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Firms help websites evade ad blockers

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Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#11

Post by heyheyhey »

randombits wrote: post #2

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

> The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OBLIGATION for me to view ads. Just because you serve them up does not mean I need to view them.

Do you not tip when you go to restaurants (in America)?

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#12

Post by chillacy »

Ignoring the ethics and just looking at the technology, would the next step for content providers be to do the ad bidding and serving from the webserver itself? This way, ad blockers wouldn't be able to just block an ad serving domain. They could write custom filters for each website, but that increases the work for the adblock lists.

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#13

Post by bsder »

heyheyhey wrote: post #11
randombits wrote: post #2

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

> The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OBLIGATION for me to view ads. Just because you serve them up does not mean I need to view them. Do you not tip when you go to restaurants (in America)?

And the Japanese regard tipping as a personal insult. Your point?

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#14

Post by bsder »

a3n wrote: post #5

Similar articles: http://www.mediastreet.ie/blog/2015/08/17/ad-blockers-intern... http://www.cio.com/article/2986749/consumer-technology/adver... And this: some publishers are blocking visitors who adblock. Good, don't whine, just allow or block. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/22/reuters-america-google-seeks-... "Germany's biggest newspaper publisher Axel Springer last week banned readers who use ad blockers from its Bi…

> And this: some publishers are blocking visitors who adblock. Good, don't whine, just allow or block.

I am perfectly ok with this. But they don't get to whine when they start falling in the search results because fewer people link to them.

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#15

Post by rayalez »

randombits wrote: post #2

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

I want to ask a question on this subject. Don't websites get paid for(most of?) the ads only when user clicks through?

People talk about turning off ad block "to support creators", but aren't you supporting creators only by clicking on ads?

Personally, I have probably clicked on at most 3-5 ads in the years before I started using adblocker(by accident). Does it even make sense for me to turn it off if I'm not going to click on links anyway?

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#16

Post by Retra »

jrs235 wrote: post #8
aikah wrote: post #3

> For instance, the Washington Post has begun testing a system that locks out visitors who block advertisements. I understand that position. But that's a losing position. It's an arms race, ad-blockers will always find clever ways to bypass these schemes then consultants will come with more complicated scripts that will make web pages heavier and harder to visit for those who don't block ads ... The Washington Post c…

An industry is born and a few companies laugh all the way to the bank. Just like radar detectors and radar guns (now laser instead of radar). The companies that make the technology supply both sides. Innovation improves the guns so then the innovate the detectors so they innovate the... Charging both sides on an ongoing battle.

Most people don't pay for ad blockers.

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#17

Post by ctrl_freak »

rayalez wrote: post #15
randombits wrote: post #2

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

I want to ask a question on this subject. Don't websites get paid for(most of?) the ads only when user clicks through? People talk about turning off ad block "to support creators", but aren't you supporting creators only by clicking on ads? Personally, I have probably clicked on at most 3-5 ads in the years before I started using adblocker(by accident). Does it even make sense for me to turn it off if I'm not going t…

> Don't websites get paid for(most of?) the ads only when user clicks through?

Depends on the inventory. CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and CPC (cost per click) pricing models are both common in the online advertising industry, though CPM is more common with higher end publishers:

https://written.com/blog/51/cpm-cpc-cpa-pricing-online-media

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#18

Post by barclay »

contravariant wrote: post #6

Why on earth would they use TV as an example of a medium where ads worked? The response to the 1999 'ad-skipping' digital recorder was a ridiculous amount of lobbying to try and make it illegal, followed by an ever increasing torrent of ads, which has lead increasingly many people to move away from television altogether to other media with fewer ads.

Seriously. Does no-one remember ReplayTV, and the shit-storm that went up against them?

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#19

Post by pdkl95 »

chillacy wrote: post #12

Ignoring the ethics and just looking at the technology, would the next step for content providers be to do the ad bidding and serving from the webserver itself? This way, ad blockers wouldn't be able to just block an ad serving domain. They could write custom filters for each website, but that increases the work for the adblock lists.

All a website would need to do is tunnel the entire site through a proxy that rewrites all of the asset and other same-site URLs so they are all the same type of synthetic token or hash. This would remove the ability to do host or URL based filtering, forcing ad blockers to download every URL and try to classify by content.

This isn't even a particularly complicated change, and I've seen it done before (circa 1997). As for how this impacts the ability to play the current "ad bidding" game, that is trivially solved by 3rd (4th?) party proxies.

Ad blockers can be inconvenienced even more by making the content unique every time it is sent by the proxy, preventing trivial matching by file hash. The end-game of this type of strategy is having the proxy serve up a single opaque block of WebAssembly code that renders the page to a using custom and/or obfuscated font rendering.

This is almost certainly a stupid way to run a website, but I expect people that feel they are under attack from ad blockers to fight back in any way they can. Some of them are already trying to make up "moral" arguments (and legal wishful-thinking) against the recent increase in ad blocking. Obviously this won't work in the long run, but people that feel they are under attack are not know for making rational decisions.

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#20

Post by pen2l »

rayalez wrote: post #15
randombits wrote: post #2

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

I want to ask a question on this subject. Don't websites get paid for(most of?) the ads only when user clicks through? People talk about turning off ad block "to support creators", but aren't you supporting creators only by clicking on ads? Personally, I have probably clicked on at most 3-5 ads in the years before I started using adblocker(by accident). Does it even make sense for me to turn it off if I'm not going t…

> Personally, I have probably clicked on at most 3-5 ads in the years before I started using adblocker(by accident). Does it even make sense for me to turn it off if I'm not going to click on links anyway?

You'll end up clicking more than 3-5.

I've been using a computer without adbock for the first time this week in the last 6 or something years that I've been using adblock. I've clicked on a lot of ads, they're too relevant. Curiously, I'm getting a lot of ads for products that I've already bought.... and I end up clicking on them to find out more info. They're just too relevant, they'll be about the thing you were thinking about just the other day -- you'll click them.

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