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Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

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Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#121

Post by Karunamon »

wallunit wrote: post #114
Karunamon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few companies take money to help bypass the function of their product! This is analogous to an antivirus vendor taking money from malware authors to avoid detecting the worm of the day, the only difference being that a text ad isn't as likely to frag your computer. But hey, in both cases, they're getting money to "maintain and improve the product".

This comparison implies that everybody can get their ads on that white list, for money. But that isn't true. There are guidelines that define what is acceptable ad and what not. [1] Everybody that gets on the white list has to conform to that guidelines. So it would be rather like an AV software that lets by default, installers still change your default home page (or stuff like that), if the installer is fair enough…

So great. I download a product who's stated purpose is to block ads, and I have to worry about their author's dealings with ad companies to decide if something will or won't be blocked.

You have a disturbing amount of trust for someone with such an amazingly blatant conflict of interest.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#122

Post by md224 »

RyanZAG wrote: post #113

I was thinking about this further, and while it comes off as fairly irrelevant to start with, it's actually an extremely bad thing. In essence, this has set up two tiers of advertising: those we have paid for white list privileges, and those who haven't. This is heavily in Google's interests as they are the only advertiser powerful enough to get by with only text adverts - nobody else has a platform like Google searc…

It's interesting that people are upset about Google being able to pay to get their content around certain barriers, when this is essentially what Google AdWords is: a system for advertisers to pay to get their content displayed in prominent locations rather than relying on position in organic search. And yet nobody really takes it seriously as a Real Problem.

Not trivializing your complaint, btw... just pointing out that using money to get your message to the forefront is kind of the point of advertising itself, so the fact that Google is paying to get their advertising displayed is kind of... meta?

I'd love to have a discussion on HN about the necessity of advertising in the Information Age. I think we would all like to live in a world where purchasing decisions are based on reviews from people that have actually used a good or service, and I would think that the ubiquity of the web has made this kind of crowdsourced intelligence quite feasible.

Does advertising provide a valuable service beyond subsidizing information flow? If not, are there alternate viable strategies for subsidizing information flow, such as Wikipedia's donation model? Is a post-advertising world possible, or even desirable?

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#123

Post by kbenson »

RyanZAG wrote: post #113

I was thinking about this further, and while it comes off as fairly irrelevant to start with, it's actually an extremely bad thing. In essence, this has set up two tiers of advertising: those we have paid for white list privileges, and those who haven't. This is heavily in Google's interests as they are the only advertiser powerful enough to get by with only text adverts - nobody else has a platform like Google searc…

You really equate paying a third party to reduce their negative impact on your business to paying a third party to start negatively impacting a competitor?

One takes advantage of market conditions their benefit, the other changes market conditions to the detriment of the competitor.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#124

Post by BrainInAJar »

RyanZAG wrote: post #113

I was thinking about this further, and while it comes off as fairly irrelevant to start with, it's actually an extremely bad thing. In essence, this has set up two tiers of advertising: those we have paid for white list privileges, and those who haven't. This is heavily in Google's interests as they are the only advertiser powerful enough to get by with only text adverts - nobody else has a platform like Google searc…

The bad precedent was when Adblock introduced the concept of "acceptable ads" in the first place.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#125

Post by hnnnnng »

kbenson wrote: post #123
RyanZAG wrote: post #113

I was thinking about this further, and while it comes off as fairly irrelevant to start with, it's actually an extremely bad thing. In essence, this has set up two tiers of advertising: those we have paid for white list privileges, and those who haven't. This is heavily in Google's interests as they are the only advertiser powerful enough to get by with only text adverts - nobody else has a platform like Google searc…

You really equate paying a third party to reduce their negative impact on your business to paying a third party to start negatively impacting a competitor? One takes advantage of market conditions their benefit, the other changes market conditions to the detriment of the competitor.

Well by funding, they are helping adblock. And, assuming its true that their(Google's) own ads are NOT blocked, it means adblock(and by extension Google) is negatively impacting only the competitors. So in this case, the comparison is very valid.

Obviously they(Google) can't outright put out an adblocker of their own, but if someone else puts it out and they support it, and it just so happens to whitelist their ads, you must admit its definitely worth at least questioning. Plus Google is not the stellar company it pretends to be, with the recent news about its tax evasion in Europe and PRISM participation.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#126

Post by kefs »

CrazedGeek wrote: post #51
jpdoctor wrote: post #6

Quick ref to get rid of Google Ads (and some others too) on Adblock Plus: FOR CHROME: Go to "Settings" Find Extensions in the list on the left Find AdBlock, select "Options" Click the tab "Filter Lists" Uncheck: "Allow some non-intrusive advertising" FOR FIREFOX: Go to the Firefox menu in the upper left corner Select "Add-ons" Select "Extensions" Find Adblock Plus, select Options. Find the "Filter Preferences" Button…

Alternatively, for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/

For those curious, AdBlock Edge is a fork of ABP before they decided to add 'Acceptable Ads'.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#127

Post by smsm42 »

coldtea wrote: post #92
smsm42 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing different from any other extension, so what you're saying nobody should be using extensions in their browsers. Good luck with convincing people not to do it.

Well, I for one don't use any extensions with Chrome. And not even from security concerns. Just from lack of any interest to do so. Why should I? For some marginal utility? I'd take it more average people don't use extensions either -- if they know what they are in the first place.

Well, Stallman browses the web by sending emails[1], so he still has you beat :)

But you must realize 99.999% of the population would never do that, and for most people extensions are vital and useful. So giving them such security advice is like saying "oh, personal security is simple - just never have any money and anything valuable and never leave home". Not very practical.

[1] http://www.stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#129

Post by eli »

programminggeek wrote: post #73
cake wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don't forget to support the websites that you visit the most by whitelisting them.

Um, that's dumb unless you plan on clicking their ads. Seriously, just showing a CPC ad doesn't help them. Showing a CPM ad doesn't help much either if they are getting $5-10 CPM. You literally could just pay them $5 or $10 and be more valuable than whitelisting them.

Yes, and some sites do charge $5 or $10 for access or for additional features. But I'm glad the whole web doesn't work that way.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#130

Post by wallunit »

Karunamon wrote: post #121
wallunit wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comparison implies that everybody can get their ads on that white list, for money. But that isn't true. There are guidelines that define what is acceptable ad and what not. [1] Everybody that gets on the white list has to conform to that guidelines. So it would be rather like an AV software that lets by default, installers still change your default home page (or stuff like that), if the installer is fair enough…

So great. I download a product who's stated purpose is to block ads, and I have to worry about their author's dealings with ad companies to decide if something will or won't be blocked. You have a disturbing amount of trust for someone with such an amazingly blatant conflict of interest.

Adblock Plus doesn't deal with ad companies. But with websites that have ads on their site. So if the kind and placement of ads on their website is "acceptable" they can get on the white list. The article in the link of this thread is a little confusing. It's not true that all Google AdSense ads are white-listed, but the ads on the Google search page are.

By the way Adblock Plus has put Reddit and some other smaller websites on the white list for free to support them. But unfortunately Adblock Plus has also to cooperate with larger companies to make some money, themselves. But still, all ads that are getting on the white list are mild, and not the kind of ad that made once everybody of us that pissed off, that we started to use ad blockers.

Another thing I would like to mention is that, around the same time Adblock Plus introduced "Acceptable Ads", a lot of websites at least here in Germany started to detect ad blockers and asked the user to disable his ad blocker. Otherwise the website refused to deliver content or provide functionality. With the increase of popularity of ad blockers, the people running websites driven by ads will no longer tolerate that their ads are blocked. And there will be probably nothing you can do against that. Considering that, it is actually great that those websites can just get on a white list used by the majority of AdBlock Plus users. So the websites can continue to make enough money from their ads and people that are smart enough to disable "Acceptable Ads", like you and me, still get all ads blocked.

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