Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 259 posts

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#141

Post by dredmorbius »

slig wrote: post #97
esoteric_nonces wrote: post #82

Maciej (HN handle 'idlewords') has an interesting take on this that I'm struggling to find in my history right now. The basic idea is that all of the data these companies collect is still ultimately useless in practice. We still don't have advertising that is even close to being relevant. But the data retains its toxic qualities (of being a database of every action I take on the Internet and some in the real world).…

Do you use YouTube while logged in? In my experience, the content recommendation on YouTube is the best. I've been learning about electronics and watching a few videos about it. Now YouTube recommends me new content and channels that are extremely relevant. My brother is into guitars, and his frontpage is all about that.

YouTube recommendations have been improving, and I do find a lot of material of interest, which says something as my interests are obscure.

But, and this is a big but: YouTube doesn't provide the options to either dismiss any given suggestion, nor to block specific channels. There's sufficient crap on YouTube that both are essential. I've been campaigning for both features for some time now.

Google's recently implemented an account-wide blocked-users manager. It applies now to G+ and Hangouts, though it may move beyond that. "Google doesn't comment on future plans", as they're fond of saying. I have hopes.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#142

Post by devishard »

econnors wrote: post #32
tomp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they are malicious. They're serving the high-profit ads, which obviously includes malware, where they could be serving low-profit, safe (but boring) ads. That's equivalent to pharmacists selling illegal drugs (heroin, cocaine) simply because they obviously make them more profits.

It's not that simple. At any one time, a publisher can be serving ads from a few exchanges, a few different private sellers, and custom built ads for brands. And these all are served in different combinations across several different ad units on multiple pages. And some of those ad sellers may be backfilling with other ad networks, or maybe the publisher is backfilling certain ads from the ad exchanges at certain CPM…

> At any one time, a publisher can be serving ads from a few exchanges, a few different private sellers, and custom built ads for brands. And these all are served in different combinations across several different ad units on multiple pages. And some of those ad sellers may be backfilling with other ad networks, or maybe the publisher is backfilling certain ads from the ad exchanges at certain CPM prices.

So, don't do that.

> It's not that simple.

It is absolutely that simple.

Your argument is basically, "Their process is so complicated they can't avoid serving up malware." But that's not a justification for serving up malware. If your process is too complicated to avoid serving malware, then you need to simplify your process until you can avoid serving up malware.

You don't get a free pass on ethics just because ethics are inconvenient for your business model.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#143

Post by dredmorbius »

morgante wrote: post #107
krapp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is saying "high quality" journalists should work for free (although their employers would probably prefer it), only that they can no longer depend on advertising for revenue. If companies want to remain on the web and continue making money they're going to have to be more creative, begging people to view their ads by blocking ad blockers (while understandable) probably isn't going to work in the long run.

The parent was railing against both adwalls and paywalls. If you don't want advertising and refuse to pay for content, I don't see how that's anything less than expecting free journalism.

Universal Content Syndication: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modes...

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#144

Post by realityking »

Zelmor wrote: post #22

Same should go for HN, really. Paywalls and adwalls are a great way to make me not even read the article and thread. Yet, they make frontpage due to buzz.

How do you propose content producers earn their income, if you think neither ads nor paywalls are acceptable?

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#145

Post by ryan-c »

chris_wot wrote: post #89
belorn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description doesn't show why a pharmacist selling illegal drugs is dissimilar to a website selling ad space to illegal ad-space buyers. Any time where you've got multiple producers and multiple retailers, you get middle people like those you describe that must juggle demand and supply. Pharmacists have an equally complex path from producer to customer as ads have from ad-space buyer to website visitor. However,…

I'm not aware of any legal action taken over malware served up from add on a website. But if it were to happen, the website is who is sue, because it is within their responsibility to ensure that ads and/or content should not cause harm to a visitor.

> it is within their (the website) responsibility to ensure that ads and/or content should not cause harm to a visitor.

I don't think that's been established. With the current state of advertising on the internet, it's not even possible to do this.

In general, websites use advertising networks which do not allow them to proactively vet the content. Even if they did, no amount of vetting can guarantee the content is benign (active content can do naughty things only some of the time or on some platforms, or things not yet recognized as naughty - this is also why antivirus isn't reliable). So, clearly the solution is to not allow Javascript or flash, right? Nope - exploits in image parsers, font parsers, video parsers, audio parsers, etc. come out fairly often.

This could maybe be dealt with by contracts between websites and advertising networks specifying that the advertising network will be liable for malicious content, but I don't see that happening.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#146

Post by ikeboy »

belorn wrote: post #40
econnors wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. At any one time, a publisher can be serving ads from a few exchanges, a few different private sellers, and custom built ads for brands. And these all are served in different combinations across several different ad units on multiple pages. And some of those ad sellers may be backfilling with other ad networks, or maybe the publisher is backfilling certain ads from the ad exchanges at certain CPM…

Your description doesn't show why a pharmacist selling illegal drugs is dissimilar to a website selling ad space to illegal ad-space buyers. Any time where you've got multiple producers and multiple retailers, you get middle people like those you describe that must juggle demand and supply. Pharmacists have an equally complex path from producer to customer as ads have from ad-space buyer to website visitor. However,…

The answer: we accept a far higher cost of medicine and medical treatments in exchange for regulations. Go compare costs between us and other countries.

We don't accept paying for content to avoid ads that may be dangerous.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#147

Post by dredmorbius »

detaro wrote: post #138
slig wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you use YouTube while logged in? In my experience, the content recommendation on YouTube is the best. I've been learning about electronics and watching a few videos about it. Now YouTube recommends me new content and channels that are extremely relevant. My brother is into guitars, and his frontpage is all about that.

It's not bad, but it doesn't seem get the hint if you don't care about something, even you go out of your way and click the "No interest" option. Clicked that 20 times for a channel, it still showed me suggestions from them.

I've been requesting channel blocking. As in "never show me anything from this channel ever again". I encourage you to do likewise.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#148

Post by dragonwriter »

ikeboy wrote: post #146
belorn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description doesn't show why a pharmacist selling illegal drugs is dissimilar to a website selling ad space to illegal ad-space buyers. Any time where you've got multiple producers and multiple retailers, you get middle people like those you describe that must juggle demand and supply. Pharmacists have an equally complex path from producer to customer as ads have from ad-space buyer to website visitor. However,…

The answer: we accept a far higher cost of medicine and medical treatments in exchange for regulations. Go compare costs between us and other countries. We don't accept paying for content to avoid ads that may be dangerous.

> The answer: we accept a far higher cost of medicine and medical treatments in exchange for regulations. Go compare costs between us and other countries.

The countries that pay less than us often are at least as highly regulated when it comes to medicine, medical treatments, and their delivery, so while we certainly are paying a lot more for those things, I don't think that the argument that we do so "in exchange for regulations" is particularly defensible.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#149

Post by dredmorbius »

DannyBee wrote: post #132
dredmorbius wrote: post #131

Yes, ban both adblock blockers and paywalls. The first are overtly refusing to accept users' terms. The second are trying to have their cake and eat it too: viral content propogation whilst refusing to present content to those who come at it via link aggregators and discussion sites such as Reddit. Both actively thwart Reddit's intended aim: informed discussion of an article _by having read it_. If they don't want to…

"The first are overtly refusing to accept users' terms." As they are refusing to accept theirs :) This is just contract negotiation. I'm not sure why you have an issue with it (or would desire to ban it). You have told them "we want to change the terms'. They are saying "no". Great, so move if you don't like that supplier. Humorously, the thing you (and reddit) want to perform by banning is known as "concerted refusa…

Because the trade is openly hostile to the intent of discussion sites: to exchange and discuss information.

If users can't view the content, they cannot discuss it.

And, as I've also mentioned at length (in the post and its links, as well as elsewhere) advertising itself is the problem in multiple aspects.

The sooner we render it nonviable, the sooner we move to something that works.

Re: “We're considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”

#150

Post by Dylan16807 »

devishard wrote: post #142
econnors wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. At any one time, a publisher can be serving ads from a few exchanges, a few different private sellers, and custom built ads for brands. And these all are served in different combinations across several different ad units on multiple pages. And some of those ad sellers may be backfilling with other ad networks, or maybe the publisher is backfilling certain ads from the ad exchanges at certain CPM…

> At any one time, a publisher can be serving ads from a few exchanges, a few different private sellers, and custom built ads for brands. And these all are served in different combinations across several different ad units on multiple pages. And some of those ad sellers may be backfilling with other ad networks, or maybe the publisher is backfilling certain ads from the ad exchanges at certain CPM prices. So, don't d…

Especially when an ad network that only serves images is easier to make than one that can serve scripts and sometimes attack the user.
Post reply on HN