Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker • Hacker News Board

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#21

Post by mrgreenfur » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 11:16 PM UTC

jfasi wrote: post #10

> Web users will quickly recognize their only options: pay to use the internet, or uninstall the ad blockers and surf the web for free. Or they could disable Chrome ad blocking and install their ad blocker of choice. If I'm reading this correctly then no portion of the user population is hurt by this. Power with religious objections to advertising are free to continue using them. Typical users who don't care don't ha…

That sounds nice, but there's still a conflict of interest in them owning the biggest browser, the biggest ad network and now selectively blocking. Seems like an obvious slippery slope that might not be bad at launch, but will slowly make the other ad networks (even) less competitive.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#22

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 11:19 PM UTC

__jal wrote: post #13

Shank wrote: post #5

> Google, a data mining and extraction company that sells personal information to advertisers The content in this article, is, for the most part, good content. What annoys me is that The Intercept seems fit to act like a heroic good guy insofar as being completely biased against Google from start to finish in what could have been a mostly informational article. An opening lead like this serves no purpose other than m…

Google is a data mining and extraction company. That's hard to argue with. Are you complaining about the "sells personal information" part?

[deleted]

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#23

Post by aanm1988 » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 11:24 PM UTC

I really feel like this is where the government should step in and tell Google no.

I'd rather see worse ads then let Google do this.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#24

Post by praxulus » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 11:26 PM UTC

newtem0 wrote: post #19

I still dont understand why simple endorsments dont work for some sites. Just put a text banner somewhere prominent that says "thanks bobs burgers for being our sponsor" there is no way ad blockers could pick that text out of all the other text and block it. And there is no reason anyone would want to block it anyway.

You can't charge as much for that kind of ad, because it has poorer targeting, can't be updated as easily to facilitate shorter marketing campaigns, can't support A/B testing, and probably a dozen other major things advertisers care about.

I do occasionally see that kind of sponsorship, but only on websites that take very little time/money to maintain.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#25

Post by ucaetano » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 11:35 PM UTC

It is worth remembering the The Intercept used to (still does?) work with and publish material from a Oracle-funded nonprofit that existed for the sole purpose of creating bad PR for Google:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/anti-google-rese...

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#26

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 11:35 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #5

> Google, a data mining and extraction company that sells personal information to advertisers The content in this article, is, for the most part, good content. What annoys me is that The Intercept seems fit to act like a heroic good guy insofar as being completely biased against Google from start to finish in what could have been a mostly informational article. An opening lead like this serves no purpose other than m…

"Just the facts" journalism was always a myth, because journalists inherently choose which facts to report.

IMHO The Intercept has been pretty up-front about their POV: they're supposed to be the publication that speaks truth to power, meaning that they're opposed to basically all big institutions (Google, Facebook, big corporations, establishment media, both political parties, the government, all governments, etc.) If you share their POV, of course they're the heroic good guy. If you don't, they can be kinda annoying.

Even if you don't fully share their POV, though, it can be good to read them to get a diverse array of POVs. I'm an ex-Googler, so of course I found their anti-Google bias a bit grating. Nevertheless, I'm glad I read it, because it was informative and offers a perspective that other mainstream news sources are not reporting on.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#27

Post by ucaetano » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 11:37 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #5

> Google, a data mining and extraction company that sells personal information to advertisers The content in this article, is, for the most part, good content. What annoys me is that The Intercept seems fit to act like a heroic good guy insofar as being completely biased against Google from start to finish in what could have been a mostly informational article. An opening lead like this serves no purpose other than m…

The Intercept has never been a "just the facts" journal:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/anti-google-rese...

They are more of a think-tank or advocacy group than a newspaper.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#28

Post by nitwit005 » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 11:40 PM UTC

newtem0 wrote: post #19

I still dont understand why simple endorsments dont work for some sites. Just put a text banner somewhere prominent that says "thanks bobs burgers for being our sponsor" there is no way ad blockers could pick that text out of all the other text and block it. And there is no reason anyone would want to block it anyway.

How much should you pay for that endorsement? Normally, you'd pay based on how many people see the ad. That, then incentives lying about how many people saw the ad, or creating fake views with bots. To deal with that, you add in Javascript that checks if the ad is genuinely visible and, try to validate that they aren't a bot, and whatever other fakery they try.

Adding a layer on top of that, people generally have a target audience, so if you want them as a customer, you might have to inject some more Javascript to determine if the user is part of the target audience.

And pretty soon the site is full of tracking beacons and blobs of JS.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#29

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 11:40 PM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #27

Shank wrote: post #5

> Google, a data mining and extraction company that sells personal information to advertisers The content in this article, is, for the most part, good content. What annoys me is that The Intercept seems fit to act like a heroic good guy insofar as being completely biased against Google from start to finish in what could have been a mostly informational article. An opening lead like this serves no purpose other than m…

The Intercept has never been a "just the facts" journal: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/anti-google-rese... They are more of a think-tank or advocacy group than a newspaper.

That article is about the Google Transparency Project, which is a separate organization from The Intercept. Think of GTP as being a PR firm and The Intercept as being a publication. PR firms work to place sources & articles with publications that they feel will be friendly to their message, but the publication itself is a separate organization that reports on many topics besides what the PR firm wants.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#30

Post by draw_down » Thu, Jun 08, 2017, 11:41 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #5

> Google, a data mining and extraction company that sells personal information to advertisers The content in this article, is, for the most part, good content. What annoys me is that The Intercept seems fit to act like a heroic good guy insofar as being completely biased against Google from start to finish in what could have been a mostly informational article. An opening lead like this serves no purpose other than m…

The Intercept has a viewpoint, and they're expressing it. That's kinda what we do on the internet.