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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

#171

Post by Retric »

bpatrianakos wrote: post #149
md224 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sincere question: do you feel that you, personally, have gained useful information from advertisements? Was it about a new kind of product or service that you didn't previously know about, or just a brand that was better than the ones you currently knew about? Your point about product discovery is well-taken. In the case of discovery of new product types, it seems to be a valid issue. For product types that a person…

I think that's a difficult question for most people but I can honestly say yes. Sometimes its hard to tell what exactly motivated you to buy a certain thing. My first car was a Volkswagen Jetta. The advertisements made me aware of the brand and its personality. That sounds superficial but its a real part of the appeal of a lot of products. It's hard to be zen and take your ego out of buying decisions. Sometimes it ca…

I see vary few advertisements and as a result I don't buy much stuff. Sure, I have missed out on say video games I would have enjoyed playing, but at the same time it's also removed a lot of disappointment and stress from my life. Generally, when I walk into a store brands mean nothing to me so I make some random choice and then decide to either stick with it or try something new. And honestly most big brands are good enough that there is not much difference between them so avoiding the cognative overhead of playing all those advertizing jingles as I get groceries is a great thing.

I also tend to buy brands that spend less on advertizing because they end up as a better deal for your money.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#173

Post by cLeEOGPw »

md224 wrote: post #142
sandossu wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." Would you really like all advertising to move in that direction? You should realize it's impossible to know if a person really owns and likes a product or it's…

That's a good point to raise. Two questions: Would you agree that opinion manipulation in online reviews is already taking place? If so, would reducing the presence of explicitly-labelled advertisements result in an increase in covert opinion manipulation? I'm pretty sure there are already issues with regard to the trustworthiness of online reviews. But if we define the value of testimonial by impartiality, then ads…

Yes and yes. That's why I often look not at reviews themselves, but about questions that asks about problems of the product. Reading the answers you can tell if a problem is real or not, removing the possibility of fame questions about non-existing problems, in case this strategy ever would become widely used.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#174

Post by cLeEOGPw »

BrainInAJar wrote: post #124
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.

In the long run, acceptable adds will make advertising more "user friendly", while removing adds altogether makes them more aggressive and deceptive, because user does not expect for them to be shown. Control better than ban.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#175

Post by cynoclast »

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…

As long as their ads are not so obnoxious that I want to block them, I am personally ok with this.

Adblock was created because advertisers got greedy and took it too far, not because advertising is bad.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#176

Post by gordaco »

BrainInAJar wrote: post #124
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.

And made it opt-out instead of opt-in, making a sizable amount of its users unkonwingly accept it.

Of course, some of us still consider "acceptable ads" to be a big, big oxymoron.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#177

Post by recursive »

enraged_camel wrote: post #170
kbenson wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is exactly reversed. Adblock Plus is helping people to be exempt from certain "laws", and Google is paying Adblock's extortion fee. Remember, people have no inherent right to the content they are consuming it, they are getting it because Google is presenting it to them with some expectation that it will benefit Google. That benefit is usually revenue through advertising, in the cases where it's present.

The TV networks tried to make the exact same argument when they sued TiVO, but got shut down by the courts. Bottom line: nobody can be forced into seeing ads.

And no ad blocking service can be forced to block all the ads you want them to.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#179

Post by coldtea »

smsm42 wrote: post #127
coldtea wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-comp…

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

Well, I browse with Chrome Canary (and when it's in it's weird days, Beta), so I'm not any kind of Luddite.

I just don't see any extensions that are that useful. After all, we managed to get by without extensions in the "not using Firefox" camp for ages, until Safari/Chrome introduced them and we could get a taste.

To me they are more like the BS browser toolbars of yore.

>But you must realize 99.999% of the population would never do that, and for most people extensions are vital and useful.

Most people? If anything I'd say most people don't use extensions. From those that use a browser that doesn't support them, to those that couldn't be bothered or don't even know what they are.

Do you have any numbers that "most people" use extensions?

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#180

Post by coldtea »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #107
coldtea wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While I'd agree that many plugins have marginal utility, some like Firebug or Lastpass I find to be invaluable.

That's an exception. But I use Chrome, where the "Firebug" kind thing is already installed. If it wasn't, I'd install it as an extension too.
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