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Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

forum.palemoon.org

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Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#101

Post by JohnTHaller »

wongarsu wrote: post #27

>Generating this kind of traffic does not achieve its intended goal (providing protest against ad networks or causing advertising to fail for ad networks) since the ones punished are the publishers (those who rely on this revenue) and not the ad networks. I don't think I follow? People don't like the ad networks and want them to change or fail. That's achievable by forcing change at either the advertiser, the network…

Yeah, no. This sort of purposefully doing fake clicks at websites you're a fan of thing ups the chances of that website of getting banned from their ad network. Which is paying their hosting bills. Which simply puts them out of business.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#102

Post by sanxiyn »

KGIII wrote: post #56
serf wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat have no value? No, not value-less, but I didn't agree to pay for their services with the total loss of my privacy on-line. (and one doesn't have to use any of those services in order to be spied upon by them)

One might argue that you do agree, when you make use of their services.

No, Google terms of service does not forbid you from blocking Google ads.

And no free rider argument please, I am perfectly willing to pay for Google's service. If Google wants to get paid, they can make Google Contributor available in my country. I already pay for YouTube Red.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#103

Post by JohnTHaller »

wongarsu wrote: post #88
donohoe wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't quite work that way. Yes, it decreases the usefulness of ad networks and hurts them - hopefully inciting change eventually. But between the reader and the ad network is the website owner. They typically have no say or control over the ad network. As fake clicks are detected they are the ones that will get punished. Their CPN can drop meaning a real hit in revenue. If fake ad clicks add up they may be boote…

>They typically have no say or control over the ad network It's a free market. They have full control over their choice of ad network. In fact they are the ones who have the longest lever for forcing change in ad networks. If everyone goes to an ad network that serves non-tracking, non-distracting, non-scamming ads that don't deliver malware, then only ad networks that deliver that survive.

And there are so many ad networks out there that don't do tracking and have revenues high enough to keep a website afloat. I can think of exactly zero that fit that bill.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#104

Post by chuckdries »

icebraining wrote: post #85
chuckdries wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are punishing me and only me. We don't use an ad network, we sell our ad space directly to local businesses. Fake ad clicks have been actively hurting our ability to sell ads for about a year now. Our ads are pictures. Pictures are not malware. Also what ads cause damage? Like sure the ads on porn or piratebay are cancerous but no reputable newspaper will have anything harmful, just potentially annoying.

no reputable newspaper will have anything harmful, just potentially annoying. That is, unfortunately, very incorrect: https://www.cnet.com/news/new-york-times-bbc-dangerous-ads-r...

That is appalling

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#105

Post by matz1 »

chuckdries wrote: post #28
hbbio wrote: post #19

The motto of Pale Moon is "Your browser, Your way". But apparently not very so... The current ad system is broken and, although I understand Google decision to protect its own profits, I don't see why an open source project that aims to provide an unbiased browsing experience would follow suit.

You're hurting the publishers. I'm a software developer at a local newspaper. We've been dealing with floods of fake ad clicks for about a year now, and they severely hurt our bottom line. We don't even use an ad network a la google, we sell our own ads to local businesses and such. You're not sticking it to the man, you're punishing me and my colleagues and friends for writing content that you wanted to read. You're…

Good, if you don't like fake clicks you should fight for it. Me on the otherhand don't like ads so I will too fight/support ways to avoid it.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#106

Post by JohnTHaller »

zeta0134 wrote: post #46
chuckdries wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're hurting the publishers. I'm a software developer at a local newspaper. We've been dealing with floods of fake ad clicks for about a year now, and they severely hurt our bottom line. We don't even use an ad network a la google, we sell our own ads to local businesses and such. You're not sticking it to the man, you're punishing me and my colleagues and friends for writing content that you wanted to read. You're…

On the one hand, I agree with your sentiment in general. However, it's a double edged sword here. LOTS of people are so sick of advertising networks, tracking, privacy invasion and malware from compromised ad networks that the underlying issue, the idea that click and impression based advertising is fundamentally flawed, is something that people are going to continue to protest. If the system is so broken that it's s…

Those people are free not to visit our website. Or even to block all ads if the site gracefully allows it (most do, mine do).

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#107

Post by sanxiyn »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #99
belorn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analogy falls very quickly apart since if a website uses a ad network that don't track users, then AdNauseam extension does nothing. Its like saying I don't like big book publishers so I'm not going to pay for the book at their stores, but i will pay for the book at the independent book store. It goes without saying that big book publishers are book publishers because they can out compete the independent book sto…

So, 99.9% of small websites with ads. Meaning, yes, this is harmful to small websites.

This is harmful to small websites with ads, not to small websites. Big difference.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#108

Post by jancsika »

How is it that Target will infer that a teenager is pregnant based off the items she has bought over the past few weeks at their stores, but ad networks won't infer which of their potential customers are likely to serve up malware over their networks?

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#109

Post by dane-pgp »

confusedrobot wrote: post #86

If a program does as it states and allows people to consent to its effect on them it isn't malware. I don't see how they can class it as such in good faith.

I don't know if anyone has been arrested for "click-fraud" yet, but we have seen an attempt to use the DMCA to force people to view adverts, under the theory that the adverts are part of "a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected":

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14989742

If the terms of use of a website forbid you accessing that site with an ad-blocker installed, then arguably a user could be guilty under something like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act if they did not comply. Rather than going after the individual users, though, (a tactic which was largely abandoned for dealing with torrenting), the publishers of a website could potentially try suing the makers of an ad-blocker.

Under theories of "vicarious infringement" and conspiracy (such as is used against sites like The Pirate Bay and other search engines which ISPs are required to block in some countries), I wouldn't be surprised if we one day see browser makers liable for the extensions they "allow" to be installed in "their" browsers, and then OS distributors held liable for browsers that they allow to be installed on "their" OS.

It is worth noting that ultimately it will be hardware-enforced TPM / Secure Boot technology that makes such laws and injunctions feasible. We need to be careful what precedents are set by projects like Pale Moon, and the sort of technological ecosystems we are building.

Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension

#110

Post by khedoros1 »

eropple wrote: post #59
icebraining wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might as well use Firefox then, you can always modify the source.

I think PaleMoon is largely silly, but we aren't talking about having to modify the source to use the silly clickjacker. We're talking about typing a URL and changing a number. Which is why the angst being demonstrated is bonkers (and largely ideologically motivated, not to put too fine a point on it).

It's a matter of degree, not kind. It's much more of a hassle to compile a custom version of the program than to modify the default configuration, but the point is that in both cases there's a default that does something that the user doesn't want.
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