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AdBlock Plus wins in court

bbc.com

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Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#11

Post by k-mcgrady »

sparaker wrote: post #9
baldfat wrote: post #4

Personally I don't use Ad Blockers just due to the fact my own personal ethics feels I am stealing when I do use it. When I am teaching I have ad blocker installed because I don't want to get in trouble for what advertisement will be shown, especially YouTube. AdBlock Plus and their paid white list is the worst and I don't know why people use them.

I don't use AdBlock Plus but i do use AdBlock. I think its my decision to choose which ads i watch and which i don't. It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not.

>> It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not.

In other words it's not stealing unless you get caught?

Edit: Relax people. Let's not get into another debate on copying vs. theft. I was merely pointing out that the parents analogy (which was the one that referenced stealing) was bad.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#12

Post by honest_joe »

This is sad day for content creators. If the site is full of ads you are not comfortable to view do NOT VISIT such sites again. It's stealing, it's manipulating the statistics.

We can't get good content because corporations taught people to not pay for content and now we will not get good content because people will slice the income of those who use ads.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#13

Post by tokenizerrr »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #11
sparaker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use AdBlock Plus but i do use AdBlock. I think its my decision to choose which ads i watch and which i don't. It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not.

>> It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not. In other words it's not stealing unless you get caught? Edit: Relax people. Let's not get into another debate on copying vs. theft. I was merely pointing out that the parents analogy (which was the one that referenced stealing) was bad.

Is Google stealing from them when they crawl their pages but don't load in the ads? What about when I wget their page? Am I stealing from them now? Maybe when I disable javascript in my browser? Am I now a thief?

No, I am not. It's not stealing whatsoever, ever. Even if they detect you're not loading in all the content they want you to load. If they manage to detect this, then they can choose to block your access to the content. Or perhaps rework their revenue model if it turns out it isn't working.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#14

Post by JoeAltmaier »

honest_joe wrote: post #12

This is sad day for content creators. If the site is full of ads you are not comfortable to view do NOT VISIT such sites again. It's stealing, it's manipulating the statistics. We can't get good content because corporations taught people to not pay for content and now we will not get good content because people will slice the income of those who use ads.

What? Really? How about "If you want to support ad-driven sites then just don't use AdBlock Plus"

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#15

Post by struppi »

honest_joe wrote: post #12

This is sad day for content creators. If the site is full of ads you are not comfortable to view do NOT VISIT such sites again. It's stealing, it's manipulating the statistics. We can't get good content because corporations taught people to not pay for content and now we will not get good content because people will slice the income of those who use ads.

Do you switch channels on your TV when the commercials start and switch back when the show resumes? Blocking online ads is basically the same. i.e. perfectly legitimate.

Only you hurt the creator more online, since the advertisers can now measure the views+clicks. Which is also perfectly fair - They should not have to pay for ads nobody sees. This would also be fair on TV - But there it's impossible to measure.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#16

Post by eis »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #11
sparaker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use AdBlock Plus but i do use AdBlock. I think its my decision to choose which ads i watch and which i don't. It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not.

>> It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not. In other words it's not stealing unless you get caught? Edit: Relax people. Let's not get into another debate on copying vs. theft. I was merely pointing out that the parents analogy (which was the one that referenced stealing) was bad.

It's not stealing because nothing is stolen. Or what is your definition of stealing?

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#17

Post by honest_joe »

struppi wrote: post #15
honest_joe wrote: post #12

This is sad day for content creators. If the site is full of ads you are not comfortable to view do NOT VISIT such sites again. It's stealing, it's manipulating the statistics. We can't get good content because corporations taught people to not pay for content and now we will not get good content because people will slice the income of those who use ads.

Do you switch channels on your TV when the commercials start and switch back when the show resumes? Blocking online ads is basically the same. i.e. perfectly legitimate. Only you hurt the creator more online, since the advertisers can now measure the views+clicks. Which is also perfectly fair - They should not have to pay for ads nobody sees. This would also be fair on TV - But there it's impossible to measure.

First of all I do not watch TV. I assume that's why netflix is so popular. Please pardon me i am not sure if it has an ads in it or not but i assumed since it's a content on demand it does not.

Also simply blocking something because you can but you should not is cheating.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#18

Post by rawTruthHurts »

honest_joe wrote: post #12

This is sad day for content creators. If the site is full of ads you are not comfortable to view do NOT VISIT such sites again. It's stealing, it's manipulating the statistics. We can't get good content because corporations taught people to not pay for content and now we will not get good content because people will slice the income of those who use ads.

Definitely. Content blocked by Adblock is always top notch stuff nobody in his right mind would be able to live without. I know for sure; I create a lot of those amazing wonders during my workday.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#19

Post by bad_user »

honest_joe wrote: post #12

This is sad day for content creators. If the site is full of ads you are not comfortable to view do NOT VISIT such sites again. It's stealing, it's manipulating the statistics. We can't get good content because corporations taught people to not pay for content and now we will not get good content because people will slice the income of those who use ads.

While I would agree with this line of thought, ad networks have been used for the spread of malware and various scams. Ad networks have also tracked the browsing habits of users, with little regard for our privacy.

It's easy to say that if the site is full of ads, I should not visit it again, however I also do not want to load pieces of Javascript doing the above by mistakenly visiting a website that I do not want to visit. This isn't just an issue of annoyance, but one of online safety as well. I now recommend to every friend I have to use ad blockers.

Therefore I cannot sympathize much with networks complaining or with creators complaining about ad blockers. They've brought this on themselves and unless they change their ways, ad blockers will get more and more popular.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#20

Post by honest_joe »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #14
honest_joe wrote: post #12

This is sad day for content creators. If the site is full of ads you are not comfortable to view do NOT VISIT such sites again. It's stealing, it's manipulating the statistics. We can't get good content because corporations taught people to not pay for content and now we will not get good content because people will slice the income of those who use ads.

What? Really? How about "If you want to support ad-driven sites then just don't use AdBlock Plus"

Normal people would do that. Hell there are even sites that have whitelists of sites that you should support.
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