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

Ad blocking is under attack

blog.adguard.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 598 posts

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#121

Post by richardknop »

rewrew wrote: post #68
richardknop wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. They are losing people like me though. I will never pay for a subscription to read a website and I will continue using adblockers to get rid of annoying ads. But they could still profit from me. There are less annoying ways to monetize which I might accept. For example affiliate links to buy products I am interested in (books, video games, gadgets). I'd be willing to pay % extra for some nice product in orde…

There's no way that affiliate links can pay the bills for publishers; numbers don't ad up (otherwise everyone would do it, and no one does -- well, actually, there's extremely limited situations where it works in some consumer corners, but those situations are limited and the total amount of revenue is also very limited). And how much extra traffic are you really going to refer? Ads are sold on the thousand -- $X per…

But they would not make any money via ads from me anyways. I never click ads unless I do it accidentally by mis-clicking. So even with disabled adblocker I'd just lower their CPC (cost per click). So it costs them nothing to let me read their website with adblocker and there a tiny possible upside from me referring more traffic to them.

Either way I assume people like me are a fast growing part of millennial population so their business model based on ads is doomed to fail anyways.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#123

Post by logfromblammo »

bradleyankrom wrote: post #76
xigency wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this alternative: disable JavaScript. It's fairly easy in any browser to create a list of websites to ignore JavaScript on.

doing so breaks an increasing number of sites. "so don't visit those sites" is the common response, and is fine as general policy, but sometimes isn't an option.

I have noticed that blocking scripts makes the pages of most local television stations break.

But then I look at the list of 50 different domains blocked on the page, and I am not sorry--not one little bit. I don't really need to watch your little news video that badly. And I certainly don't want it to autoplay.

They are by far the worst offenders among sites I am likely to encounter frequently, as destination links from aggregators and social media. Newspaper sites are far more well-behaved with respect to their scripts, but also more likely to directly monetize the page view.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#124

Post by eli »

richardknop wrote: post #51
gepoch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call me crazy, but this seems like a pretty honorable scheme for profiting off of content. Someone put effort in to create content, and has the option of putting this kind of paywall up. There is a consumer choice made to sell their own attention by viewing ads, pay a subscription fee for the content directly, or just move on to free content elsewhere. That said, most places where you pay the subscription fee will AL…

Perhaps. They are losing people like me though. I will never pay for a subscription to read a website and I will continue using adblockers to get rid of annoying ads. But they could still profit from me. There are less annoying ways to monetize which I might accept. For example affiliate links to buy products I am interested in (books, video games, gadgets). I'd be willing to pay % extra for some nice product in orde…

I don't understand the distinction between intentionally overpaying for products to benefit a website and just paying the website directly. Also, not all websites can (or should) talk about products.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#125

Post by jlarocco »

otterley wrote: post #114
cft wrote: post #93

It's amazing that they are so uneducated about DMCA. This is called defective DMCA notice, and it should be ignored. The sender of the notice can now file a suit, since the publisher of the list is no longer under safe harbor. But they won't, since they know it is defective. And if they did, it would be thrown out with a summary judgment.

What, specifically, was defective about the notice?

DMCA is for copyright violation.

What copyright was being violated here and how?

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#126

Post by ransom1538 »

koolba wrote: post #31
ransom1538 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could add to your TOS which browsers are approved. Using an unapproved browser would violate the current CFAA - under the current interpretation. Federal felony 1-5 years.

And then submit a subpoena for all users that have installed a user agent switcher plugin. Because clearly they're all criminals with nefarious intent.

Exactly. Next;

1) Find a young eager numbers driven federal prosecutor near 'US District Court Of Wyoming'

2) Offer plea deals. Explain to the users of said 'hacker plugins' they can choose to take the 'risk' of a (confused local residence) jury or take the generous plea of 2 years of federal prison.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#127

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

chad-autry wrote: post #90
anilgulecha wrote: post #32

It was admiral that did this: https://blog.getadmiral.com/dmca-easylist-adblock-copyright-... They even clearly state they used the only tool available to them, DCMA. From all the current summaries on this, DMCA does not apply to a line entry in easylist. A domain can be trademarked. This should be added back in. And if github cannot standup to DMCA abuse, then well, easylist and all other developers should be giving…

From what I can tell, the DMCA does apply (sort of) Admiral seems to be a paywall server basically. If blocking their domain gave access to paywalled content, then the DMCA seems to apply http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/circumventing-copyright-cont... However, that defense is a bit flimsy to me since the fall back to having the paywall blocked could/should be a "Paywall blocked, please disable your addblocker to gain…

It's their fault for delivering data they want restricted. I'm under no obligation to make every HTTP request they want me to or execute any untrusted JavaScript. Nor am I obligated to render their HTML as intended. If they want these things then they need every user to enter onto a binding contract agreeing to those terms.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#128

Post by eli »

tehlike wrote: post #34
richardknop wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the websites that do that have solid content though. Not good enough for me to pay them though so I end up clicking the back button and using alternative sources.

soon, someone will implement one-subscription for online content - something like netflix.

This idea has been Coming Soon for decades. But maybe that's ok.

I really like that I can visit the vast majority of links I click on for free.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#129

Post by skrebbel »

firefoxd wrote: post #55

I use privacy badger, and unless I'm mistaken, it doesn't use a list to block content, it just blocks any 3rd party request that send cookie information. Why are we relying on a list?

Because that means you might be blocking legitimate stuff too.

My company, https://TalkJS.com, makes a pluggable messaging component. Customers embed it in an iframe, created by a 3rd party (from their perspective) hosted js file. Currently, it doesn't rely on cookies for security but we easily might change that.

Same for other pluggable content, say Disqus and many more. I would be very sad if an ad blocker would block us because we dare use appropriate tools for security.

Re: Ad blocking is under attack

#130

Post by laurentdc »

xigency wrote: post #54
richardknop wrote: post #4

There has been a growing trend of websites that will ask me to either: a) whitelist their site in my adblocker b) or subscribe to their monthly subscription and keep reading their site with adblocker

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this alternative: disable JavaScript. It's fairly easy in any browser to create a list of websites to ignore JavaScript on.

Doesn't disabling JavaScript these days pretty much break all websites? Or do you disable by default, then keep a whitelist?
Post reply on HN