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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

#141

Post by AlexandrB »

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…

Google's approach resembles the old Microsoft "embrace and extinguish" playbook [1]. Sure users could disable Chrome adblocking and install something else, but how many will? Especially if Google builds a better adblocker (but one that coincidentally doesn't block anything Google cares about).

There's already a strong push from the security community to use Chrome over other browsers, because it's more secure. This puts Google in a very powerful position of setting the terms of the debate over web standards, web advertising, and tracking. But Google's interests are not necessary aligned with those of their users, who are also NOT their customers. I don't see why the same dynamic wouldn't play out for a Google ad-blocker.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#142

Post by dredmorbius »

ionised wrote: post #103
ucaetano wrote: post #25

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...

What's wrong with creating bad PR if it's true?

Partial (selected) truth isn't truth, it's bias.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#143

Post by news_to_me »

fukusa wrote: post #134

"Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker. Here’s What’s Really Going On." I really don't like these kind of titles.

More than that even, the article seems pretty heavily biased against Google. They bring up a good point which I hadn't considered before, but the way the article is written is awfully slanted. For example, this paragraph:

> So this is a way for Google to crush its few remaining competitors by pre-installing an ad zapper that it controls to the most common web browser. That’s a great way for a monopoly to remain a monopoly.

It seems like the author is really trying to paint Google in an unflattering light. Maybe that's how it is, but the facts should speak for themselves.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#144

Post by dhimes »

andybak wrote: post #100
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…

> 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.

Agree. It could easily also be about the legality of being a software company and a car company, and so on. After all, when you file corporate taxes you have to write down a number indicating your industry. I always wondered what they put there.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#145

Post by cpncrunch »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #135

Honestly, I think the methodology of charging a small amount per page is necessary for the continued success of the internet. The advertising model of revenue seems to be extremely difficult to pull off in practice.

>The advertising model of revenue seems to be extremely difficult to pull off in practice.

It seems to work well enough for Google. Not so much for everyone else.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#146

Post by cpncrunch »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #4

If this actually results in an internet mostly free of super annoying ads, then I can't get too broken up about that even if it does give Google a major advantage over its competitors. The question, of course, is whether Google can/will abuse this in anti-consumer ways. Some people have said that Google's criteria for "good" ads aren't that great. The article implies that Google can somehow force adblocker users to e…

>If this actually results in an internet mostly free of super annoying ads

This seems highly unlikely, since most of the annoying ads already come from google. Try watching a dailymotion video and you'll see. Even with a brand new Macbook Pro, it starts to stutter after a while because of all the fucking video adverts around the content. Same with some forum sites that have google ads beside each post.

In the end I created a simple blacklist in /etc/hosts, which completely resolves the problem and gets rid of virtually all adverts. Note that I don't have any philosophical objection to ads, and some of them are actually useful, but I draw the line when they make it impossible to actually see the content on the site.

127.0.0.1 adserver.adtech.de content.tomyvid.com adserver.adtechus.com gce-or.bidswitch.net tpc.googlesyndication.com s.apxtarget.com nym1-ib.adnxs.com googleads.g.doubleclick.net p.algovid.com serve-east.acuityplatform.com cas.ny.us.criteo.com cat.ny.us.criteo.com

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#147

Post by ucaetano »

partiallypro wrote: post #81
ucaetano wrote: post #25

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...

That may be true, but what is untrue about the article? How is it ok for a company to be the largest ad company in the world, while controlling the most popular browser on the planet and just announced a service that will kill off its competitors (as if they have many at all?) That's monopolistic behavior. Ask yourself, if Microsoft did this or something similar, would they get hit with anti-trust? Yes.

No, it isn't monopolistic. Look at ad prices continuously going down.

"Monopoly" isn't a buzz word that you throw around randomly. It doesn't even have to do necessarily with market share or control or the market.

There is no monopoly on the ad space, not by very, very far.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#148

Post by Dylan16807 »

sowbug wrote: post #62
quadrangle wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power is typically zero-sum. As Google gains effective monopoly power, Mozilla and others whose interests are more aligned with the public interest lose power. I could go on. Put simply, if nobody stops using other adblockers because of this, then nothing is directly a problem. The problems come when Google uses their power to do things like block adblockers in Chrome (as they already do on Android!) and other ramifi…

> as they already do on Android! This is exclusionary detailing, wouldn't you say? Chrome on Android doesn't have an extensions platform.

Which means that's an understatement of how bad the problem is.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#149

Post by ferentchak »

Ntrails wrote: post #105
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.

> 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. Not being able to install noscript/adblock at work means that every time I go to bloomberg it does the garbage autoplay shit. So frustrating. Why when I come to read an article would you think I'd want to hear someone talking??

If you are using a Mac the new Safari can help you with this at the least.

Re: Be Careful Celebrating Google’s New Ad Blocker

#150

Post by Dylan16807 »

azakai wrote: post #73
vinceguidry wrote: post #69

>According to the Financial Times, Google will allow publishers what it’s calling “Funding Choices.” The publisher could charge the consumer a set price per page view to use third-party sites that block all advertising. Google would do the tracking of how many pages users view, and then charge them. Users could then “white list” particular sites, allowing ads to be shown on them and removing the charge. If users deci…

> I'm just absolutely silly with glee that Google finally decided to jump on it. There is no "finally" here - this isn't new. Google Contributor is from 2014 [1]. Google and other companies have tried this idea many times already. It's true that people like you exist, but there haven't been enough to make this viable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor

Contributor was extremely unreliable in multiple ways. I want something that unconditionally blocks the worse kinds of ads, and that doesn't give more money to sites just because they have more inactive ad rectangles.
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