent. It's probably already making many companies richer without them realizing it, by suppressing the ads of their competitors. In fact, these are the companies you want to get richer, because their products are spreading by word of mouth instead of ads.
Blanket bans on advertising favour market incumbents. It's true that some companies will prosper through word of mouth but in the early adopter stage you need to reach those early adopters. If you're small and your early adopters are distributed, you'll die before you catch on through people talking about you.
I'd wager the net effect would be to entrench big brands.
As far as I know, nothing they are doing rises to violation of any law or regulation with regard to this particular move.
Is it unethical? Maybe. That doesn't mean it is illegal. It is certainly not coercive - you can freely install or uninstall adblock, and you are free to advertise or not advertise with them. They do not have a monopoly, natural or otherwise, and their product is wholly voluntary. If Microsoft were installing ABP as a matter of course in IE and they prevented you from uninstalling it - then there is an argument that this would be anti-competitive.
An independent third party distributing totally voluntary, uninstallable software? Unlikely.
Heh, advertisers are getting what they deserve for ruining the internet. I worry it will escalate the arms race and ublock origin users like you and I will be affected, though I tend to avoid sites that are ad-heavy anyway.
As for being illegal? No idea, but Google are doing something similar - reducing the rank of sites that don't use Google as their source of advertising. More or less ;-)
Google frame it the same way as Adblock Plus - only sites with intrusive adverts are going to be punished, while those with Google adverts are wholesome and pure. But it is a very similar technique to AP. It's not quite the same, as the adverts are not blocked "merely" the whole site is downgraded in Google's search. Ouch.
Then there's Brendan Eich's Brave browser that follows exactly the same model as Adblock Plus. Remove sites' adverts and show Brave's in their place! It seems cheeky to me, but not sure what law it breaks. Is there are "don't be a jerk" law in the US? Maybe there should be :-)
How so? People have voluntarily installed Adblock Plus, viewers have no contract with publishers to view their ads, and ADP has no contract with publishers to keep their ads up.
I hate Adblock Plus, but this doesnt sound too bad
'''which will allow blogs and other website operators to pick out so-called “acceptable” ads and place them on their pages. If a visitor using Adblock Plus comes to the page, they’ll be shown those “acceptable ads,” instead of whatever ads the site would normally run.'''
The question is, how do you ensure they are just swapping existing ads, that they are all not acceptable, and that they aren't inserting ads where there were none?
I hate ads, absolutely hate them. I hate them on TV. I hate them on billboards. I hate them on the net.
If I want something, I decide I want it. I research it, and I make my choices based on multiple sources. Dancing clowns and phony sales do nothing but waste my time and annoy me.
Having said that, we need some way forward, even if it's nothing but a small step. I propose that all advertisers voluntarily place ads (and paid product endorsements) inside and <advert></advert> tag, preferably with an alt attribute. My browser could show me the ad or the text. It's up to me. Ad Blockers would no longer be a thing. Who would need them? And if advertisers really wanted me to see the full-bandwidth version of whatever schlock they're peddling, over time they'd develop a reputation for delivering funny/interesting/engaging ads. Then I might let some through. Hell, I might start following them on Twitter.
But don't hijack my browser, track me against my will, and force me to look at things I don't want to simply to find out what kind of car accident happened outside last night. Content producers and consumers should not be in an adversarial relationship. Yet this is what they've created.
"Advertisers will not be able to target ads via the Acceptable Ads Platform using the granular behavioral data many have become accustomed too, however, to preserve user privacy and security.
Rather, they’ll have a limited set of information with which to target their ads, including the domain on which an ad would appear; the device, browser and operating system on which it’s being loaded; and the geographical location it’s being loaded from."
OK, so the "limited" set of information is already 5 pieces of information, and without specifics about the geographical location I am going to assume it can vary on any scale determined and changed by ABP at their discretion. In combination this is very likely to be a UUID for a vast majority of people (sorry, I don't have a reference, but that is what I have read somewhere). More pertinently, I have a vague feeling that this combination is enough for retargeting (people in adtech, please give us your input).
Folks are mentioning uBlock Origin. But there is tremendous pressure from online publishers, who I expect are soon going to turn this into a game of Whack-a-Blocker.
> OK, so the "limited" set of information is already 5 pieces of information...
Ehh...it'll probably be the useragent string and the result of geocoding the client IP address. This is fairly narrow (especially for obscure and/or out-of-date browsers), but I think calling it "unique" might be a stretch. I guess it would be highly dependent on the population of your city or town and on the popularity of the site itself. I might be one of just a handful of people who reads HN while laying in my bed at night on an iPhone 6S, but I'd expect quite a few people in a major metro area are hitting big media sites from Chrome on Windows.
This is nothing but a pirate business model, it's deplorable. Blocking ads alone is pretty bad but wedging yourself into the middle and then collecting a marketplace fee is nothing short of a pirate move.
The devs of Adblock Plus are certainly crooks and I agree their business model is deplorable, but I dispute that "blocking ads alone is pretty bad". On the contrary, it's extremely useful and makes the web bearable. It's not comparable to piracy because nobody is stealing anything.
In an effort to keep my Chromium/FF instances 'clean' I just use https-everywhere and uMatrix (since it came out - my trust in noscript and abp was waning a long way back). It's nice to block the vast majority of low-hanging trackers. I'm hoping that having FB, GA and myriad other tracking scripts auto-disabled circumvents some of their even smarter tracking methods (IP, cookie) but I'm always open to modify the setup, just not at the expense of my limited computing resources.
Using 10 privacy extensions is a non-starter, for instance. Not to mention how little I trust most of the ad blocking efforts out there.
At home I have a pi-hole set up (as well as the pi being a media centre, IRC, IM and NAS... so versatile!) to block the low-hanging scripts and calls on my family and guests' browsing. It's a shame it blocks Piwik by default, but I can understand the reasoning. Log-based analytics really should be the norm, anyway. The speed boost is non-trivial, as is the peace of mind that most of our private life is not being sold to the highest bidder.
EDIT: I've just gone into the Privacy settings in uMatrix and checked everything on the basis of this post-as-reminder: Cookies, local storage, user agent, strict https... Don't think the last one allows me to drop https-everywhere yet though, only to avoid mixed content. I may end up unchecking that box if it gets too annoying... I know the risks!
I block ads primarily for privacy reasons. I don't mind ads in themselves if they're just static and not trying to track my every move. I don't want ads to be "relevant" to me. I find that not only is it just creepy but really useless to see ads for something long after I've purchased. I'd rather it be more of a discovery tool for new products (movie trailers for example).
There are other ways to block ads besides this one solution. The web ad delivery mechanism is brittle.
But when will this game end?
Advertisers should just pay consumers (users). Why bother with a middleman?
Request for Project (RFP): Let all users sign up to be paid by advertisers. (This is not a new idea.) Sign up with enough advertisers and one can have "universal basic income".
Users should not be giving away their time for free. Every time a web advertiser distracts a user, they are "stealing" the user's time.
Advertisers pay for this privilege. But they do not pay the users. They pay off someone -- you know who -- to help them steal users' time.
Just pay the damn users. Enough of this silly game.
Added benefit: It would open up the search engine market and social networking (photo database) market to competition and innovation.
I've got a deal for any company out there. Rather then spending millions on advertising provide to me a datasheet. Hell, pay for ad space where you can show off your datasheets. I'll buy the product with the best possible features for my use case.
If companies start doing this, I'll exclusively buy provided products from them rather then from advertised companies. If the data sheet you provide lies, I'll never buy your products again, so keep that in mind.
This is a simple and transparent way to get me to buy your products and it costs you less! Isn't that great!
If you think about it, it's like responsive design for your ads. The "responsive" case being to show the nicer ads and the default case being to show the normal obtrusive ads (depending on the user's level of ad blocking).
I'm not saying I outright support, but some ads are useful — The Deck is one example. Amazon's "people who purchased this also purchased" is (kind of) another.
I wouldn't think of "people who purchased this also purchased" as an ad. An ad is characterized as not relevant to the current activity, but these recommendations usually are (except when they are hilarious, but that's another thing).
[+] [-] thclark|9 years ago|reply
Extensions: Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa... Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... Opera: https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/ublock/ Microsoft Edge: https://github.com/nikrolls/uBlock-Edge#microsoft-edge
[+] [-] jagger27|9 years ago|reply
1: https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.giorgioc...
[+] [-] rloc|9 years ago|reply
This all adBlock making money by blocking ads and then showing their own ads is becoming ridiculous and unethical.
So what does Adblock stand for now ?
[+] [-] jeeva|9 years ago|reply
...not that Edge isn't hilariously un-fun to use, even with an adblocker...
[+] [-] thesmallestcat|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] etatoby|9 years ago|reply
We started blocking ads because they had become 1. obnoxious, interfering with the fruition of the actual content; 2. dangerous, being a vector for malware and disrespecting our privacy; and 3. costly, for those with a slow or metered connection.
Most people accept ads, if they are acceptable.
They are the first company to actually push through with a plan to restore this market to sanity, so it's only natural they would take a small profit from it. Other well-known technology companies grab well into the two digit percent off other people's earnings.
[+] [-] cousin_it|9 years ago|reply
For example, everyone would buy food even if it wasn't advertised, so the food industry as a whole might well be losing money on ads. (If you're feeling nitpicky, substitute "cheap food industry" for "food industry".) It's a kind of prisoner's dilemma situation where each firm keeps spending money on ads to avoid losing market share to competitors, but all firms together would be happier with a blanket ban on advertising. I suspect that many online ads are also fighting for a share of a fixed-size market, and would benefit from a ban as well.
Ad blocking is a gradual way to institute such a ban without requiring everyone's consent. It's probably already making many companies richer without them realizing it, by suppressing the ads of their competitors. In fact, these are the companies you want to get richer, because their products are spreading by word of mouth instead of ads.
[+] [-] arjie|9 years ago|reply
I'd wager the net effect would be to entrench big brands.
[+] [-] Yuioup|9 years ago|reply
Good thing for uBlock Origin because otherwise they should be indicted to anti-competitive behavior.
No, I don't like ads and I run uBlock Origin. I don't work for an advertising company and couldn't care less about ads.
But what Adblock Plus is doing here is illegal.
[+] [-] libertymcateer|9 years ago|reply
What law are they violating?
I'm a software lawyer.
As far as I know, nothing they are doing rises to violation of any law or regulation with regard to this particular move.
Is it unethical? Maybe. That doesn't mean it is illegal. It is certainly not coercive - you can freely install or uninstall adblock, and you are free to advertise or not advertise with them. They do not have a monopoly, natural or otherwise, and their product is wholly voluntary. If Microsoft were installing ABP as a matter of course in IE and they prevented you from uninstalling it - then there is an argument that this would be anti-competitive.
An independent third party distributing totally voluntary, uninstallable software? Unlikely.
[+] [-] CannisterFlux|9 years ago|reply
As for being illegal? No idea, but Google are doing something similar - reducing the rank of sites that don't use Google as their source of advertising. More or less ;-)
Google frame it the same way as Adblock Plus - only sites with intrusive adverts are going to be punished, while those with Google adverts are wholesome and pure. But it is a very similar technique to AP. It's not quite the same, as the adverts are not blocked "merely" the whole site is downgraded in Google's search. Ouch.
Then there's Brendan Eich's Brave browser that follows exactly the same model as Adblock Plus. Remove sites' adverts and show Brave's in their place! It seems cheeky to me, but not sure what law it breaks. Is there are "don't be a jerk" law in the US? Maybe there should be :-)
[+] [-] ihsw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cordite|9 years ago|reply
However here it seems to come with additional behavioral standards to the public.
[+] [-] CaptSpify|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] draw_down|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dexwiz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] libeclipse|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluesign|9 years ago|reply
'''which will allow blogs and other website operators to pick out so-called “acceptable” ads and place them on their pages. If a visitor using Adblock Plus comes to the page, they’ll be shown those “acceptable ads,” instead of whatever ads the site would normally run.'''
[+] [-] shostack|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|9 years ago|reply
If I want something, I decide I want it. I research it, and I make my choices based on multiple sources. Dancing clowns and phony sales do nothing but waste my time and annoy me.
Having said that, we need some way forward, even if it's nothing but a small step. I propose that all advertisers voluntarily place ads (and paid product endorsements) inside and <advert></advert> tag, preferably with an alt attribute. My browser could show me the ad or the text. It's up to me. Ad Blockers would no longer be a thing. Who would need them? And if advertisers really wanted me to see the full-bandwidth version of whatever schlock they're peddling, over time they'd develop a reputation for delivering funny/interesting/engaging ads. Then I might let some through. Hell, I might start following them on Twitter.
But don't hijack my browser, track me against my will, and force me to look at things I don't want to simply to find out what kind of car accident happened outside last night. Content producers and consumers should not be in an adversarial relationship. Yet this is what they've created.
[+] [-] witty_username|9 years ago|reply
If you don't want tracking, don't visit the website. Ads don't force you look at things. You're looking at it.
[+] [-] hubert123|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thr0waway1239|9 years ago|reply
http://www.wsj.com/articles/adblock-plus-is-launching-an-ad-...
"Advertisers will not be able to target ads via the Acceptable Ads Platform using the granular behavioral data many have become accustomed too, however, to preserve user privacy and security.
Rather, they’ll have a limited set of information with which to target their ads, including the domain on which an ad would appear; the device, browser and operating system on which it’s being loaded; and the geographical location it’s being loaded from."
OK, so the "limited" set of information is already 5 pieces of information, and without specifics about the geographical location I am going to assume it can vary on any scale determined and changed by ABP at their discretion. In combination this is very likely to be a UUID for a vast majority of people (sorry, I don't have a reference, but that is what I have read somewhere). More pertinently, I have a vague feeling that this combination is enough for retargeting (people in adtech, please give us your input).
Folks are mentioning uBlock Origin. But there is tremendous pressure from online publishers, who I expect are soon going to turn this into a game of Whack-a-Blocker.
[+] [-] ilikepi|9 years ago|reply
Ehh...it'll probably be the useragent string and the result of geocoding the client IP address. This is fairly narrow (especially for obscure and/or out-of-date browsers), but I think calling it "unique" might be a stretch. I guess it would be highly dependent on the population of your city or town and on the popularity of the site itself. I might be one of just a handful of people who reads HN while laying in my bed at night on an iPhone 6S, but I'd expect quite a few people in a major metro area are hitting big media sites from Chrome on Windows.
EDIT: trivial wording tweak
[+] [-] sliverstorm|9 years ago|reply
- what language do they speak
- what regional market do they shop in
- what is the compatibility of their client browser to render your ad
[+] [-] brentm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] John23832|9 years ago|reply
Wedging yourself in the middle is an awesome business plan.
[+] [-] the_af|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RubyPinch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ildoc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
1. Tell users you're doing something for them.
2. Get lots of users.
3. Change product to screw them.
4. Profit!
This happens too often.
[+] [-] luxpir|9 years ago|reply
In an effort to keep my Chromium/FF instances 'clean' I just use https-everywhere and uMatrix (since it came out - my trust in noscript and abp was waning a long way back). It's nice to block the vast majority of low-hanging trackers. I'm hoping that having FB, GA and myriad other tracking scripts auto-disabled circumvents some of their even smarter tracking methods (IP, cookie) but I'm always open to modify the setup, just not at the expense of my limited computing resources.
Using 10 privacy extensions is a non-starter, for instance. Not to mention how little I trust most of the ad blocking efforts out there.
At home I have a pi-hole set up (as well as the pi being a media centre, IRC, IM and NAS... so versatile!) to block the low-hanging scripts and calls on my family and guests' browsing. It's a shame it blocks Piwik by default, but I can understand the reasoning. Log-based analytics really should be the norm, anyway. The speed boost is non-trivial, as is the peace of mind that most of our private life is not being sold to the highest bidder.
EDIT: I've just gone into the Privacy settings in uMatrix and checked everything on the basis of this post-as-reminder: Cookies, local storage, user agent, strict https... Don't think the last one allows me to drop https-everywhere yet though, only to avoid mixed content. I may end up unchecking that box if it gets too annoying... I know the risks!
[+] [-] philbo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dawnerd|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joelthelion|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] micro_softy|9 years ago|reply
But when will this game end?
Advertisers should just pay consumers (users). Why bother with a middleman?
Request for Project (RFP): Let all users sign up to be paid by advertisers. (This is not a new idea.) Sign up with enough advertisers and one can have "universal basic income".
Users should not be giving away their time for free. Every time a web advertiser distracts a user, they are "stealing" the user's time.
Advertisers pay for this privilege. But they do not pay the users. They pay off someone -- you know who -- to help them steal users' time.
Just pay the damn users. Enough of this silly game.
Added benefit: It would open up the search engine market and social networking (photo database) market to competition and innovation.
[+] [-] zxv|9 years ago|reply
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/umatrix/ogfcmafjal...
[+] [-] b3lvedere|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gravypod|9 years ago|reply
If companies start doing this, I'll exclusively buy provided products from them rather then from advertised companies. If the data sheet you provide lies, I'll never buy your products again, so keep that in mind.
This is a simple and transparent way to get me to buy your products and it costs you less! Isn't that great!
[+] [-] consto|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tedmiston|9 years ago|reply
I'm not saying I outright support, but some ads are useful — The Deck is one example. Amazon's "people who purchased this also purchased" is (kind of) another.
[+] [-] majewsky|9 years ago|reply