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AdNauseam: Fight Back Against Advertising Networks and Privacy Abuse

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

#101

Post by TeMPOraL »

sanswork wrote: post #93
dumb-saint wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, they are not paying me for anything. Again, I did not enter into any agreement. I just clicked a link. They are expending their resources in an attempt to capture and profit from my attention. Those are very different things. Many times they also payed to make it hard for me to get to the content that I actually wanted. This is commonly known as SEO.

>I just clicked a link. Because you want to consume what they've produced. That is how they are paying you. You keep saying "I did not enter into any agreement" like it changes anything. It's juvenile.

The foundation of the Web - the Hypertext Transfer Protocol - is that I request a piece of data from a given address, while also providing relevant information about my capabilities and media I'm willing to accept, and then you send me back that data.

What I do with that data isn't up to you. That includes viewing all, parts, or none of the information I received from your server. That especially includes deciding about what code gets executed on my machine.

If advertisers want to control what I am doing with the content I get, please find yourself a new protocol and DRM it to your hearts' content. Just leave the Web alone.

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

#102

Post by [deleted] »

sanswork wrote: post #82
criddell wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As it becomes more of an issue you start seeing more and more anti-blocking scripts. That seems incredibly tone deaf. Advertisers should be working on fixing the problems. Get rid of tracking, get rid of scripts, make promises about acceptable ad size and latency and every year reduce those numbers.

Ad blockers aren't a problem for advertisers since people using ad blockers likely aren't going to click on your ads anyhow. They are a problem for content creators.

[deleted]

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

#103

Post by Sir_Substance »

sanswork wrote: post #89
Sir_Substance wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Once or twice in all your years online you have agreed to an alternate funding method and you think that is sustainable for content creators? It works fabulously as supplemental income for talented artisnal content creators who make their content because they care. They'll probably still need a day job like the rest of us, but there's a good chance people will hire them for those same skills that make them great con…

You seem to think that all content costs only the creators time to develop. I think that says a lot.

Stating an untrue statement as fact and hoping your opposite number will debate it, thus tacitly accepting it, is an extremely low quality argumentative technique, sitting somewhere between "responding to tone" and "ad hominum" on the hierarchy of arguments[1].

You strike me as a standup chap who would not resort to such techniques, so I'm sure you'll now be willing to explain to me how you came to such a conclusion, so I can help dispel your misconception?

[1] http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

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

#104

Post by TeMPOraL »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #66
eloff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Micropayments have never worked well on the internet, not for technical problems, but likely more that the market isn't really there. I know I just want free stuff and I'm not going to pay to read a news article or blog post no matter how well written or researched. So at the end of the day there is still no viable alternative to advertising supported content. Kill advertising and you'll take the content with it, bec…

Gaming streamers on Twitch seem to get quite a bit of donations. Streamers are personalities that connect with their audience and have a following. Surprisingly, movies and music are now available through subscription services, after many years of sharing for free. These services are successful because they are polished, convenient and legal. People are paying a lot for ebooks, in-game items and other virtual goods.…

> People are paying a lot for ebooks, in-game items and other virtual goods.

Oh yes. Besides the small money drain Netflix and Spotify are, I've lost count on just how much money I spent buying e-books - legal, official e-books - just because of the convenience factor.

> A decent article that makes you think for a bit? Not good enough, chances are they'll follow a popular author and his movement and put some money down for the cause they believe in.

I rarely see such articles published in an ad-sponsored context anyway. An occasional mainstream journalism article, maybe. But as far as I can tell, most interesting/thought-provoking pieces now are being published by bloggers, which can successfully be funded by patronage, or even pay for hosting themselves (it's peanuts).

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

#106

Post by Balgair »

Ok, so I may or may not have actually used this extension in the past (I may or may not be really vague as I don't really understand if this is legally fraud). The extension may or may not suck really bad. It may or may not lock up your browser when it clicks all the ads on a site. It may or may not 'work' at all in conjunction with TrackMeNot (a similar extension that flak-cannons trackers) and BSOD your laptop all the frickin time. I may or may not have uninstalled the extension within a hour due to how bad things got.

I think it's a fun concept, but the implementation of it may or may not be something that you want to fight with for less than a day before swearing it off. It's possibly so bad that I think it may have been written in order to turn people off from this 'attack' towards trackers as it may or may not remind one of the repulsion that rotten milk has upon first sniff.

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

#107

Post by dispose13432 »

_m7bj wrote: post #61
sanswork wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You set the price when you consume the content that you know is funded with ads. It is your attention which you are agreeing to trade for information or entertainment. >They're welcome to block me from their websites, if they feel that's not acceptable. This is more commonly happening now. Then we all have to deal with people complaining about that. Taking up /my/ attention which they are refusing to pay for. Pay me…

>You set the price when you consume the content that you know is funded with ads. You're objectively wrong. If that were the case, I would be blocked from accessing the content without "paying the price". The situation is instead clearly analogous to a "pay what you feel it is worth" model. The creators of the content allow anyone to view it, regardless of whether they run an ad blocker or not. Sometimes, they place…

>The creators of the content allow anyone to view it, regardless of whether they run an ad blocker or not. Sometimes, they place alternative content where the ads would be, requesting that I disable my ad blocker, or like them on facebook as an alternative.

So would you suggest (or would you even use) AdBlockers identify themselves to the website (so I can write "if($_SERVER["AdBlocker]){echo "Sorry, see ads or leave}"?

Because there are adblock blockers, and people write _adblock-blocker-blockers_.

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

#108

Post by dispose13432 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #75
sanswork wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your time is so important why are you wasting it visiting pages with ads? >There's enough better content available for free and without ads Surely you'd just stick with the better content that doesn't use ads all the time right?

> If your time is so important why are you wasting it visiting pages with ads? Because I get linked to them. Also, social objects - other people are visiting those pages, so I have to check them out too in order to participate in the conversation. Also, YouTube. > Surely you'd just stick with the better content that doesn't use ads all the time right? Yeah, and I mostly do.

>social objects - other people are visiting those pages, so I have to check them out too in order to participate in the conversation.

So maybe that's the cost of not seeing ads, you don't get to participate in conversations.

It's like if Stallman would, instead of making GNU, hack into MS and put the source online because he "just has to".

Most of the time, taking a moral stand requires sacrifice.

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

#109

Post by amelius »

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?

> Is this really activism or just vandalism?

Analogy time. A guy sits outside my house with a camera, making pictures through a 10cm slit between the curtains. I come out of the house, take his camera and smash it. Vandalism? Don't think so. Activism? Not really. Basically, this is just self-protection. Preventing this from happening in the future (or at least making a good attempt at it).

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