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

181–190 of 259 posts

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

#181

Post by riskable »

baldfat wrote: post #83
econnors wrote: post #6

As noted other comments, this would only apply to the /r/technology subreddit. The general feedback is in favor of blocking these types of sites. I'm pretty amazed at the current state of ads. With multiple ad exchanges, private sellers, and static brand deals, the entire serving process is a mess and users are paying for it. I don't think publishing websites are being malicious; they're incentived to make money and…

> nobody really knows a solution that makes everyone happy Impossible and usually the worst approach to have. The best thing is to have a visionary that blazes the path for the rest to follow. Sadly the vast majority of visionaries will fail.

I think the problem here is that regardless of the "visionary"...

  * You make an ad network that makes advertisers happy.  In reality this will pretty much *always* make users *unhappy*.
  * You make an ad network that makes users happy.  In reality this makes advertisers *unhappy*.
There's not much middle ground there. The only possible win-win scenario is you make an ad network that makes users happy by only allowing users to advertise to other users. AKA classifieds.

...or you could just have one ad network that advertisers hate that users are happy with but because there's only one the advertisers just have to live with it.

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

#182

Post by econnors »

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…

But it's not the publishers process or business model that is causing the problem - it's the process of filling ad space that is broken. Sure, you could pick one ad network and micro monitor it, but you wouldn't make enough money to sustain quality content. CPM optimization is a requirement of the field if you'd like to profit enough to sustain quality journalism and not be the next you-wont-guess-the-top-10-craziest-things site.

Yes, I think publishers have a responsibility to monitor their ads and keep their users safe. But I still don't think it's a black and white ethics situation. The exchanges and other ad providers need to fix their business model and not depend on publishers to filter the malware ads they're sneaking onto their page.

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

#183

Post by Silhouette »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #177
Silhouette wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing known-risky formats that keep failing over and over is negligent. But if you look at this from the opposite direction, you're essentially arguing that we should only use technologies that are known, or at least reasonably expected, to be extremely safe. Given that in general humanity hasn't yet figured out how to create such technologies, and that numerous formats we use every day on the web to great overall…

> But if you look at this from the opposite direction, you're essentially arguing that we should only use technologies that are known, or at least reasonably expected, to be extremely safe. No I'm not. Go ahead and use a new technology. But don't use a proven-bad technology. If you tried a reasonable amount and don't know about security holes, that's one thing. If someone shows you the security holes, and you don't f…

Go ahead and use a new technology. But don't use a proven-bad technology.

But the "proven bad" technology you're talking about here is just incorporating any third party content in your site. Obviously that is a security risk if the third party isn't perfect about policing what they host.

On the other hand, billions of resources are served in that way every day, and the web is a much better place for it. Only a tiny fraction of those third party resources are hostile, and most of the ones that are will be closed down rapidly by the third party service themselves once discovered.

So is this really in "proven bad", "known-risky" territory, or are we actually talking about "very rare" dangers and a lot of hyperbole here?

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

#184

Post by Silhouette »

tracker1 wrote: post #176
Silhouette wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that space already occupied by sites like Facebook?

I mean safe ad networks, and self-hosted ad platforms, that are served via first-party.

What would that look like for, say, a small personal blog that includes a few ads to cover the hosting costs?

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

#185

Post by Dylan16807 »

Silhouette wrote: post #183
Dylan16807 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you look at this from the opposite direction, you're essentially arguing that we should only use technologies that are known, or at least reasonably expected, to be extremely safe. No I'm not. Go ahead and use a new technology. But don't use a proven-bad technology. If you tried a reasonable amount and don't know about security holes, that's one thing. If someone shows you the security holes, and you don't f…

Go ahead and use a new technology. But don't use a proven-bad technology. But the "proven bad" technology you're talking about here is just incorporating any third party content in your site. Obviously that is a security risk if the third party isn't perfect about policing what they host. On the other hand, billions of resources are served in that way every day, and the web is a much better place for it. Only a tiny…

The problem is incorporating third party content that is neither screened nor sanitized. The proportion doesn't matter as much as the fact that there is nothing stopping attacks. They only get cleaned up afterwards. You don't expose your users to attack without warning.

I think very few websites allow one person to embed arbitrary scripts that will be shown to another person.

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

#186

Post by thebaer »

bemmu wrote: post #10
alblue wrote: post #2

The nub of the thread is: these sites have put up ad blocker blockers, so you can't see the content without disabling your ad blocker. And yet when you do you are either exposed to full screen or video auto play ads, or in some cases, malware: http://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-rea... Given that Reddit is a large source of incoming referrals this stance (if implemented) might be a sufficient lev…

In response to ads, people install ad blockers. In response to ad blockers, sites install ad blocker blockers. In response to ad blocker blockers, Reddit adds ad blocker blocker blocker.

At step 2 the site gets their JS disabled. :)

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

#187

Post by Silhouette »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #185
Silhouette wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go ahead and use a new technology. But don't use a proven-bad technology. But the "proven bad" technology you're talking about here is just incorporating any third party content in your site. Obviously that is a security risk if the third party isn't perfect about policing what they host. On the other hand, billions of resources are served in that way every day, and the web is a much better place for it. Only a tiny…

The problem is incorporating third party content that is neither screened nor sanitized. The proportion doesn't matter as much as the fact that there is nothing stopping attacks. They only get cleaned up afterwards. You don't expose your users to attack without warning. I think very few websites allow one person to embed arbitrary scripts that will be shown to another person.

The problem is incorporating third party content that is neither screened nor sanitized.

It is impossible to screen or sanitize third party content if the third party is hosting it and the user loads it when your page refers to it. The third party can change that content at any time, without your knowledge or consent. This is how almost all ad networks work. It is also how almost all CDNs, web font services, image hosting services, etc. work.

I think very few websites allow one person to embed arbitrary scripts that will be shown to another person.

Every single site on the web that hosts jQuery via a CDN does exactly that. This single example alone represents many millions of sites.

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

#188

Post by pavel_lishin »

Silhouette wrote: post #166
devishard wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You don't get a free pass on ethics just because ethics are inconvenient for your business model. I think calling this an ethical issue is quite a stretch. In many cases, we're talking about visitors who are not only enjoying the content from someone else's site completely for free, but also employing tools that actively modify the intended presentation of that content to the detriment of the host site's operators. A…

> already generously offering their content for free

If they're attempting to make money from ads, they're not offering it for free.

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

#189

Post by Namrog84 »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #180

Why are people commenting here, instead of in the reddit request for comments thread? It's literally a call for you to leave your comments on this matter for reddit to read, doing so here is in this case about as counter productive as it gets...

I have seen in the past when there is a split like this. That there are often different styles and topics of conversation on the subject. I find reading and sometimes participating in both to be worthwhile.

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

#190

Post by protomyth »

cooper12 wrote: post #171
protomyth wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer not reusing closed lock since it represents encryption in most browsers.

Hmm that's a fair point even if it's in a different context since ideally each symbol would retain its own meaning. I'm not sure what a better icon would be then that would be intuitive unless one was decided upon and widely used.

Its a recent user training issue, so, if it wasn't so soon I would be all happy, but finding a better icon would probably be better.

A book with a lock might work.

Post reply on HN