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Adblock Plus now sells ads

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Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#171

Post by pmoriarty »

cptskippy wrote: post #162
pythia__ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unethical? What ethical principle is being violated? (These are not rhetorical questions.)

Blocking Ad is itself unethical. Ads are placed on pages to pay for the content. By blocking ads you are depriving the content creators of compensation for their work. Replacing Ads with other ads is worse because you're not only depriving a content creator of revenue but then profiting off of their work. You could argue that it amounts to theft.

Merely unblocking ads is not enough! If you don't buy the products advertised on every website you read, you are unethical.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#172

Post by helthanatos »

I am not particularly upset (besides they have been going this direction for a while) I just don't like obtrusive ads and, odly, some websites have so many ads that their styling is incredibly messed up without them. I may switch to another adblocker if I see too much stuff, but seeing some ads doesn't really anger me.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#173

Post by ceejayoz »

dsr_ wrote: post #165
cptskippy wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking Ad is itself unethical. Ads are placed on pages to pay for the content. By blocking ads you are depriving the content creators of compensation for their work. Replacing Ads with other ads is worse because you're not only depriving a content creator of revenue but then profiting off of their work. You could argue that it amounts to theft.

Do you also think that leaving the room or changing the channel when the TV or radio plays an ad is unethical? Is using fast-forward on your DVR unethical? Is skimming past the ads in a newspaper or magazine unethical? Is it ethical to let your eyes glide past the ads shown in a browser? Is it ethical to read books from a free library rather than buying the right to read a copy from a store?

None of those situations are very comparable.

TV is paid on viewership numbers. Newspapers are paid on circulation. Gliding past ads on a site is factored into the CPM values. Books in a library are paid for and covered by the first-sale doctrine.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#174

Post by avn2109 »

jackhack wrote: post #151
pythia__ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unethical? What ethical principle is being violated? (These are not rhetorical questions.)

Trust. Performing the exact opposite of the stated and expected purpose of the application, for money, is a violation of trust. There is an implied belief that a product should do what it claims (and its name clearly states a purpose -- ad BLOCK), and the plain English reading of the title makes that pretty clear. Imagine a virus scanner that only blocked those viruses that didn't pay up.

I have never trusted the ABP people. But this is not the "opposite of the expected purpose of the application." In fact ABP is working exactly as designed, by blocking other people's ads, and allowing ads that ABP profits from. From day one, the business model was shakedowns of large advertisers. This is just a slight evolution in technique.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#176

Post by JulianMorrison »

jackhack wrote: post #151
pythia__ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unethical? What ethical principle is being violated? (These are not rhetorical questions.)

Trust. Performing the exact opposite of the stated and expected purpose of the application, for money, is a violation of trust. There is an implied belief that a product should do what it claims (and its name clearly states a purpose -- ad BLOCK), and the plain English reading of the title makes that pretty clear. Imagine a virus scanner that only blocked those viruses that didn't pay up.

This is a conflict of values between users and the devs.

- Users want ads to just go away, period, the end.

- The devs want ads to be nice. So they swat down the nasty ones and permit the nice ones.

Ransomware was probably the wrong way to do that, but I can see why it was superficially appealing. "We check your ads for niceness, and then permit them. We won't give our effort away for free", being the idea behind it.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#177

Post by arca_vorago »

Someone1234 wrote: post #147
m0nty wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, look at blocking DNS as an alternative to in-browser blocking: http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman

Using a HOSTS file to block things while effective, is also a very bad user experience. For example, some sites won't let you in until you unblock ads. With an extension you can use the in-browser UI to whitelist that site, with a HOSTS file you'd have to figure out exactly which domains got blocked, then update the HOSTS file, and finally restart the browser & flush the DNS Cache Resolver for it to take effect. Agai…

This is also the purpose of using DNS management like Umbrella from OpenDNS, which has been serving me very well. It catches most malware sites, and I can add in my own whitelist, blacklists. I did get a bit overzealous and add a cdn once that caused a ruckus, but besides that, one by one blocking ad networks based on which ones generate the most traffic is not only keeping my bandwidth cleaner but makes parsing through dns logs much easier.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#178

Post by stincity »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #54
jwise0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the royal "we", perhaps :-) I started blocking ads because they dramatically slowed down my browsing experience. But I keep blocking ads because, fundamentally, I believe that advertisements are neurotoxins, and nobody has the right to poison me. The old Sean Tejaratchi quote - popularized by Banksy - applies here, I think - http://www.readingfrenzy.com/ledger/2012/03/taking_the_piss

>> "I believe that advertisements are neurotoxins, and nobody has the right to poison me." And you have no right to the content you're viewing but blocking ads on. If you really consider ads 'poison' surely boycotting sites that use ads is the solution or offering an alternative solution this is actually viable.

And I respectfully disagree. I don't enjoy ads, I never click on them even if the item is something I'd use at the time, I will not click on it. I'll just go to amazon or whatever and get it there. I will never, ever click on an ad. So I'd rather not even see them.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#179

Post by themartorana »

chii wrote: post #158
bargl wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to go out there and say, they don't have the right to poison you, but you don't have the right to their content... I fall in this weird spot with ads. I don't like them, they slow down the experience, they can have PORN on them (this happened to my brother the other day), they have little oversight and track you. Many things I do not approve of. What I DO approve of is paying content creators. And unless…

> you don't have the right to their content... if they allow the public to view their content, they cannot dictate how the content is viewed. There's ways to block people from viewing content if ads are blocked - but a lot of sites don't do that, because they deem the traffic more important.

"...if they allow the public to view their content, they cannot dictate how the content is viewed..."

You could not be more wrong. I am having a hard time imagining any art installation, public park, etc., that does not have rules about how you use and consume it. Offering something to the public does not mean the method of consumption is suddenly a free-for-all.

This is a ridiculous assumption that gets played out here a lot. There is an agreed-upon trade taking place - you get to consume content, they get to advertise to you. If you don't like the terms, you should avoid engaging in the transaction.

I do believe that tracking your activity borders on an illegal invasion of privacy, and so I support blocking trackers. If trackers come disguised as ads, they should be blocked. That said, trackers are most often invisible, and a person is unable to make a decision about the agreement at hand. There, the transaction is unfair. Ads however, are immediately clear, and make the value proposition very easy to understand.

Take movies, for example. You used to buy a ticket, and watch a movie. Then theaters started running commercials (not previews) before a film. I stopped going to theaters that run commercials. I understand that previews are also commercials, but I've made an informed decision about which types of transactions I'm willing to engage in with theaters.

The same should go for websites. I'm very happy to be passively advertised to in exchange for content. (Same happens on TV while watching football on the weekends - I've accepted the transaction.) Ads that auto-play videos with audio turned on? Absolutely not. And so sites that do that have become sites I don't visit.

So, I am all for sites refusing to provide content without a value exchange. I remain against illicit collection of private information without consent.

Edit: the down-votes are silly. Try engaging in conversation instead.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#180

Post by andreareina »

I agree with an acceptable ads program. It shouldn't be an ad blocker running it, not if it's monetized. Paid access onto the acceptable ads list is the reason I stopped using ABP in the first place; this just put the nail in the coffin.
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