31–40 of 259 posts
I also don't like those sites that require JavaScript to read plain text content. Forbes is an example of both cases, with a twist. The text of the article is embedded in a script tag inside the HTML page and then added to the visible DOM. I could understand a SPA getting JSON from the server but here the content is already in the page.
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…
Of course they are malicious. They're serving the high-profit ads, which obviously includes malware, where they could be serving low-profit, safe (but boring) ads. That's equivalent to pharmacists selling illegal drugs (heroin, cocaine) simply because they obviously make them more profits.
I'd liken it more to a hardware product being shipped with faulty materials when multiple manufacturers are involved and it's extremely difficult to identify the responsible party. Sure, they're responsible for the end product, but it's not so black and white.
Tangentially, I would like Google to put a warning on navigating to a site that has served malware any time in the past month. This will increase the penalty of serving malware so much that sites will suddenly push back on the ad networks and improve quality dramatically.
I have first-hand experience with such a situation and you quickly loose faith in the ad network you're using. A month of blocking would be devastating to the site, considering it's not even their fault.
Repeat offenders could be handled differently though.
Banning these sites altogether would be too much. Assign a pre-defined downvote so that the hurdle for ad-driven sources is higher to overcome.
I don't think it would be too much. Why would it? I'd like to see those ad-laden pages dropped from HN also. As well as sites with paywalls. There are plenty of other pages on the web that can be featured instead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that in practice this happens through the normal voting process.
Why is this sufficient for HN but not for Reddit? If opinion is less divided on Reddit I'd also expect it to be less of a problem and thus less likely to require (auto) moderator input.
While HN has a single stream of stories being voted on, the guidelines for story submissions limits the scope for what can be submitted. The people who read HN are pretty much all technically astute, so when they see an article behind a paywall they don't vote it up - heck, many probably just flag it on principle.
If the article is chock full of intrusive advertising, it gets flagged pretty fast. If it is an interesting article that gets to the front page I guarantee you that there will be vocal complaints about the advertising. But most of us here, I would hazard to guess, have installed uBlock Plus of some sort of ad blocker so we probably largely miss it. And the things we find interesting are usually from sources clueful enough not to be so stupid as to employ anti-adblockers.
For a subset of users (either detected or by user preference), there might be another useful symbol as well for indicating if a website is not tor friendly.
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…
If it expanded to the rest of Reddit then it might be the impetuous for the news industry to clean up their act. And no, that's not a mistake. It's not advertisers I direct my ire but those who should know better and who apparently are meant to exist for the greater public good: The Press.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course they are malicious. They're serving the high-profit ads, which obviously includes malware, where they could be serving low-profit, safe (but boring) ads. That's equivalent to pharmacists selling illegal drugs (heroin, cocaine) simply because they obviously make them more profits.
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…
It is not black and white but it is pretty close.
Edit: I have to give Firefox credit here. It actually just prompted me whether I'd like to save the file. I did and uploaded it to virus total. Probably not a good idea if you do anything sensitive on your computer.
I wonder if you could sue a website for serving you malware. Here's my idea for an ad company: * People who want to post ads have to provide their name, address, verified email, and a security deposit(say $500). Larger volumes of ad purchases require either a long history, insurance, or a bank letter to vouch for you. If you load malware anywhere into the system, you get fined and your information gets turned over to…
My business is at 123 fakenschaft, Zurch. My email is a newly created Gmail account.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course they are malicious. They're serving the high-profit ads, which obviously includes malware, where they could be serving low-profit, safe (but boring) ads. That's equivalent to pharmacists selling illegal drugs (heroin, cocaine) simply because they obviously make them more profits.
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…
An innocent gets malware from an advertisement. The publisher blames the ad-network who in turn blames the criminal. The ad-network claims that they can't curate the advertisements or the margins becomes to small. In the end, the innocent has to take the full fallout of the crime.
An innocent gets mistreated by a fake doctor. The hospital blames the hiring agency, who in turn blames the criminal. The hiring agency claims that they can't do background checks and verify CVs of applicants or the margins becomes to small. In the end, the innocent has to take the full fallout of the crime?
Why is there such discrepancy between the two cases? Why can one agency do curation and still function, while the other can't? Why can the publisher get away with using a bad ad-network while a hospital is fully legally responsible for using a bad hiring agency? Those seem to be very simple questions, ones that should have very simple answers.