Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#281

Post by aleem » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

gorhill wrote: post #117

Leynos wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock can already do this (I use it for hiding the Twitter "while you were away" nonsense), although I suspect that the next step is Facebook scrambling DOM classes and ids with no discernable pattern.

> scrambling DOM classes and ids with no discernable pattern That's why I have been beefing up the DOM filtering code in the latest versions -- there are already sites doing this. There is a lot of untapped potential with the new operators, I am waiting for opportunities to put them to test, and fine-tune them if needed.

Thanks for your wonderful work.

> That's why I have been beefing up the DOM filtering code

Isn't it all done through CSS selectors? Could you share more?

How about leveraging other heuristics such as HTTP headers (response cookies for starters) or timing information?

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#282

Post by ihsw » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #275

ihsw wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, when they visit, there are no interstitial pages, boxes covering the page when a user mouses out of the viewport, autoplaying audio/video, or any of that other obscene nonsense.

paulddraper is pointing out that if the user has an adblocker, they will never notice whether your ads are intrusive or not.

There is no chance to recover a user after they install an adblocker.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#283

Post by dragandj » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #271

ominous wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the party has no justification to exist other than someone wants to be paid for it. Close it down, if you can't force me to pay. Keep trying.

Are you against businesses being able to set their prices? They're asking you to pay the market price. If you're not fine with it, doing some unilateral haggling isn't exactly how exchanges work, just don't use their product. Using Facebook is not a right. The fact of the matter is, most people waxing poetic here about ads infringing on their rights, will still use Facebook when their adblockers don't work. They are…

The problem is also that the content they serve is displayed on the consumer's property (computer). The owner of the computer has the right to select what portion of the crap he's been served will be displayed. If Facebook (or any other company that relies on targeted ads as a business model) do not like that, they have the right to not send their content to the consumer's property. But, once they send it, they do not have right to force me to look at it. (Not a legal opinion, I'm just giving my perspective)

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#284

Post by hsod » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #242

hsod wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook's profitability is not your problem. No, but acting with honesty and fairness is. Facebook is asking you not to use their service if you are going to block ads. I think it's obvious that the "right" thing to do is to respect their wishes, not sneeringly defy them while using their resources and giving nothing in return.

Facebook is a social-media advertising company. Their model, boiled down, is to extract the maximum possible value out of me in return for the minimum possible effort from them. Why shouldn't I approach them the same way? And given how often the above describes the way businesses will treat me, why shouldn't I generalize that position?

> Why shouldn't I approach them the same way?

Practically: because it leads to a race to the bottom, lowering to their level, the world just gets worse and worse

Philosophically: because ethics are a fundamental part of who you are, and strangers acting unethically does not relieve you of their burdens

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#285

Post by hsod » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 6:34 PM UTC

facetube wrote: post #238

hsod wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook's profitability is not your problem. No, but acting with honesty and fairness is. Facebook is asking you not to use their service if you are going to block ads. I think it's obvious that the "right" thing to do is to respect their wishes, not sneeringly defy them while using their resources and giving nothing in return.

There is absolutely nothing dishonest about only downloading and rendering the web content you want to view.

IMO, the technical mechanisms are irrelevant. the ethical questions easily map to a face-to-face interaction.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#286

Post by blahi » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 6:37 PM UTC

millstone wrote: post #274

blahi wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you feel entitled to use facebook's resources?

Facebook tracks you and shows you ads regardless of whether you use Facebook. http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/27/11795248/facebook-ad-netwo...

How is this pertinent to the discussion about serving and blocking ads on facebook.com?

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#287

Post by ominous » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 6:42 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #271

ominous wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the party has no justification to exist other than someone wants to be paid for it. Close it down, if you can't force me to pay. Keep trying.

Are you against businesses being able to set their prices? They're asking you to pay the market price. If you're not fine with it, doing some unilateral haggling isn't exactly how exchanges work, just don't use their product. Using Facebook is not a right. The fact of the matter is, most people waxing poetic here about ads infringing on their rights, will still use Facebook when their adblockers don't work. They are…

I am against business trying to make me agree the price is fair. And the price of having ads displayed on my computer is too high.

Ads are like a donation box, not like a price tag.

Am I being forced to donate?

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#288

Post by freehunter » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 6:42 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #166

hodder wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Serious question: Why do you block FB ads?" Because I dont like looking at ads.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "if you [Facebook] want me to consume ads, make ads I want to consume". The thing is, this already exists and it's called native advertising. The trick is to create advertisements that, while endorsing a product, have real value for me. A simple example: a tutorial on doing XYZ with Docker on Google Compute Engine might (A) be relevant to my interests and immediately useful,…

I actually run a local-interest blog for my small city, and whenever I talk to people about it they're amazed I don't have ads all over the place. "How do you make money", "why would you run this site without making money", "you should be getting something for it", etc. They don't immediately realize that 90% of the content on the site is advertising, and I actually am getting paid for it. I'll write an article about whatever I want, in whatever tone I want, for free. But sometimes businesses want to set their own tone, or want me to write about something that isn't immediately interesting to me. Sometimes they want me to run a story before I would otherwise do so. And they'll pay me for that. Not a lot, but it generally covers the cost of hosting at least. I have an entire section, accessible from any page, that goes into my advertising policy and how businesses can contact me.

Ads don't have to look like ads. And ads can give value, too. Did the local tavern pay me to run a story talking about their new 1/2 off drinks special every Wednesday? They sure did. But people clicked on it and read the article and then visited the bar and took advantage of the promotion. Not because they were tricked into doing so, but because it was interesting to them and they got value from it. And those people will come back to the site again tomorrow and read the next one, because my advertising provides real value to them.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#289

Post by truncate » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 6:42 PM UTC

legohead wrote: post #167

deanCommie wrote: post #7

They are welcome to try. And I am welcome to try harder to block them. As long as they don't try to force some sort of legislation on how people can use their internet connection, and their internet browser to fetch and display content, there's no problem. The real problem is Facebook is already full of advertising disguised as content. From sponsored posts to content from things you "like". So I'm kind of surprised…

I worked for a company that got most of its revenue from online ads. When I started, adblockers were 20%. When it got up to 35% the boss decided to take action. We hired a third party anti-adblocker, and it worked great. It went back and forth with the adblockers as they updated to block our anti-blocking. Most adblock extensions use some standard rules-lists, similar to email spam lists like Spamhaus. I guess we pis…

Just wondering how fast would the ad-blockers respond to you changes?

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#290

Post by effie » Tue, Aug 09, 2016, 6:44 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #221

cmc31 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that in their EULA?

Oh but my EULA says "By injecting ads into the articles I read, you implicitly agree to provide me with free resources with no obligation on my part".

That's good, I may incorporate something like this into my User-Agent.