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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

#201

Post by dchichkov »

kbenson wrote: post #161
BrainInAJar wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you're wrong. There's no implicit contract, and I'm free to view or not view anything I feel like. I'm also free to refuse to use my resources (bandwidth) in the furtherance of your flawed business strategy (ads) I'm a good citizen, in that when I'm offered the opportunity to fund resources I enjoy through means that don't involve advertising I do. Often this comes with extra benefits to entice me. That's w…

> I'm free to view or not view anything I feel like You are, and that's your choice. You always have a choice whether to pay attention or not. To have a third party remove that choice entirely, I believe, is different. > I'm also free to refuse to use my resources (bandwidth) in the furtherance of your flawed business strategy (ads) Why is it flawed? It has worked for print media for over a century. It's worked for t…

> Is the problem that it's implicit? Would it make a difference if all page loads went to a landing page that said that said "This page is funded by in-content advertising. If you choose to opt-out of this you are not licensed or permitted to view this content." and required you to click to accept make a difference? Because at that point there IS a contract if you continue, and it's not implicit.

Would you agree, that as long as it is implicit I'm free to filter out ads in any way I like? And use any tools that can do that for me automatically?

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#202

Post by mcovey »

gcb0 wrote: post #65
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…

Still shocks me that people on this site uses those lame extrensions (which are a security risk no less) someonewhocares.org/hosts_zero/ Save this hosts file in your house's router and be safely free of advertising, shock sites, tracking.... On ALL devices With no added attack vector as with an extension and not limited to one browser in one device

I use this but it does have the disadvantage of being difficult to disable when you are getting issues because of blocked ads.

I also use Fanboy's adblock list ( https://www.fanboy.co.nz/ ) in Opera which requires no browser add-on, it's a feature of the web browser (RIP).

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#203

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

nobody else has a platform like Google search where text only adverts are enough to overcome costs and provide viability

Without endorsing the 'payola', something to bear in mind that Google chose to go with text-only ads instead of allowing advertisers to control the format. At the time people thought they were crazy and that text-only ads would not last very long for them. Turns out google was correct and its critics were wrong. Any of the other major search providers could have done this, but they didn't try it - and as a result their brands became hopelessly diluted by the garish advertising content, instead of the ads being part of the branding.

I manually enable adwords and google tracking on things like Ghostery and other software because adwords is the only platform that I don't find obnoxious and ugly.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#204

Post by jojolebobo »

bpatrianakos wrote: post #145
md224 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't want to live in an ad-free, review-only world myself. Advertising and reviews serve two different purposes. The one gets the word out about a product or service and lets the creator point out why their audience would like it. A review's purpose is to let others know if the product or service lives up to the advertising and lets you gauge how good a fit a given product is in relation to competitors or on its o…

You said advertising can be unethical at times. Can you illustrate your point with an example of advertising being ethical ?

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#205

Post by jojolebobo »

Funny that people would focus on google in this case. It seems to me adblock plus is the culprit here. First it gained a much significant footprint, then added the whole "acceptable ads" concept, then got paid by advertisers to be whitelisted.

Seems like adblock plus is abusing its position of power to extort money and doesn't care about the user.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#206

Post by kbenson »

gtirloni wrote: post #196
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.

I can't find these "laws" that you mention, do you have an URL?

"Laws" was in quotes to insinuate it may not be an actual "law", beyond the implied social/moral/ethical/(legal?) contract you enter when retrieving content from a site.

Beyond the ethical considerations, which I think can be clear but aren't always (depending on the type of advertising, such as pop-unders) I'm not convinced there aren't legal considerations as well, which is why elsewhere in this thread I asked for more information when a lawsuit was referenced.

Beyond pop-unders and similar advertising that I think can be clearly defined as outside the bounds of acceptability (see my other post that mentions pop-unders for details), I think this is very clear. When media is presented to you under the condition that you view their advertising, whether inline or before access, refusing to do so clearly removes your rights to the content as well. You have no implicit right to the content, only what they grant you, and under their conditions.

I have yet to see an argument otherwise that sways me in the slightest.

P.S. To be clear, I also occasionally do and have bypassed ads, circumvented authentication to content, and used copyrighted material without right. This doesn't negate my argument, it just makes me a somewhat of a hypocrite when I do so, which everyone is at some point in their life. I just refuse to bury my head in the sand and act like I'm entitled when I do, and I feel bad about it (to varying degrees, depending on circumstances) when I think about what I'm doing.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#207

Post by gcb0 »

fpgeek wrote: post #194
gcb0 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. As it always been for any software. Host files: as secure as you can get. Whole network. Browser extension: remote code exploit possibility. Probably not available for mobile. Trusting someone who takes money from Google...

FYI, on mobile, Adblock Plus and Adblock Edge (among others) are available for mobile Firefox.

For how many browsers?

And then they have even less community validation, rising the security tradeof even more

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#208

Post by GoldfishCRM »

Adblocking it self is evil. The current ecosystem where users get contents for publishers for "free", advertisers pays publisher for producing content and viewing it to users and last users pay advertisers (buying there product). If users dont see advertising, advertising has no interest in paying publishers and then publishers gets no money. Not many people understand the ecosystem and I have seen developers living of advertising and still blocks ads online. That is crasy if you think about it.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#209

Post by kryptiskt »

wallunit wrote: post #58
znowi wrote: post #13

I think it was immoral and dishonest to sneak in a whitelist feature into AdBlock, which is in direct opposition to the core product value. Imagine a firewall that whitelists certain networks. And background updates add more networks that bought their way into your machine. Not a product I'd be willing to use.

1. There was a user survey in 2009, whether users would like to have every ad blocked or would accept some ads to a certain degree. And the result was that around half of the users are fine with getting some ads: http://adblockplus.org/blog/adblock-plus-user-survey-results... 2. Adblock Plus has announced on their website that they have introduced "Acceptable Ads", and that it will be enabled by default: http://adblo…

> The German media went completely insane over the past two weeks, and made a scandal out of that feature in Adblock Plus, which exists for quite a while now and was clearly announced and documented from the beginning by the AdBlock Plus Team, and can easily be disabled.

If you refer to the blatantly immoral and possibly illegal Amaxon referral substitution, that invalidates your entire comment. But I see that even the shills can't even bring themselves to actually describe the indefensible thing they are trying to defend.

"Easily be disabled" they say, safe in the knowledge that most don't know how.

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