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The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

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Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#71

Post by annabellish »

darawk wrote: post #62
horsawlarway wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't want to see the ad, simply don't read the article. What makes you think you have the right to the content, without abiding its terms? We've entered no contract, you have no right to dictate any terms to me at all. Period. If you'd like to chose to not display your content when I have a blocker enabled, so be it, I'll leave and never come back. But to make an assumption that you have any sort of control…

> We've entered no contract, you have no right to dictate any terms to me at all. Period. That's fine for you to say, it just doesn't happen to be true. TOS are enforceable to some degree. > But to make an assumption that you have any sort of control of my time and attention is insidious. Fuck off. So, you think you have a right to their work product, but they don't have a right to your attention? Why the asymmetry?

>TOS are enforceable to some degree

You cannot state "by reading this notice you have accepted our terms and conditions". Maybe - _maybe_ - you could force people to register and explicitly agree to your terms which specify that you may not view the page without also loading the ads, though I think such a clause would be immoral.

The ability to control what code executes on one's computer is a fundamental freedom of general purpose computing. I don't feel that it's any more appropriate to demand I load ads than to demand I load your images or your css, or indeed to demand I install your bitcoin miner.

Ads from even the major networks are damaging to run far too often to be considered safe. They're resource intensive and a common malware vector. Whether or not it is _legal_ to block ads (it is), it is certainly not immoral to choose not to execute code which has a high likelihood of compromising your device's security - this being the tool many people use for everything from personal communications to financial transactions. The idea that one should compromise that security for the sake of your blog is ridiculous and a strong sign that the ad-driven business model of the web is neither sustainable nor ethical.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#72

Post by horsawlarway »

darawk wrote: post #62
horsawlarway wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't want to see the ad, simply don't read the article. What makes you think you have the right to the content, without abiding its terms? We've entered no contract, you have no right to dictate any terms to me at all. Period. If you'd like to chose to not display your content when I have a blocker enabled, so be it, I'll leave and never come back. But to make an assumption that you have any sort of control…

> We've entered no contract, you have no right to dictate any terms to me at all. Period. That's fine for you to say, it just doesn't happen to be true. TOS are enforceable to some degree. > But to make an assumption that you have any sort of control of my time and attention is insidious. Fuck off. So, you think you have a right to their work product, but they don't have a right to your attention? Why the asymmetry?

I haven't entered any TOS when I visit a publicly available site.

You have my signature on no documents, you have no agreement from me to abide by any terms at all.

If you want me to be held to a TOS... force me to make an account to read your content.

>So, you think you have a right to their work product, but they don't have a right to your attention? Why the asymmetry?

I think you've made your work product available freely online without stipulation. If you don't like that, DON'T FUCKING DO IT!

It's entirely reasonable and within your control to not serve me content. A lot of sites block me with an adblocker enabled, I value my attention more than I value their content. But that's a completely fair exchange - I wanted to read their content, they wanted to serve me ads, I concluded that I'd prefer to walk away.

In other words: your "work product" has no inherent value. If you value it, charge for it. Don't make it freely available online.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#73

Post by logfromblammo »

darawk wrote: post #55
logfromblammo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to need a Poe's Law check on this one. Sincere or satire?

Sincere.

Content creators have a privilege granted by copyright law to control the manner in which their work is distributed. Once the copy has passed to another, the law does not grant any further control over what the recipient may do with it privately. That is governed by explicit licensing terms.

Websites may have a terms of use document that offers an adhesion contract for licensing the copyrighted materials served by the site. But such terms are not necessarily enforceable in every jurisdiction. And the onus is on the provider to enforce their licenses.

Therefore, if the license contract states that a user may not read article X unless they also watch advertisement Y, it is in the site's interest to not serve X until after proof of Y has been returned.

One cannot steal what was given freely. And it isn't exactly clear what remedy should be available to sites from users that breach an adhesion contract that has no technical measures implemented for enforcement. It isn't stealing. It is a civil licensing violation, at best.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#74

Post by civilitty »

darawk wrote: post #64
sbarker wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is browsing an open s3 bucket hacking?

Of course not, but that's a non-sequitur. A privately owned store has a public entrance, but we also are happy to accept the right of the store owner to charge admission or kick out people who cause trouble. Entering the store is not burglary, but staying there against the wishes of the owner is trespassing.

No one is preventing you from refusing to service a GET request.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#75

Post by a1369209993 »

darawk wrote: post #44
koolba wrote: post #39

> Only a few years ago, even people who hated ads saw ad-blocking software as akin to stealing. I've been using ad blockers and NoScript plugins for longer than I can remember. Before that I was using /etc/hosts file based blocking. I've never felt like I was stealing nor do I know anyone that feels that way. On the contrary, I've always felt that content to display, and in particular code to execute, on my device is…

Do you not believe that content creators have the right to set the terms upon which their content may be consumed? In other words, if you write an article, you don't believe that you have the right to say "you may read this article, provided that you also display this ad"? If you don't want to see the ad, simply don't read the article. What makes you think you have the right to the content, without abiding its terms?…

> Do you not believe that content creators have the right to set the terms upon which their content may be consumed?

That is it exactly. If you (knowingly/willingly) transmit information to a person, what they do with their copies of it is entirely up to them. This is items zero and one in (my particular ordering of) the set of inalienable right fundamental to sapient beings. If you don't want people to read your articles without seeing your ad, then don't publish your articles.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#76

Post by irrational »

darawk wrote: post #52
jasonkostempski wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Of course it's stealing. You're violating the contract you implicitly agree to when you visit the site." No it's not and no you aren't. Entering a public area isn't trespassing and there's no such thing as a contract you implicitly agree too.

...you consider private websites to be public areas?

If I can get to it without passing through a gate (login) then yes, it is a public area. Content creators should put up a wall and gate (require someone to pay money to view the content) if they want their content to not be public.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#77

Post by horsawlarway »

darawk wrote: post #64
sbarker wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is browsing an open s3 bucket hacking?

Of course not, but that's a non-sequitur. A privately owned store has a public entrance, but we also are happy to accept the right of the store owner to charge admission or kick out people who cause trouble. Entering the store is not burglary, but staying there against the wishes of the owner is trespassing.

Sure, but they haven't expressed any wishes at all.

If a site blocks me because I have an adblocker, I happily leave.

But if a site sends content to my machine... that's on them.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#78

Post by TremendousJudge »

darawk wrote: post #56
TremendousJudge wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if you write an article, you don't believe that you have the right to say "you may read this article, provided that you also display this ad"? You have the right to say it, and I have the right to ignore it, because that's the way the Internet is implemented. You may pretend that it works differently, but until the day it works like broadcast TV, users will have the right to pull whatever content they want from serv…

You have the right to possess it, and I have the right to take it by force, because that's the way physical reality is implemented. Arguing that implementation implies natural rights is a pretty silly path.

Humans didn't implement physical reality, you have no choice but to live in it. If you use the internet to distribute your content however, you agree to its rules. And unlike physical reality, you may choose another platform to distribute it that conforms to your views. You may say that the internet is the most popular way to distribute content, but it didn't get there by accident.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#79

Post by Andre_Wanglin »

darawk wrote: post #52
jasonkostempski wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Of course it's stealing. You're violating the contract you implicitly agree to when you visit the site." No it's not and no you aren't. Entering a public area isn't trespassing and there's no such thing as a contract you implicitly agree too.

...you consider private websites to be public areas?

If it is publicly accessible, it is not a private website. If someone hands me a free newspaper and I cut out the ads before reading it, is that also stealing?

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#80

Post by iamatworknow »

johnpowell wrote: post #69
darawk wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've entered no contract, you have no right to dictate any terms to me at all. Period. That's fine for you to say, it just doesn't happen to be true. TOS are enforceable to some degree. > But to make an assumption that you have any sort of control of my time and attention is insidious. Fuck off. So, you think you have a right to their work product, but they don't have a right to your attention? Why the asymmetry?

If I click a link on Google there is no TOS. If you want to show a screen with the TOS when I visit your site and make me agree to view your ads you can totally do that. And I will click the back button.

Some sites pretty much do this already (Popular Mechanics, for one). I get a nice popup when I arrive at their site that says I need to turn off my adblock to continue.

I actually don't even use adblock -- I use pihole, which means I'd have to add who-knows-what domains to my DNS whitelist (not just popularmechanics.com, because if it wasn't already permitted I wouldn't have even got to the page with the popup). So back button it is.

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