the next thing you know, your political opinion became filtered like ads.
Three to become first European network to block ads
11–20 of 37 posts
Re: Three to become first European network to block ads
#12Right now there is a free rider problem with internet content. If this becomes more prevalent the market will have to adjust to deal with free riders. If you believe that content creators have a right to earn money there are two ways that can happen: 1) directly - you pay directly for the content that you want to consume or 2) indirectly - you see ads or sell your data in some way. I wonder what people will choose if…
If a huge proportion of the internet economy stopped existing, the only real losers would be the big ad firms like google. I think we can all happily live without 99% of youtube's shit
Re: Three to become first European network to block ads
#13This is illegal under EU law: https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/despite-the-hype-isp-adblocki... What makes it illegal is Deep Packet Inspection.
Almost certainly done by host blacklisting. Even ad blockers on computers usually do this. It's just easier.
Browser-integrated adblockers can do better, because they have access to the page content. Host-based blacklists don't work as well; they can only handle hosts that serve ads and nothing else, not hosts that serve both ads and non-ads.
But yeah, host-based blacklisting is the only approach with a hope of working outside the browser. Transparently proxying web traffic wouldn't (and shouldn't) work with HTTPS, and is an incredibly bad idea even with HTTP.
Re: Three to become first European network to block ads
#14Right now there is a free rider problem with internet content. If this becomes more prevalent the market will have to adjust to deal with free riders. If you believe that content creators have a right to earn money there are two ways that can happen: 1) directly - you pay directly for the content that you want to consume or 2) indirectly - you see ads or sell your data in some way. I wonder what people will choose if…
> If you believe that content creators have a right to earn money there are two ways that can happen: 1) directly - you pay directly for the content that you want to consume or 2) indirectly - you see ads or sell your data in some way.
I don't think this is a truism.
Sites in the style of BBC/CNN/Fox/Yahoo/etc. may have a tough time with their online content if they aren't able to support those properties with ads.
IME most content that's actually worth the time it takes to consume (e.g., well-composed articles and essays written by field experts) is not ad-supported. A lot is behind paywalls, and still more is provided on non-ad-supported websites. For example, distributed freely by fee-supported professional organizations or else by the author him/her-self as a tool for self-promotion/brand building. I don't see any reason why high-quality content can't survive on non-ad revenue, given that there are plenty of counter-examples.
And that's just considering the ad-supported sites that are actually content-driven. A lot of online advertisement is not supporting original content creation at all.
Re: Three to become first European network to block ads
#15I'm all for ad blocking. But I'm even more for net neutrality. ISP blocking ads is tiny step away from "blocking all ads expect the ones ISP is paid to let through" and selectively blocking any other kind of content. ISPs are utilities, not censors, nor cops. Someone else mentioned "opt-in" which would not violate net-neutrality and I support.
I'm shocked at some of the answers in this thread: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/denis-o-brien-...
People think this is some sort of fancy "Ad Block Plus" -- it's not.
Basically the ISPs want Google and Facebook to give them revenue because they "transport" their packets that are ads. This is an affront to net neutrality.
Three will block ads and then charge Google/FB to let them through.
Re: Three to become first European network to block ads
#16I'm all for ad blocking. But I'm even more for net neutrality. ISP blocking ads is tiny step away from "blocking all ads expect the ones ISP is paid to let through" and selectively blocking any other kind of content. ISPs are utilities, not censors, nor cops. Someone else mentioned "opt-in" which would not violate net-neutrality and I support.
I'm shocked at some of the answers in this thread: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/denis-o-brien-... People think this is some sort of fancy "Ad Block Plus" -- it's not. Basically the ISPs want Google and Facebook to give them revenue because they "transport" their packets that are ads. This is an affront to net neutrality. Three will block ads and then charge Google/FB to let them through.
"People think this is some sort of fancy "Ad Block Plus" -- it's not."
Uh...
http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/over-300-businesses-...
Re: Three to become first European network to block ads
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If all ISPs did this by default then a lot of content on the web would disappear several months down the line." Good. I don't think most of that would be missed much.
What depends on ads? Top sites and apps: Facebook, Google, New York Times, Gmail, Podcasts (that are increasingly ad supported), Google Maps, etc. Most of the content that trends on hn. Long tail of content that lets you get an answer to just about anything on Google. I think some of these would be missed.
There's also services like Blogger, which I don't think have advertising, but since Google is probably the biggest player in the ad industry then I guess its existence relies on ads. Even web browsers like Firefox indirectly rely on ad money.
Re: Three to become first European network to block ads
#18I'm all for ad blocking. But I'm even more for net neutrality. ISP blocking ads is tiny step away from "blocking all ads expect the ones ISP is paid to let through" and selectively blocking any other kind of content. ISPs are utilities, not censors, nor cops. Someone else mentioned "opt-in" which would not violate net-neutrality and I support.
Indeed. I have a much broader Press Release that is actually pretty clear in stating that Three believes it that ads publisher should pay for the data they use to bring the ad on the user's phone. This is a slippery slope, and certainly a threat to net neutrality.
Re: Three to become first European network to block ads
#19Right now there is a free rider problem with internet content. If this becomes more prevalent the market will have to adjust to deal with free riders. If you believe that content creators have a right to earn money there are two ways that can happen: 1) directly - you pay directly for the content that you want to consume or 2) indirectly - you see ads or sell your data in some way. I wonder what people will choose if…
If a huge proportion of the internet economy stopped existing, the only real losers would be the big ad firms like google. I think we can all happily live without 99% of youtube's shit
If you blocked 99% of ads though, youtube couldn't exist. It would have to become pay to watch. Don't be stupid.
Re: Three to become first European network to block ads
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm shocked at some of the answers in this thread: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/denis-o-brien-... People think this is some sort of fancy "Ad Block Plus" -- it's not. Basically the ISPs want Google and Facebook to give them revenue because they "transport" their packets that are ads. This is an affront to net neutrality. Three will block ads and then charge Google/FB to let them through.
"People think this is some sort of fancy "Ad Block Plus" -- it's not." Uh... http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/over-300-businesses-...
A browser plug-in modifying/controlling traffic. Acceptable.
An ISP modifying/controlling traffic. Dangerous precedent.
What makes it different in my view is that in one scenario the end user is in control in the other the ISP is in control.