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

AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 282 posts

Re: AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

#21

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #14

I'm out on this. 1. They say it's legally not click fraud. To me it sounds like regular fraud: "deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right". I'm not concerned with breaking the law I just don't want to act in the spirit of it. 2. This could hurt small startups that are very carefully managing an ad budget. They say the market will adjust, but until it does small startups take…

Regarding #3, I'm personally 100% against any online advertising in any form. So this punishes those who support it. Ditto for #2. As for #1, I'm not gaining anything, and no one is being deprived for their rights. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there?

If anything prosecutors should start with the rampant fraud being committed by companies in the online advertising space before they even think about looking at consumers.

FTR: I don't use AdNauseam because I'd prefer to nuke trackers and ads alltogether, but I'm supportive of the project.

Re: AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

#22

Post by lhc- »

sbarre wrote: post #19
WhitneyLand wrote: post #14

I'm out on this. 1. They say it's legally not click fraud. To me it sounds like regular fraud: "deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right". I'm not concerned with breaking the law I just don't want to act in the spirit of it. 2. This could hurt small startups that are very carefully managing an ad budget. They say the market will adjust, but until it does small startups take…

I think #3 is the key thing here.. Is this really activism or just vandalism?

If your cause is to decrease advertising on the web, and these actions diminish its effectiveness and potentially lead to decreased advertising in search of a better revenue stream, well that sounds like effective activism to me.

Re: AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

#23

Post by AnimalMuppet »

amelius wrote: post #18
eli wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisers will just lower their bids, so it mostly hurts the publishers of the websites you visit.

> Advertisers will just lower their bids, so it mostly hurts the publishers of the websites you visit. ... who will then have to revert to a more sane monetization scheme, which doesn't mess with their visitors' data.

I doubt it. More likely, who will progress to even more insane monetization schemes...

Re: AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

#25

Post by spott »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #21
WhitneyLand wrote: post #14

I'm out on this. 1. They say it's legally not click fraud. To me it sounds like regular fraud: "deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right". I'm not concerned with breaking the law I just don't want to act in the spirit of it. 2. This could hurt small startups that are very carefully managing an ad budget. They say the market will adjust, but until it does small startups take…

Regarding #3, I'm personally 100% against any online advertising in any form. So this punishes those who support it. Ditto for #2. As for #1, I'm not gaining anything, and no one is being deprived for their rights. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there? If anything prosecutors should start with the rampant fraud being committed by companies in the online advertising space before they even think about lo…

>Regarding #3, I'm personally 100% against any online advertising in any form.

What is your preferred method of paying people on the internet for their content? Do you think that micropayments would be a valid way to deal with this compensation gap?

Re: AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

#26

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

spott wrote: post #25
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #3, I'm personally 100% against any online advertising in any form. So this punishes those who support it. Ditto for #2. As for #1, I'm not gaining anything, and no one is being deprived for their rights. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there? If anything prosecutors should start with the rampant fraud being committed by companies in the online advertising space before they even think about lo…

>Regarding #3, I'm personally 100% against any online advertising in any form. What is your preferred method of paying people on the internet for their content? Do you think that micropayments would be a valid way to deal with this compensation gap?

Depends on the content. I like Patreon-style for YouTube, and that also occasionally fits with other things. I would also subscribe to a good source of news, though I haven't found one that qualifies as such yet.

Re: AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

#27

Post by chokma »

Hm...

From the perspective of the ad network:

Lower click quality drives up the merchant's cost of sale (COS). Sitting between the merchant and the publisher, the ad network tries to balance this out, by

  - mixing good and bad traffic sources
  - encouraging the merchant to spend more money 
    so they can buy better traffic and/or rank the offers higher on their publisher's sites
  - punishing the publisher for sending bad traffic by lowering the amount the publisher is paid for each click
  - filtering out extraordinarily bad traffic
AdNauseam will increase the amount of bad traffic. Merchants have to pay more money to get their ads through to those people who do not create fraudulent clicks. Publishers will receive less money per click. Ad networks will try harder to invade your privacy(1) so they can get more comprehensive data about those people who are worthy to be targeted. Startups which promise to detect fake traffic will get a boost. Companies which manage advertising via social influencers or in-game mobile ads etc cannot care less.

I do not see the direct benefit of this for the end user...

(1) for example by paying more money to antivirus providers to send your browsing habits their way.

edit: formatting

Re: AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

#28

Post by enraged_camel »

spott wrote: post #25
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #3, I'm personally 100% against any online advertising in any form. So this punishes those who support it. Ditto for #2. As for #1, I'm not gaining anything, and no one is being deprived for their rights. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there? If anything prosecutors should start with the rampant fraud being committed by companies in the online advertising space before they even think about lo…

>Regarding #3, I'm personally 100% against any online advertising in any form. What is your preferred method of paying people on the internet for their content? Do you think that micropayments would be a valid way to deal with this compensation gap?

Not the OP, but I prefer subscriptions. It's a direct exchange of money for value, and doesn't involve a creepy middleman whose incentive is to track you across the web.

Re: AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

#29

Post by _tulpa »

hidden_forest wrote: post #15

I block all ads, tracking, beacons, etc. because they are now the single largest vector for malware. I use Firefox largely because it's the most hackable browser. I tweak Firefox to do and not do several things: - I don't allow sites to see my history - I don't allow peerconnect - I don't allow WebRTC (shows private address schemas) - I don't allow much JS - I don't allow fingerprinting beyond pure basics - I don't a…

Would you mind elaborating on the tools you use?

Re: AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

#30

Post by kuschku »

spott wrote: post #25
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #3, I'm personally 100% against any online advertising in any form. So this punishes those who support it. Ditto for #2. As for #1, I'm not gaining anything, and no one is being deprived for their rights. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there? If anything prosecutors should start with the rampant fraud being committed by companies in the online advertising space before they even think about lo…

>Regarding #3, I'm personally 100% against any online advertising in any form. What is your preferred method of paying people on the internet for their content? Do you think that micropayments would be a valid way to deal with this compensation gap?

I pay for the news that I read online by having subscribed to them also in paper form, or by paying taxes.

Most other services I use are paid via subscription fees, or are run ad-free by people as hobby projects.

Almost all the ad-supported services I use are monopolies anyway, have strict network lock-in effects, and shouldn't be in private hand anyway, instead they should be run by a cooperative, foundation, or government. (For example, web search, maps, phone books, etc).

This leaves us with a few ad-supported pages which likely couldn’t directly survive in this new environment, but which rely on content creators for their business anyway – such as YouTube.

For such cases, something like Flattr, but paid out by view, would be useful – something like the Datenträgerabgabe for the GEMA and VG Wort, but paid per month, not per empty CD bought.

Post reply on HN