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AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

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Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#31

Post by SoftTalker »

coldtea wrote: post #24
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What economic model would you like to supplant the one which is currently serving a whole load of websites to us all for free?

One that has us pay for websites would be far better. Including services like Gmail and such. We would be paying customers, not eyeballs for sale, and only websites deemed worthy of that level of loyalty would survive. Any websites that prefer it could still be free then, but the costs to host them would have to be paid by their owner (like most personal or business websites today), not sponsored by ads.

You know how you pay for cable, and Hulu, and Netflix, and still have to sit through ads? It would be like that. If I'm going to have to watch ads anyway, I'll decline paying for the service, thanks. And go on blocking the ads.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#32

Post by jrflowers »

neilv wrote: post #20

As someone who's been interested in tracker defeating since that became a thing around 25 years ago, I'm just a little concerned that something like this AdNauseum -- if ever adopted significantly -- could invite blowback that also hits more conventional tracker blocking, or other current liberties. Not making certain HTTP requests seems to be protected right now. However, click fraud, with which this might be confla…

I like this reasoning. Either we voluntarily stop behaving in a way that advertisers don’t like or we will be forced to stop behaving in ways that advertisers don’t like. The only likely or rational future is that we all stop acting in ways advertisers don’t like, one way or another.

We may be best served by proactively rethinking all of our computing habits to make sure they more closely align with AdSense’s goals for uh… our benefit.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#33

Post by hotnfresh »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #14
xwdv wrote: post #8

Of all the ad blockers, AdNauseam is the one that is feared the most. If everybody used it, it would kill the industry.

What economic model would you like to supplant the one which is currently serving a whole load of websites to us all for free?

Does it matter? The best stuff on the web isn’t ad supported anyway. I’d take losing a little good stuff to make it easier to find the rest of it.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#34

Post by ben0x539 »

3np wrote: post #3

Past discussions: AdNauseam – clicking ads so you don't have to - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34886300 - Feb 2023 (69 comments) AdNauseam – clicking ads so you don't have to - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25043165 - Nov 2020 (11 comments) AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20048216 - May 2019 (63 comments) AdNauseam – clic…

man people really post about this browser addon ad nauseam

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#35

Post by [deleted] »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #14
xwdv wrote: post #8

Of all the ad blockers, AdNauseam is the one that is feared the most. If everybody used it, it would kill the industry.

What economic model would you like to supplant the one which is currently serving a whole load of websites to us all for free?

[deleted]

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#36

Post by cabaalis »

nvy wrote: post #10
endisneigh wrote: post #6

Fight against ads by giving the ad networks money and further incentivizing captcha and other tech to stop bots.

Isn't the purpose to cause ad networks to lower fee payments due to rampant click fraud and thus to destroy the business model?

I think one should be careful using the term "click fraud" in this context. Someone who installs this extension doesn't in my mind qualify to be defrauding anyone. There is no contract in place, it isn't against the law to express interest in a product, and there's no technical controls being breached illegally as the browser is just sending a request to a server.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#37

Post by MrStonedOne »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #14
xwdv wrote: post #8

Of all the ad blockers, AdNauseam is the one that is feared the most. If everybody used it, it would kill the industry.

What economic model would you like to supplant the one which is currently serving a whole load of websites to us all for free?

[dead]

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#38

Post by aeyes »

nvy wrote: post #27
paulpauper wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is it does not destroy the model of annoying ads, it jsut makes it less profitable for publishers. It works like an auction, which is that advertisers place bids. assuming there are lots of fraudulent clicks, advertisers would notice a lower conversion rate, which would hurt ROI and advertisers would adjust by lowering bids, so the problem sorta corrects itself by adjusting to a new equilibrium of profita…

I don't personally run this extension (because I've read that the fraudulent clicks are easy to detect) but supposing that the clicks from this extension were both pervasive and indistinguishable from real clicks, it would seem to me that that would cause ROI to asymptotically approach zero which would result in the collapse of ad networks as a viable business model.

Unfortunately it just leads to more ads. 20 years ago we had way fewer ads on typical sites, today you can hardly find the text in between the ads on your average news site.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#39

Post by klntsky »

Adnauseam does not achieve the goal, but I know how to fix it. First of all, clicking every ad is easily detectable. People should click occasionally, but from many devices/IPs. It is not achievable with low number of users -> bootstrapping problem. Bootstrapping can be solved by incentivising users.

Consider this scheme:

- A marketplace for fraud clicks advertised as a way to ditch competitors

- Anyone can pay a fee and point to a certain ad that must be fraud-clicked

- Users with an extension will be directed to this ad in background, lust like Adnauseum does

- They will receive a fraction of the fee

This scheme could bring in missing economic incentives for the users.

Re: AdNauseam: uBlock Origin fork silently clicking ads on behalf of users

#40

Post by jedberg »

It took me a long time to come around to using ad blockers. For a long time, my feeling was, "if you don't like ads don't use the web. You owe it to those websites to look at their ads".

But then the ads just go so resource intense that I came around and finally installed an ad blocker.

This however still feels one step too far. The ad blocker protects me from the resource utilization of ads. But if you're already blocking the ads, then the tracking shouldn't work anyway.

How do you justify using their resources unnecessarily? Doesn't something like this make you no better than the advertiser?

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