Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

Plus a huge number of people that adblock have been doing it for years and are basing the continued usage on the assumption that adverts now are similar to the adverts in 2006 - 2009. I use a lot of different websites with advertisements and I can't think of the last time I've seen an advertisement that auto-played sound or caused lag, whereas in 2008 it was a daily occurrence. The value that advertisements provide (support websites) greatly outweighs the inconvenience that current advertisements cause, even Youtube pre-roll adverts are not that bad after getting used to them.

1. No they don't

2. Even if they did this would be very unreasonable, either you view adverts and the publisher gets paid or you don't view adverts and the publisher doesn't get paid. If you're triggering the pay-out criteria without actually doing whatever is required (view, click, interact) it's just moving the financial hit to the advertiser, which is still unreasonable.

On the hardware I've looked at, loopback requests are handled in well under a microsecond - I guess this case is not worth optimising.

On Linux, 127.0.0.0 is a broadcast address, while on Windows, it is a sink address.

AdBlock Plus confirms most points via heise.de (updated half an hour ago): http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Schwere-Vorwuerfe-geg...

> In einer Stellungnahme bestätigen die Macher von AdBlock Plus die von Pallenberg aufgezeigten Zusammenhänge weitgehend. "Ein Großteil der Informationen zu der Zusammenarbeit mit unseren Partnern ist korrekt recherchiert, einiges nicht", heißt es in einer Stellungnahme von Mitgründer Till Faida, den Pallenberg in seinem Artikel kritisiert hatte. "Im Gegensatz zu Sascha Pallenberg sehen wir in der Vernetzung keinen Gewissenskonflikt."

The makers of AdBlock Plus largely confirm Pallenberg's connections in a statement. "The bulk of the information about the cooperation with our partners is investigated correctly, some isn't", according to a statement by co-founder Till Faida, who Pallenberg had criticised in his article. "Unlike Sascha, we do not see a moral conflict in this interconnectedness."

>Das Unternehmen ist überzeugt, dass sich Werbeformen wie die "Acceptable Ads" langfristig durchsetzen wird. Das Whitelisting sei für kleine und mittelgroße Webseiten kostenlos. "Dabei haben wir immer transparent geäußert, dass große Unternehmen unsere Initiative finanziell unterstützen." Eine Bevorzugung dieser Firmen gebe es jedoch nicht, die Kriterien seien für alle gleich. Auch die Kriterien der Entscheidungen durch die Community seien "vollkommen transparent".

The company is convinced that advertisement forms like "Acceptable Ads" will prevail in the long run. Whitelisting is free of charge for small and medium-sized websites. "We have always transparently communicated that big companies support our initiative financially." However, preferential treatment of these companies does not exist, the criteria are the same for everybody. The criteria for decisions by the community are also "completely transparent." [1]

[1]: The whole paragraph is difficult to translate since it makes extensive use of indirect speech, which is marked by the German Konjunktiv, without a clear marker of a speaker. The whole paragraph is a mixture of direct quote and paraphrasing of the company's own words and thus represents entirely the company's view and assurance that everything is fair, transparent and openly communicated.

[edit] tense in the first paragraph [had criticised]