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AdBlock Plus wins in court

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Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#81

Post by johnward »

NickNameNick wrote: post #26
honest_joe wrote: post #12

This is sad day for content creators. If the site is full of ads you are not comfortable to view do NOT VISIT such sites again. It's stealing, it's manipulating the statistics. We can't get good content because corporations taught people to not pay for content and now we will not get good content because people will slice the income of those who use ads.

On a fundamental level, your server is free to do whatever it wants with the requests I send it, and my browser is free to do whatever I want with the responses it receives. Because your server is yours, and my computer is mine.

Is it easy to detect people who are using adblock and serve them nothing? Not that that is the best way to handle it but the OP does have a point. At least it would stop leaches. If you put content out for "free" because you make a few cents from advertising if they block the ads it's not much different than stealing.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#82

Post by eli »

tracker1 wrote: post #78
eli wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't you be getting false positives from ads that are simply slow to load and false negatives from ad blockers that hide ads without using the "display" property?

A slow ad won't change the display property of a div/iframe from "block" to "none"

Neither does AdBlock Plus!

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#83

Post by kazinator »

baldfat wrote: post #4

Personally I don't use Ad Blockers just due to the fact my own personal ethics feels I am stealing when I do use it. When I am teaching I have ad blocker installed because I don't want to get in trouble for what advertisement will be shown, especially YouTube. AdBlock Plus and their paid white list is the worst and I don't know why people use them.

Am I stealing if I pick out the nice apples from the bin at the grocery store, and leave behind the ones with rotten spots?

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#84

Post by leejoramo »

johnward wrote: post #79
leejoramo wrote: post #67

To the pro-advertisers reading this, I feel your pain. I have long standing clients who depend on ad revenue, such as print publications that early on successfully transition to the web, who are now really struggling. However, I aggressively use ad blockers. Here is why: * the majority of the ads I see on the Internet are of the sort that I use to find in the back of magazines. Crap I would never read is now force fe…

I've never used an ad blocker and I feel like you are over-exaggerating each of these points. I'm guessing I'll be in the minority on HN though. What kind of sites do you visit that have all these terrible ads? I don't even think porn sites, which have notoriously bad ads, are even that bad.

I do not feel that I am over exaggerating.

* Battery life, privacy invasion are real issues.

* the over the top clutter of ads on many sites is a really problem. I try to avoid such sites, but it is not always possible.

* I have been on the Internet since 1991. I am expecting to be on it for another 30 or more years. I am weighing a life time of risk, not a single page visit.

This last point is key. One bad actor, using one Zero Day exploit could cause a huge amount of personal pain for me. As a web developer for 20 years, I learned long ago to do everything in my power to prepare and to the extent possible prevent being hit by a Zero Day.

You may feel differently, but I personally see huge risk over the course of a lifetime.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#85

Post by k-mcgrady »

_lce0 wrote: post #68
eli wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is jumping a subway turnstile stealing? The same train leaves whether you're on it or not. But if enough people don't pay the fare, the whole system breaks down.

I get the point you're trying to make, but in this case it's me who is paying for the train to move, in the form of internet connection & electricity bills

Those are the things you pay to get you to the station. Those don't pay for the train (i.e. server cost of your traffic).

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#86

Post by baldfat »

d_theorist wrote: post #48
baldfat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote an old saying, "Nothing in life is free." Websites rely on ad revenue. If the ads are blocked the website or streamers on Twitch do not receive the revenue. Just because it doesn't go into my pocket doesn't mean it isn't stealing in my own personal view. For example if you take a sapphire from the Museum of Natural History and than throw away or lose the golf ball size 563 carat Star of India. You gained not…

>Websites rely on ad revenue. If the ads are blocked the website or streamers on Twitch do not receive the revenue. And I'm perfectly happy with that. It is not my responsibility to download webpages in such a way as to maximise the revenue of the site owner. It is the business' responsibility to make money. Not mine. If they are employing ineffective methods then it is up to them to alter them. It is not up to me to…

It is up to you but if 100% of people did exactly what you did where would we be? Pay walls?

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#87

Post by snsr »

irl_zebra wrote: post #72
leejoramo wrote: post #67

To the pro-advertisers reading this, I feel your pain. I have long standing clients who depend on ad revenue, such as print publications that early on successfully transition to the web, who are now really struggling. However, I aggressively use ad blockers. Here is why: * the majority of the ads I see on the Internet are of the sort that I use to find in the back of magazines. Crap I would never read is now force fe…

The worst for me is when I open something on my phone and start reading and a huge ad appears and takes up my whole screen telling me to put in my email to subscribe to the website. Then I have to scroll around to find the little X to close it. It's maddening. Only slightly less worse is the same thing happening on my laptop after I have had a few seconds to start reading the first paragraph, then the whole page dims…

Any page that pops a modal or interstitial on landing is an instant-close for me.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#88

Post by [deleted] »

irl_zebra wrote: post #72
leejoramo wrote: post #67

To the pro-advertisers reading this, I feel your pain. I have long standing clients who depend on ad revenue, such as print publications that early on successfully transition to the web, who are now really struggling. However, I aggressively use ad blockers. Here is why: * the majority of the ads I see on the Internet are of the sort that I use to find in the back of magazines. Crap I would never read is now force fe…

The worst for me is when I open something on my phone and start reading and a huge ad appears and takes up my whole screen telling me to put in my email to subscribe to the website. Then I have to scroll around to find the little X to close it. It's maddening. Only slightly less worse is the same thing happening on my laptop after I have had a few seconds to start reading the first paragraph, then the whole page dims…

[deleted]

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#89

Post by throwaway2048 »

johnward wrote: post #81
NickNameNick wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a fundamental level, your server is free to do whatever it wants with the requests I send it, and my browser is free to do whatever I want with the responses it receives. Because your server is yours, and my computer is mine.

Is it easy to detect people who are using adblock and serve them nothing? Not that that is the best way to handle it but the OP does have a point. At least it would stop leaches. If you put content out for "free" because you make a few cents from advertising if they block the ads it's not much different than stealing.

no matter what the adblocker can always pretend to view the ad, this is not a fight advertisers can win.

Re: AdBlock Plus wins in court

#90

Post by eis »

eli wrote: post #75
d_theorist wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question isn't whether the system breaks down. The question is whether ad-blockers constitute stealing. And they don't. Not everything that causes a system to break down is stealing. "Stealing" has a specific meaning. It doesn't just mean 'a bad thing happened'.

I think jumping a turnstile is self-evidently stealing. It is also the case that it becomes a problem for everyone when enough people do it, but it would be stealing either way.

So please lay out your definition of stealing and explain why it would apply to this case.

  "take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it."
No property is taken. It's not stealing. There are other correct terms to describe these things like theft of service.
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