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Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

theintercept.com

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Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#91

Post by deprave »

Animats wrote: post #17

What ads would get blocked? The ones not sold by Google, for the most part. I can see it coming - "Host on AMP, and your ads will get through". "Use Google Ads, and your ads will get through." "Pay dues to the Acceptable Ad Consortium, and your ads will get through." Look what happened with TrustE and their ratings. It started out as a good idea, and ended up as a cover for scumbags. Today, a TrustE seal has negative…

That has already happened. One of the reasons Goole renamed itself "Alphabet" and started using different brand names (e.g. "Waymo") for other products is to confuse consumers about their source. The "Google" brand has become synonymous with advertising and invasion of privacy, and the reversal of strategy (used to stick the brand on everything vs. isolating it to search and ads) is a hedge against the growing consumer distrust.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#92

Post by wand3r »

russdpale wrote: post #78
rtkwe wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little more hopeful. They have a clear incentive to keep really bad ads off their own services because if they don't a lot of people will just reinstall another ad blocker. If I didn't have to deal with unmutable autoplaying video ads or ads spouting malware I'd be more willing to browse with a limited ad blocker.

Google will never be able to pry uBlock Origin from me! Stay away!

Me neither BUT I am optimistic about this. If ads become better, horrifying ones get blocked and most users have blocking we will see some great things:

- non-technical users with safer and better experience

- better revenue models / more innovative businesses that are based on actual sales

- better uBlock experience because ads are not incentivized to be horrible

Also, the problem is less adverts than tracking which is fed by this. Obviously companies like FB and Google still will but hopefully tracking relaxes either by the awareness this causes driving a change in user behavior AND defunds some of the tracking as businesses shift to dif Models.

I won't stop filtering and blocking, but I would love the experience to be better, safer, and faster. If the main advert company, Google, does something about this we will be better off. Nontech users will definitely be.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#93

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

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…

Opposing advertising doesn't mean you have "religious objections". It's fine to disagree with people, but trying to paint them as irrational actors by comparing them to religious fanatics is disingenuous.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#94

Post by dragonwriter »

deprave wrote: post #91
Animats wrote: post #17

What ads would get blocked? The ones not sold by Google, for the most part. I can see it coming - "Host on AMP, and your ads will get through". "Use Google Ads, and your ads will get through." "Pay dues to the Acceptable Ad Consortium, and your ads will get through." Look what happened with TrustE and their ratings. It started out as a good idea, and ended up as a cover for scumbags. Today, a TrustE seal has negative…

That has already happened. One of the reasons Goole renamed itself "Alphabet" and started using different brand names (e.g. "Waymo") for other products is to confuse consumers about their source. The "Google" brand has become synonymous with advertising and invasion of privacy, and the reversal of strategy (used to stick the brand on everything vs. isolating it to search and ads) is a hedge against the growing consum…

I think you have that backwards; the move was to allow higher risk ventures to go forward with the chance of visible failure without harming Google's brand reputation which, contrary to your description, is actually quite strong.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#95

Post by wand3r »

sumeno wrote: post #41
joeyspn wrote: post #40

I'm curious to see how Google reacts when Brendan Eich's new browser project gets traction.... "Brave Browser Will Reward Users with Ethereum-Based Tokens for Switching on Ads": https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/brave-announces-blockchain-d...

Is there any reason to think this will actually gain traction with a significant portion of the population? This seems like the kind of thing HN gushes over but the general population couldn't care less about.

Idk, I tweeted Eich until he responded that a search engine is more important than a browser; but Brave is still great.

Eich ran Mozilla, guy is smart. Google won because it was the best. I can see Brave being the best. Search is being encroached on, adverts are being killed Brave could win for simplicity and privacy which people are valuing more & more...I hope.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#96

Post by watwut »

deprave wrote: post #91
Animats wrote: post #17

What ads would get blocked? The ones not sold by Google, for the most part. I can see it coming - "Host on AMP, and your ads will get through". "Use Google Ads, and your ads will get through." "Pay dues to the Acceptable Ad Consortium, and your ads will get through." Look what happened with TrustE and their ratings. It started out as a good idea, and ended up as a cover for scumbags. Today, a TrustE seal has negative…

That has already happened. One of the reasons Goole renamed itself "Alphabet" and started using different brand names (e.g. "Waymo") for other products is to confuse consumers about their source. The "Google" brand has become synonymous with advertising and invasion of privacy, and the reversal of strategy (used to stick the brand on everything vs. isolating it to search and ads) is a hedge against the growing consum…

> The "Google" brand has become synonymous with advertising and invasion of privacy, and the reversal of strategy (used to stick the brand on everything vs. isolating it to search and ads) is a hedge against the growing consumer distrust.

I really don't think so. Even Microsoft is not there yet for most people.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#97

Post by deprave »

dragonwriter wrote: post #94
deprave wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has already happened. One of the reasons Goole renamed itself "Alphabet" and started using different brand names (e.g. "Waymo") for other products is to confuse consumers about their source. The "Google" brand has become synonymous with advertising and invasion of privacy, and the reversal of strategy (used to stick the brand on everything vs. isolating it to search and ads) is a hedge against the growing consum…

I think you have that backwards; the move was to allow higher risk ventures to go forward with the chance of visible failure without harming Google's brand reputation which, contrary to your description, is actually quite strong.

The premise that visible business failure harms brands is false. It's your opinion and it sounds like it makes sense, but it's not supported by any data.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#98

Post by Tentakill »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #71
Jimmie_Rustle wrote: post #48

I think this will be very beneficial to non-savvy web-users who may be tricked by misleading ads like the download buttons, and the like. Ads aren't really a problem for me (and I am guessing a lot of others), it's bad/misleading ads like pop-ups, auto-play video ads, etc. I think the idea to block ads that do not follow an established industry standard is definitely a step in the right direction. Savvy users will co…

Google hosts most of those download button ads... Also the biggest source of pre-roll auto-play video ads, youtube.

I feel like auto-play ads make sense on youtube because youtube is a video service and you go in expecting a video anyway. It's like a TV commercial.

I get super pissed by auto-play ads on non-video websites, but when it's in front of a video such as on youtube I find it only a minor annoyance.

[EDIT: I don't know if there are auto-play ads in the sidebar on desktop, I use adblock on desktop so I only see those video ads on the mobile version, which doesn't have anywhere else to put ads]

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#99

Post by lorenzhs »

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.

Yeah, but then you've got cases like this: https://www.troyhunt.com/ad-blockers-are-part-of-the-problem...

I've been using adblockers for about ten years now, but blocking that just seems over the top and I understand Troy's frustration. I want a blocker to prevent trackers from being loaded and for removing annoying crap from webpages. That includes most ads, newsletter popups, interstitials, maybe social widgets and cookie notices, but certainly not "Sponsored by [Company Name]: [A sentence about the company]".

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#100

Post by andybak »

deprave wrote: post #91
Animats wrote: post #17

What ads would get blocked? The ones not sold by Google, for the most part. I can see it coming - "Host on AMP, and your ads will get through". "Use Google Ads, and your ads will get through." "Pay dues to the Acceptable Ad Consortium, and your ads will get through." Look what happened with TrustE and their ratings. It started out as a good idea, and ended up as a cover for scumbags. Today, a TrustE seal has negative…

That has already happened. One of the reasons Goole renamed itself "Alphabet" and started using different brand names (e.g. "Waymo") for other products is to confuse consumers about their source. The "Google" brand has become synonymous with advertising and invasion of privacy, and the reversal of strategy (used to stick the brand on everything vs. isolating it to search and ads) is a hedge against the growing consum…

> One of the reasons Goole renamed itself "Alphabet" and started using different brand names (e.g. "Waymo") for other products is to confuse consumers about their source.

Citation needed.

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