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

Adblocking: How about Nah?

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 549 posts

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#391

Post by dredmorbius »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #148

I'm amazed that all the interested parties haven't got together to flesh out a microtransaction standard. The whole ad-blocking debate would be moot if we could pay a few cents to read an article free of distracting ads. If you choose not to pay, you get the ads and don't get to complain about ad-blocker-blockers because you were offered an alternative. I know it has been attempted in the past with little success, bu…

Micropayments is simply the wrong model for numerous reasons.

I've written on this several times:

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=micropayments&...

Nick Szabo, Clay Shirky, and Andrew Odlyzko far more ably:

http://szabo.best.vwh.net/micropayments.html

http://www.shirky.com/writings/fame_vs_fortune.html

http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/case.against.micropaymen... (PDF)

A vastly more sensible option: a means-based, universal fee (a/k/a tax) and payments to creators based on both UBI and quality + access distributions -- a universal content syndication mechanism:

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modes...

$100 per person per year from the world's richest 1 billion inhabitants would match all present publishing income, and present ad spend. Truth is we're already paying for the content, we're just not getting it.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#392

Post by justforyou »

jefftk wrote: post #119
deanc wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I’d go as far as forbidding embedded JS altogether which removes the attack vector for malware within advertising networks. The networks have proved time and time again they are not able to prevent distribution of malware, and this is the primary reason I use an adblocker. Maybe a new tag which points to a resource which can only serve an image, video or text. Absolutely no scripting. Pass along only the adver…

> Maybe a new tag which points to a resource which can only serve an image, video or text. Absolutely no scripting. Pass along only the advertiser ID and the bare minimum. How would fraud detection work in this model? How do advertisers know the requests are coming from real users and not bots? Without assurance there, advertisers would pay much less, and publishers would earn much less. (Disclosure: I work on ads at…

There's not really any meaningful empirical proof of ad impressions now, just a very shady chain of trust between a handfull of companies who all have a vested interest in not scrutinizing these things too closely.

Once you're at the point where you are buying traffic to meet goals, you're not going to scrutinize the origin of that traffic beyone anything that would appear to be flagrant fraud to your customers.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#393

Post by a3n »

Is there a way to make an ad "blocking IO" from the point of view of the ad network, but my browser can keep on going (sans ads of course).

Sort of like laying the phone down when a telemarketer calls.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#394

Post by a3n »

s1k3s wrote: post #137
frou_dh wrote: post #61

Remember that the formal name for a web browser is a User Agent . This metaphor makes it clear that when there is a conflict of interest between you the user and whatever the server on the other side wants, your Agent should act in your interest.

Not when the User Agent is built by the world's largest online advertiser.

That's an agent that serves users to ad networks.

"To Serve Man."

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#395

Post by samkxu »

mlguy456 wrote: post #388

I can't use most of the sites at work because of ads and I can't install an adblocker because it would have access to corp data. When I search for something related to work, I know that most of the sites would display inappropriate junk on half screen with my colleagues probably watching behind. The solution I use us to search on stackoverflow only, but it too displays some garbage, and I have to scroll the page so t…

Have you thought about forking/compiling ublock origin and loading it yourself?

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#396

Post by vermilingua »

lastpingstandin wrote: post #385
slang800 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If advertisers want to advertise to me, that's fine. I understand they need to make money. I feel sad just reading that. Advertisers are paid to deliver targeted psychological manipulation to you, and yet you feel ashamed for making their work less profitable. It's like observing some kind of digital stockholm syndrome.

> targeted psychological manipulation to you This seems exceedingly hyperbolic. With advertising, we can enjoy many services free of charge. Using google as an example, google maps, search, android, etc all provide tremendous value to their users while being ostensibly free. Without revenue, they simply wouldn't be able to exist.

I would change “ostensibly free” to “nominally free”. While you pay no up front cost, you are worth a dollar value to these companies.

That money isn’t being spun out of thin air, it’s being extracted from you somehow.

Whether that method of abstraction is getting you to buy something you otherwise wouldn’t have, or by using your data to manipulate others to do the same; they exact their toll on you.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#397

Post by slang800 »

lastpingstandin wrote: post #385
slang800 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If advertisers want to advertise to me, that's fine. I understand they need to make money. I feel sad just reading that. Advertisers are paid to deliver targeted psychological manipulation to you, and yet you feel ashamed for making their work less profitable. It's like observing some kind of digital stockholm syndrome.

> targeted psychological manipulation to you This seems exceedingly hyperbolic. With advertising, we can enjoy many services free of charge. Using google as an example, google maps, search, android, etc all provide tremendous value to their users while being ostensibly free. Without revenue, they simply wouldn't be able to exist.

> we can enjoy many services free of charge

It's not free of charge, you're just paying in a different way. These services are able to operate because they deliver content that changes your mind in a way that benefits the corporations who pay for ads. They alter your purchasing habits, sway you politically, and change your emotions. If they were not able to manipulate you then they would be worthless.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#398

Post by ribeyes »

person_of_color wrote: post #345
catotheyoungest wrote: post #215

I've been blocking ads ever since I learned that I could stop seeing DoubleClick ads by blocking their domain in /etc/hosts. I won't ever apologize for doing so. As far as I'm concerned, any advertisement that depends on JavaScript is malware, and I think that my right to protect myself online outweighs the need of publishers to turn a profit. IMO, profits are like respect. They must be earned, and if the only way yo…

Best way to block ads in 2019?

Adguard on desktop and Android. Globally blocks all ads across browsers and apps (except embedded ads like IG and Twitter). Truly magical and worth every penny.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#400

Post by gnicholas »

deanc wrote: post #89
wybiral wrote: post #67

I don't actually want to block ads. If you want to put a small text or image blurb anywhere on the page... Good for you. I'll gladly accept those on a webpage so that the content creator can make a bit of cash. But these companies are intentionally blurring the lines between advertisement and digital surveillance. You don't need to collect everything about my operating system, browser, monitors, GPU, every click I ma…

Agree. I’d go as far as forbidding embedded JS altogether which removes the attack vector for malware within advertising networks. The networks have proved time and time again they are not able to prevent distribution of malware, and this is the primary reason I use an adblocker. Maybe a new tag which points to a resource which can only serve an image, video or text. Absolutely no scripting. Pass along only the adver…

One issue I’ve run into with blocking JS at the browser level is that it also ends up blocking extensions that use JS from working. I would block JS on websites much more if my extensions that use JS could still run.

I don’t suppose there’s a config setting in Chrome that discriminates between the website’s JS and the JS from my extensions?

Post reply on HN