Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted • Hacker News Board

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#221

Post by uwotm899 » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 1:17 PM UTC

kryptiskt wrote: post #209

wallunit wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

What? It's not immoral and CERTAINLY not illegal to add referral tags to Amazon URLs, lol.

And stop calling people you disagree with "shills", it's obnoxious.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#222

Post by ippisl » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 2:05 PM UTC

md224 wrote: post #122

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…

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…

Does advertising provide a valuable service beyond monetizing other things? My guess is mostly, no.

In a world with search engines that know everything about you and can recommended great products and services for you, there's no need for wrong incentives in the form of money to be part of this recommendation process.

And regarding brand advertising : some marketing people say that advertising do offer people some psychological value that gets implanted in the product., which makes them enjoy the product more. For example the axe deodorant ads causes some people to wonder whether using axe did helps with attraction, which changed their internal experience.

The problem again with such claims is the perverse incentives that money play here, which we see in the effects of advertising on female body image.

Really the only case I think ads are usefull are in cases they are used by non profits or the states to achieve public goals, like anti smoking ads.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#223

Post by ippisl » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 2:05 PM UTC

md224 wrote: post #122

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…

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…

Does advertising provide a valuable service beyond monetizing other things? My guess is mostly, no.

In a world with search engines that know everything about you and can recommended great products and services for you, there's no need for wrong incentives in the form of money to be part of this recommendation process.

And regarding brand advertising : some marketing people say that advertising do offer people some psychological value that gets implanted in the product., which makes them enjoy the product more. For example the axe deodorant ads causes some people to wonder whether using axe did helps with attraction, which changed their internal experience.

The problem again with such claims is the perverse incentives that money play here, which we see in the effects of advertising on female body image.

Really the only case I think ads are usefull are in cases they are used by non profits or the states to achieve public goals, like anti smoking ads.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#224

Post by MXcommenter » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 2:12 PM UTC

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…

I see the point you are trying to make, but Google has no special privileges here. They had to submit their ads to Adblock Plus' public forum for review to determine that their ads conform to the 'Acceptable Ads' guidelines -- just like everybody else. What is encouraging to see happening is that the success of Adblock Plus is actually reforming the entire (online) advertising industry: just make your ads non-intrusive and informative and you can ask for your ads to be whitelisted. I don't quite agree that Google is the only platform where such non-intrusive ads can work. Take for example the Reddit community, where ads are also non-intrusive and therefore whitelisted by Adblock Plus. I guess you can say that Adblock Plus has effectively created a marketplace bias the favors acceptable ads. But isn't that the whole point? The economic model of the Internet is allowed to work, but you and I are not accosted by truly intrusive and annoying and unethical ads. It's a perfect balance.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#225

Post by cbr » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 2:13 PM UTC

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #167

The other day I was thinking about how Google keeps printing "download button" traps [1], despite it being in clear conflict with their TOS [2], for obvious reasons (abnormal high revenue from clicks). Now, they "bribe" the author of AdBlock to keep a flawed model alive. Advertising is a shitty industry, but boy, is Google taking it to the next level. And the nerds are too distracted with their shinny things and job…

Looking at your [1] link I don't see any "download traps" there being served by Google. (No "ad choices" triangle in the upper right.)

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#226

Post by cbr » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 2:19 PM UTC

natch wrote: post #86

tr4656 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the attacks on Ghostery? I seem to have missed them.

This: http://i.imgur.com/cocSwhF.png

Text version, at least until Adam says something more popular: http://www.reddit.com/user/dudethatsmeta?sort=top

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#227

Post by noir_lord » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 3:31 PM UTC

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…

While I kind of agree with your point it's worth noting that Adblock Plus can still disable the non-intrusive adverts (in fact the second that you can't do that a new Adblock Plus will appear).

The ethics of disabling advertising and non-intrusive advertising are another thing entirely.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#228

Post by pvdm » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

The question to ask is does google allow you to make informed and rational decisions.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#229

Post by takluyver » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 4:55 PM UTC

wallunit wrote: post #119

tr4656 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By disabling that feature, he would block all ads. However, he did say that he wants to support sites who rely on ad revenue. I don't think supporting Adblock Plus was what he was really concerned about.

I might got his message slightly wrong. However white listing is is a feature in the filter list format itself, that is used ever since by every ad blocker. So you can include third-party white lists or maintain your own with every ad blocker, already before Adblock Plus introduced "Acceptable Ads" and its own white list.

The important point for me is that one of the major adblockers has enabled a whitelist by default, and is curating it to allow non-intrusive adverts. That can affect enough users to make a difference, which my setting up a whitelist myself wouldn't.

Re: Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted

#230

Post by mfjordvald » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 5:47 PM UTC

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #220

mfjordvald wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really fair to complain about ads not being relevant enough when we're all doing so much to not allow them to track us? Relevant ads or privacy, choose one.

I am saying that ads can never be relevant or useful "enough" (because they interrupt). Product discovery is now solved because of search and social recommendations. So there is no need to give up on privacy.

Perhaps. I think it's a naive point of view, though.

Search is terrible still, the other day I searched for "cheap mechanical keyboard" and the first two results were basically pure spam. Even then, only the first 5 results get any decent traffic and results on the 2nd page get almost none.

Social recommendations work only if your product is either really damn good or you play unfair and game the system. People are designed to not care about things they haven't heard of before.

There's a saying in selling that says a person needs to see your brand/product 7 times before they're ready to buy. As a new person on the capitalist market I don't see how I'd do that while playing fair and without going bankrupt in the mean time.