Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

motherboard.vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 217 posts

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#81

Post by team_doom »

tomp wrote: post #44
team_doom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the wrong way to approach this. You're essentially pirating content now. If you don't like the ads, stop using the site. It's that simple. To take it a step farther, send an email to customer service explaining WHY you're no longer using the site. This sends a much stronger message to them about what makes you unhappy with the service they provide.

> You're essentially pirating content now. Earlier, the websites were "pirating" his/her device & browser.

I'm not sure what you mean by this?

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#82

Post by ssharp »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #40
mahranch wrote: post #15

Black and white thinking. Content creators still need to get paid. I'd be quite upset if my favorite sites had to shut down due to the rise of ad blocking and non-viable alternatives to ads (like "subscriptions", etc...)

Black and white thinking. Content creators can still get paid. They just need to figure out a business model that doesn't hijack my browsing session, use the limited mobile data I'm allotted and pay for each month to serve unwanted content, drain my battery, eat my CPU, track my reading/surfing/porn habits and potentially run malicious code on my machines.

You seem to think content creators sit in some evil dungeon, plotting out ways to screw their readers with ads.

That's not really it at all. There are a limited number of ad networks out there and publishers attach themselves to one or more of them. At that point, the publisher is largely clear of the process, unless they're negotiating custom deals of some sort, which happens with larger sites but is far less common than small sites.

The people doing the tracking aren't the content sites -- it's the ad networks. As a publisher, I'm not privy to your personal details.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#83

Post by tremon »

wslh wrote: post #53
karterk wrote: post #5

For a very long time, I did not want to use ad blockers. I have used ads in the past to monetize some of my own projects, and I really did not want to stab the creators of quality content. However, last week I finally reversed my decision and started using ad blockers. Why? Frankly, many sites are just greedy. Banners were ugly enough (and I tolerated them) but many sites these days show ads that cover the content, a…

> Businesses have to come up with better monetization strategies. I don't like Ads but possibly there is no general way to monetize content and this is the problem. With lot of freely available value on Internet it is really difficult to convert it to $$$.

there is no general way to monetize content

Then, according to the laws of capital dynamics, that content should die out.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#84

Post by saetaes »

cm2187 wrote: post #31
sokoloff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They block one vector of tracking. They don't block CDN-based tracking: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/11/30/a-new-type-of-trackin... (note the juxtaposition of "new" and "2010")

Looks like akamai needs to be added to my blockers list.

Akamai sold that business a few years ago:

https://www.akamai.com/us/en/about/news/press/2013-press/med...

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#85

Post by eli »

nulbyte wrote: post #55
karterk wrote: post #5

For a very long time, I did not want to use ad blockers. I have used ads in the past to monetize some of my own projects, and I really did not want to stab the creators of quality content. However, last week I finally reversed my decision and started using ad blockers. Why? Frankly, many sites are just greedy. Banners were ugly enough (and I tolerated them) but many sites these days show ads that cover the content, a…

I believe you hit the nail on the head: greed. This was my tipping point. When sites got so greedy that they stopped caring if anyone read their content, I stopped caring if they got paid for obtrusive ads. Even Google has designed some horrendous ads, especially the Nexus ad that grabs swipes on mobile, keeping you from scrolling past it. If the ads stuck to the meatverse-equivalent style of static but attractive, I…

Is it fair to call it "greed" if these sites aren't making much money, even with all the aggressive ad units? You need to have an extremely popular site with uncommonly low overhead to be very profitable just off of banner ads.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#86

Post by [deleted] »

tremon wrote: post #83
wslh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Businesses have to come up with better monetization strategies. I don't like Ads but possibly there is no general way to monetize content and this is the problem. With lot of freely available value on Internet it is really difficult to convert it to $$$.

there is no general way to monetize content Then, according to the laws of capital dynamics, that content should die out.

[deleted]

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#87

Post by tremon »

jamespo wrote: post #64
tomp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're essentially pirating content now. Earlier, the websites were "pirating" his/her device & browser.

How did they do that, put a rootkit on his machine forcing all hits to them?

Can you say for certain that none of the sites you visit run a javascript bitcoin miner?

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#88

Post by ceejayoz »

chrisseaton wrote: post #67
a3n wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how it's done, but it happens. Forbes Shuts Down Ads Serving Malware http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/09/22/forbes...

I don't know how it's done either, and I've heard about them a few times. It seems somewhat unlikely that there is a remote code execution vulnerability being exploited only by adverts that hasn't been urgently fixed by the browsers. If there genuinely is an exploit, an advert blocker isn't enough as you could put it on any website as well. Therefore I wonder if it's possible that someone has a mis-informed definitio…

> If there genuinely is an exploit, an advert blocker isn't enough as you could put it on any website as well.

Sure, but then people need to visit that website. Ad networks are a popular delivery method because it gets your code out to millions of people quickly. Putting your exploit on a new Tumblr blog doesn't get you a big botnet.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#89

Post by tremon »

jamespo wrote: post #74
freehunter wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they didn't exactly say "do we have your permission to run your CPU up to 100%, hog all of your memory, and install trackers on your computer? And occasionally, can we install malware on your machine?"

Reminds me of the arguments about not letting in any refugees as some of them may commit a crime.

Except that we do not have a humanitarian obligation towards javascriptlets.

Re: Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner

#90

Post by eli »

chrisseaton wrote: post #47
FussyZeus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last three viral infections I've had on my PC's have come from advertisements on websites. I generally will whitelist a select few websites that I trust to not destroy my computer and to not run irritating ads, but at the end of the day this is my damn computer, not the ad companies. If I don't feel like running their code then I can make my machine not do that and there isn't jack they can do about it. Oh no I c…

How does an advert deliver a virus? Are these genuine remote native code execution vulnerabilities in browsers? Or just breaking the sandbox somehow and using internal browser APIs? Isn't what you need a security patch for your browser rather than an advert blocker?

Yes, exactly correct. If an ad blocker is the only thing between you and a compromised machine then you are not safe.

I'd be curious if anyone has data, but I would guess "hacked wordpress site" is a far more common vector for spreading this sort of malware than malicious ads.

Post reply on HN