As a publisher who depends on ads I do not have a problem with people using adblockers. Those wouldn't click on an ad anyway, so no money lost. But those guys running around and installing adblockers on every computer where they have access to, even without asking the owner before, those guys suck.
Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address
41–50 of 53 posts
Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address
#42I would gladly pay a small fee to not have to see adds. The issue is how to solve that, how could i pay that fee in a simple manner where the cash only goes to the sites that i use.
Google has a proposal for this: Google Contributor [1]. Of course, only works for Google ads, but this is a substantial portion of the web. However, I don't like the current proposition: you pay for seeing less ads, but there's no tier guaranteeing no ads. Even if they guarantee 99% less ads, I still wouldn't sign for it. Paying for seeing less ads does not change the incentives for tracking and targeting, and may ev…
I imagine their business model with this service is this:
* collect some continuing revenue from subscribers for seeing less ads
* sell these subscribers to advertisers as people who are viewing fewer ads (which then increases the display profile of any ads they are shown) and also as an elusive demographic who mostly try to block out advertising
I would imagine point 2 is the much more valuable proposition.
Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer is that anti-anti-ad-blockers will start to exist. As long as users still have control over the software they run on their devices, they will have the advantage in this war. That control seems to be slowly disappearing, unfortunately: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html
Already existing. After https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock was invented, and I got annoyed, I reported https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock/issues/26 and wrote this solution to the issue https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock/issues/26#issuecomment...
How is it a moral issue? If it's immoral to block certain behavior on sites, then it's just as if not _more_ immoral for users to block ads in the first place. The usual argument is that sites with ads constitute an implicit agreement, etc. If users have the prerogative (regardless of moral ambiguity) to block content they don't like, sites have the same prerogative to block unsavory visitors as they see fit. To say that using FuckAdBlock is forcing anyone to accept content is complete and utter nonsense.
Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address
#44The war of ad-blockers and anti-ad-blockers will be ugly, I suppose. Say, if Youtube is going to enforce anti-ad-blocking across the site, and I believe the could do that-their Chinese copycat, Youku, has already done this long time ago, will you give up watching? That might be a hard question to answer.
The answer is that anti-anti-ad-blockers will start to exist. As long as users still have control over the software they run on their devices, they will have the advantage in this war. That control seems to be slowly disappearing, unfortunately: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html
I am not that optimistic on that front.
Several things that might happen: 1.Use data mining or machine learning, I believe, the big networks will find ways to distinguish whether a user has enabled ad blockers or not, using only the data they collected. Google, as a network, already offers segments to publishers, called viewability, representing how the ads is viewed by the user.
2.Once they have the data, they could do a lot of things with it. Sending warnings, or service degradation, or if you are on the phone force you to jump to app in order to serve you native ads.
By any means, they couldn't 100% eliminate usage of ad blockers, but they could make it harder and more uncomfortable to use in the long term.
One thing I am more afraid of is that, it will means the death of the free web, and drive publishers/platform to serve their content through native client, like apps, where they have greater control. But what about small publishers? Well, maybe nothing but doom...
Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Already existing. After https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock was invented, and I got annoyed, I reported https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock/issues/26 and wrote this solution to the issue https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock/issues/26#issuecomment...
How is it a moral issue? If it's immoral to block certain behavior on sites, then it's just as if not _more_ immoral for users to block ads in the first place. The usual argument is that sites with ads constitute an implicit agreement, etc. If users have the prerogative (regardless of moral ambiguity) to block content they don't like, sites have the same prerogative to block unsavory visitors as they see fit. To say…
Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair enough. So, you just have to not use websites that live off ads.
Why does (s)he have to do that? Because the video makers don't want you to watch it without seeing the ads is not a sufficient reason. Content producers just have to accept the fact that they don't get to control how people see their stuff once they put it out there, just like TV producers didn't get to prevent you from flipping channels during an ad break. If you disagree, as the copyright holder of my posts, I revo…
You're using a website (hacker news) which has a copyright and privacy policy. When you use this website, you accept this policy and I'm free to read your posts.
If you want to instead post your content to your own website, with a clearly stated policy that excludes people who don't agree with your views on copyright, I'll be more than happy not to visit that website :)
Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does (s)he have to do that? Because the video makers don't want you to watch it without seeing the ads is not a sufficient reason. Content producers just have to accept the fact that they don't get to control how people see their stuff once they put it out there, just like TV producers didn't get to prevent you from flipping channels during an ad break. If you disagree, as the copyright holder of my posts, I revo…
You're using a website (hacker news) which has a copyright and privacy policy. When you use this website, you accept this policy and I'm free to read your posts. If you want to instead post your content to your own website, with a clearly stated policy that excludes people who don't agree with your views on copyright, I'll be more than happy not to visit that website :)
Where is HN's copyright policy?
Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're using a website (hacker news) which has a copyright and privacy policy. When you use this website, you accept this policy and I'm free to read your posts. If you want to instead post your content to your own website, with a clearly stated policy that excludes people who don't agree with your views on copyright, I'll be more than happy not to visit that website :)
Where is HN's copyright policy?
Actually, now that I checked, they don't have one. They apply the DMCA though, so if you think that my reading your comments here is violating your IP rights, you can ask them to take those comments down:
https://news.ycombinator.com/dmca.html
Besides that, [1] applies.
Regarding ad-supported websites, they have their copyright policies and you should respect them (if you care about having their rights respected as much as you care having your rights respected, of course). If you choose not to respect them, it's your free choice to do so and bear any possible consequences - as it is my choice when I don't respect copyright laws, which happens frequently enough, but with my full knowledge that I'm actually violating the rights of the original content creators, and also, in that case, breaking some laws...
[1] If a reader comments on my blog, does she license the rights to me?
When a person enters comments on a blog for the purpose of public display, he is probably giving an implied license at least for that display and the incidental copying that goes along with it. If you want to make things clearer, you can add a Creative Commons license to your blog's comment post page and a statement that by posting comments, writers agree to license them under it.
Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where is HN's copyright policy?
Actually, now that I checked, they don't have one. They apply the DMCA though, so if you think that my reading your comments here is violating your IP rights, you can ask them to take those comments down: https://news.ycombinator.com/dmca.html Besides that, [1] applies. Regarding ad-supported websites, they have their copyright policies and you should respect them (if you care about having their rights respected as m…
If a reader comments on my blog, does she license the rights to me?
Surely an implicit license for HN to redistribute the comment exists, but without an explicit TOS, I don't see why it would be irrevocable. So I'd say people disagreeing with my post are still infringing on its copyright.
They apply the DMCA though, so if you think that my reading your comments here is violating your IP rights, you can ask them to take those comments down
Yes, I know, but the DMCA doesn't eliminate the infringement by the users of a site, it just puts the site itself in a safe harbor.
Regarding ad-supported websites, they have their copyright policies and you should respect them (if you care about having their rights respected as much as you care having your rights respected, of course). If you choose not to respect them, it's your free choice to do so and bear any possible consequences - as it is my choice when I don't respect copyright laws, which happens frequently enough, but with my full knowledge that I'm actually violating the rights of the original content creators, and also, in that case, breaking some laws...
Sure, that's the legal position, no argument there. But I think the discussion regards the ethical position.
Re: Ad Blocking, Ad Networks, and Your IP Address
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, now that I checked, they don't have one. They apply the DMCA though, so if you think that my reading your comments here is violating your IP rights, you can ask them to take those comments down: https://news.ycombinator.com/dmca.html Besides that, [1] applies. Regarding ad-supported websites, they have their copyright policies and you should respect them (if you care about having their rights respected as m…
If a reader comments on my blog, does she license the rights to me? Surely an implicit license for HN to redistribute the comment exists, but without an explicit TOS, I don't see why it would be irrevocable. So I'd say people disagreeing with my post are still infringing on its copyright. They apply the DMCA though, so if you think that my reading your comments here is violating your IP rights, you can ask them to ta…
Regarding ethics, my position is that authors should have the choice to monetize their content with ads if that's their best option.
When this happens, others can make the choice to hack the system and access the content bypassing the ad delivery system, but in that case they should at least be aware that they're getting value from the author's effort without compensating him or her, the ethics of which I'll leave for you to judge case by case.