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Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#191

Post by beefield »

johndavidback wrote: post #164
natrius wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you allow targeted ads into your life, you're putting changes in your behavior on the market each time you touch a device. Those behavior changes are intended to make you give the buyer more money than they paid. The market will find every flaw in your psychology that can be used to take money from your pocket. These flaws exist: Las Vegas is built on them. Targeted ads are the Las Vegas of the mind.

That's all well and good, but a key distinction here is that you are using Facebook for absolutely no out-of-pocket expenditure. Going to Vegas costs actual dollars. I suppose a stark, diametric alternative to being forced to view targeted ads would be Facebook as a paid subscription service. It's the age old issue of 'Someone has to pay for this party.'

I would be perfectly happy to pay Facebook a decent markup on their services I want to use (Assuming that I do not have to receive services I do not want. For following my friends' status, some groups and private messaging, on the Facebook scale, I would expect a few dollars per year to give Facebook a _very_ decent markup). Obviously, Facebook is not interested in this deal, but prefers keeping me their product instead of their customer. Which, in my opinion, gives me every moral right to game their advertisement machinery to maximize my personal wellbeing (or to be more precise, minimize the damage their machinery makes to my wellbeing.)

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#192

Post by [deleted] »

curiousgal wrote: post #51
ryandrake wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?

This doesn't just apply to this case but in general, you read about people tinkering with cool tools and coming up with great techniques whose only purpose is to track users in order to serve them ads.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#193

Post by noisy_boy »

All my school/college friends are on Whatsapp (owned by Facebook yes). We have setup a group for our class and I get to know whatever that is happening without any ads. I deleted my Facebook account a while ago (I know its not really deleted but whatever) and basically it didn't make any difference as such. Nobody complained that I wasn't on Facebook, I didn't have to see what people ate last evening or how awesomer their life is compared to mine and it saves a ton of bandwidth/keeps my phone snappy. For browing via PC, Ublock Origin filters are working fine for now. I actually feel better without Facebook.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#194

Post by corford »

Bartweiss wrote: post #130
corford wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to be hard for facebook because they're such a big target. I think where ad-blockers will start to have problems is with the millions of lesser known sites. Once these publishers swap over to proxying ad-content through their own domains and using a handful of simple evasion tactics (random file name for the self hosted JS file that pulls in the ad, site specific pseudo-random DOM element names for the ad…

A question: once site owners proxy ads through their own domains, will they become liable when they serve malware? Right now the usual defense seems to be "we just buy 'em", but that's going to be a lot less convincing once Forbes.com is actively serving malware from their own site.

No idea, I'm not a lawyer. Assuming liability is a real problem presumably this is fixed by ad networks improving their vetting and offering some sort of insurance to publishers in the event malware sneaks through.

Alternatively, as mentioned in another comment, proxying might mean simply installing a managed ad-server within the publisher's infrastructure. So from an end-user PoV it looks like it's coming from the publisher's server but in reality it's still being served from a third party managed box.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#197

Post by omginternets »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #188
omginternets wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got it exactly backwards. The service is free, ergo you are the product, ergo Facebook's problems are your problems. You have three choices: 1. Stop using Facebook 2. Pay Facebook to remove ads 3. Look at ads I've opted for option 1, though I'll happily revisit this choice if Facebook (A) finds a way to make money without serving ads and without requiring me to pay out-of-pocket (unlikely) or (B) Facebook star…

Facebook's problems, which are my problems, are solved by opting for choice #4: use an ad-blocker.

Indeed. An oversight on my part.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#198

Post by hsod »

natrius wrote: post #170
johndavidback wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all well and good, but a key distinction here is that you are using Facebook for absolutely no out-of-pocket expenditure. Going to Vegas costs actual dollars. I suppose a stark, diametric alternative to being forced to view targeted ads would be Facebook as a paid subscription service. It's the age old issue of 'Someone has to pay for this party.'

Facebook's profitability is not your problem. It's their job to figure out how to get paid. It's your job to protect your mind. Targeted ads are worse than gambling. We made sure everyone's aware of the dangers of gambling, but everyone's in the dark about targeted ads. These companies know what they're doing. If people want to portray ad blocking as stealing, so be it. Steal from them. They deserve it.

> Facebook's profitability is not your problem.

No, but acting with honesty and fairness is. Facebook is asking you not to use their service if you are going to block ads. I think it's obvious that the "right" thing to do is to respect their wishes, not sneeringly defy them while using their resources and giving nothing in return.

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#199

Post by gajjanag »

motoford wrote: post #181
joeblau wrote: post #50

I really wish I had access to my `/ets/hosts` file on natively iOS so I could block Facebook from there like I do on my laptop.

In case anyone wants to do this now I found this after a quick search # Block Facebook 127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com 127.0.0.1 facebook.com 127.0.0.1 static.ak.fbcdn.net 127.0.0.1 www.static.ak.fbcdn.net 127.0.0.1 login.facebook.com 127.0.0.1 www.login.facebook.com 127.0.0.1 fbcdn.net 127.0.0.1 www.fbcdn.net 127.0.0.1 fbcdn.com 127.0.0.1 www.fbcdn.com 127.0.0.1 static.ak.connect.facebook.com 127.0.0.1 www.static.ak.conn…

A method that is more complete was described on HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11791052.

For OS X implementation, see the comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11795351 and the linked implementation.

For GNU/Linux, no one seemed to have posted something and I could not easily find it. Hence I wrote my own that has been tested successfully on my own machine: https://github.com/gajjanag/config_files/blob/master/block_f....

Re: Facebook will force advertising on ad-blocking users

#200

Post by jawilson2 »

bitwize wrote: post #195

Remember, "your contract with the network is you're going to watch the spots." By ad blocking, you are not upholding your end of the "bargain", therefore you're technically committing theft of service. And companies have few ethical qualms concerning thieves.

> "your contract with the network is you're going to watch the spots."

Where is this from?

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