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Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

research.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#11

Post by crtasm »

manigandham wrote: post #6
Kalium wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the small players can only continue to exist by serving malvertising, some might opine that they might not have a right to continue to exist with that business model.

Why must non-server advertising be the same as malvertising? The integration type is different from the ads that are possible. Server-side integration doesn't affect what ads are available.

Don't all the ad networks use JavaScript? Has any network never let malicious code from advertisers slip through? (I guess Google? But I'd prefer not to have even more people embedding their js everywhere I browse)

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#12

Post by dmortin »

user812 wrote: post #7
dmortin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you accept that advertising is necessary to some business models, I hope to see publishers move ads back to the server The problem is the big guys can do this easily, but e.g. someone running a blog cannot easily serve ads from the server. Ad networks are about ad auction and showing the highest paying available ads for a site. Client side ad solutions makes this easy for the little guy, because ad selection is…

The selection isn't happening on the publisher's side, but on the ad-tech side. Every publisher can enjoy the tech provided by Google, and participate in gaining money from this system, relative to it's popularity. So what we see is that small players within the ad-tech business are dying, while bigger players (Google, Facebook) can not only adapt to the law, but also help writing the law. So a hypothetical switch to…

> So a hypothetical switch to first-party/server side ads won't have a negative effect on small blogs, because they can simply chose Google as their ad partner, which will create the necessary solutions.

With client side ad serving the ad serving network can be very fast, because google, etc. provides the cdn for this.

If it is done on the server side then when loading the page the server will have to do additional remote network calls to retrieve the ads from google servers, so the page will be slower to respond. Also, smaller sites usually run on budget hosting which often limit resources and having to do additonal remote network fetches when assembling the page can very easily run into some server side limit.

So server side ad serving for little sites can have a significant impact on server response time which is not an issue with the current model.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#13

Post by abdullahkhalids »

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads.

1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service.

2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or less for most articles, less than 5c for more serious journalism. Maybe 2 cents/day for social media websites. I would guess for most people in the west 30 dollars/month would be the max they are willing to spend and for other countries, ~5 dollars/month.

3. In return for paying for a page there should be 0 off-site advertisements on the page.

4. People are going to say - such a business model will not work because too many decisions. Look at places like South Asia where hundreds of millions of people use prepaid phone services where they get charged for every call/sms at very low rates. And they would not have it any other way. I am sure consumers in the West can be trained similarly.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#14

Post by dmortin »

crtasm wrote: post #11
manigandham wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why must non-server advertising be the same as malvertising? The integration type is different from the ads that are possible. Server-side integration doesn't affect what ads are available.

Don't all the ad networks use JavaScript? Has any network never let malicious code from advertisers slip through? (I guess Google? But I'd prefer not to have even more people embedding their js everywhere I browse)

How is it different when ads are served from server side? Most sites (especially smaller ones) would still use an ad network, because they don't have their own resources to find advertisers, which it calls from server side to retrieve the ad. And when the retireved ad code is injected into the page on server side it could still lead to some malicious site or whatever.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#15

Post by vivekseth »

nattaylor wrote: post #3

If you accept that advertising is necessary to some business models, I hope to see publishers move ads back to the server because I think eliminating all the code from the client would drastically improve user experience. This would make them tougher to block and hinder users ability to control privacy, but it would also restrict tracking to that specific site.

How would server-side ads improve the user experience?

I have some ideas about what you might mean (improve page load time, prevent content from jumping as ads load), but curious about what you think.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#16

Post by bhauer »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

If this were sufficiently streamlined, and as you say, part of the browser chrome and not in-page, I feel the same way. I want this, and I know many others do as well. This is essentially what Brave is, as I understand it. But I agree, I'd like an offering from Mozilla in this space because I feel I know and agree with their mission statement and ethics more completely.

Other things I'd like:

* A small account that is refilled periodically, optionally automatically, like a Starbucks card.

* A good UI showing an accounting and summary of my micro payments.

* An ability to give more than the asking price, ala Bandcamp and other sites, allowing this to be a mechanism to support content creators one particularly enjoys.

* To your first point, an ability to select which information is disclosed by the payment process to the content provider. I should be able to select anything from just the hash/token that proves a payment, to a preferred handle, an email address, a custom message, etc.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#17

Post by manigandham »

crtasm wrote: post #11
manigandham wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why must non-server advertising be the same as malvertising? The integration type is different from the ads that are possible. Server-side integration doesn't affect what ads are available.

Don't all the ad networks use JavaScript? Has any network never let malicious code from advertisers slip through? (I guess Google? But I'd prefer not to have even more people embedding their js everywhere I browse)

Yes, there are networks that have always remained clean. It's a business problem more than technical.

But the topic was smaller sites running 3rd party networks which necessarily only integrate via client-side JS. That has nothing to do with what kind of ads are being run. It's the same exact ad calls to the ad exchanges, just done via HTTP from the server rather than JS in the browser.

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#18

Post by dmortin »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

This should be adopted by every browser maker for this to work.

If we assume it is adopted then there is the issue that somewhere it is stored what sites I visited. It has to be, because it's needed if there is a payment dispute, for example. ("I was charged for that site, but I never visited it.")

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#19

Post by singularity2001 »

dmortin wrote: post #18
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #13

Mozilla should work on a micro-payment system that is inbuilt into the browser. Ultimately that is the only solution to a web that values user privacy and prevents the psychological toll of ads. 1. Obviously, the micro-payment system should not be selling my usage data to anyone. Perhaps some cryptographic techniques can be used to increase trust in the service. 2. The price for each page should be low - a cent or le…

This should be adopted by every browser maker for this to work. If we assume it is adopted then there is the issue that somewhere it is stored what sites I visited. It has to be, because it's needed if there is a payment dispute, for example. ("I was charged for that site, but I never visited it.")

It seems hard, but maybe there is a way to guarantee privacy. Yes, once you try to redeem your lost $0.02 from conman.com people will get to know you; If you just swallow your loss it should be possible to stay anonymous. (Not with BC, so we need a little invention)

Re: Firefox: The Effect of Ad Blocking on User Engagement with the Web [pdf]

#20

Post by 908087 »

crtasm wrote: post #11
manigandham wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why must non-server advertising be the same as malvertising? The integration type is different from the ads that are possible. Server-side integration doesn't affect what ads are available.

Don't all the ad networks use JavaScript? Has any network never let malicious code from advertisers slip through? (I guess Google? But I'd prefer not to have even more people embedding their js everywhere I browse)

Google has been caught serving malware / malicious ads numerous times, IIRC. Here are a couple incidents I found with a quick search:

https://www.wired.com/2010/12/doubleclick/

https://www.fastcompany.com/3062867/overlay-malware-google-a...

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