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And just like that, Crystal was uninstalled. Didn't take long for the conflicts of interest to show up! "According to Mr. Murphy, he isn’t adding the option f
by Karunamon 11y ago
And just like that, Crystal was uninstalled.
Didn't take long for the conflicts of interest to show up!
"According to Mr. Murphy, he isn’t adding the option for financial gain, but rather to make sure publishers aren’t overburdened by all-out blocking of ads on their sites."
My response to which is: "Who do you think you're fooling? You are taking money to allow people to defeat the core purpose of your application."
Secret Media plans to only work with “premium” publishers who don’t bombard users with large amounts of low-quality advertising.
Is there any other kind?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- danielhgma 11y ago> taking money to allow people to defeat the core purpose of your application. Seriously. This is so bad for users
- epistasis 11y agoPerhaps for you, but this does not subvert the core purpose of Crystal for me. I will continue using Crystal, with the default option, since I don't mind seeing minimal, non-intrusive ads that don't completely disrupt my user experience. And I don't have a problem with responsible websites with responsible ads getting paid. In fact, this option to have vetted ads is pretty much ideal for me! Edit: I'm curious, why do people dislike my preference here? I'm not saying anybody else has to like Crystal, just that it's matches my desires.
- nugget 11y agoVetted or acceptable ads is a fake narrative - a smokescreen - it's just a way for these adblock apps to extort ad networks for a payout. In the article it mentions that hundreds of companies including all the big search and display networks, and all of the big native ad networks, are included on the whitelist. Who is left?
- epistasis 11y agoWhile it could be a smokescreen, it certainly doesn't have to be a smokescreen. If it turns out that Crystal is letting intrusive ads through, then they're doing a bad job and I'll stop using it.
- nugget 11y agoWe already know who will be let through - the ABP whitelist is public. It's the majority of the ad tech world including the most intrusive native networks.
- epistasis 11y agoI don't have much experience with ABP, but I'm also having difficulty finding complaints about intrusive ads getting through ABP. Is this something that you've experienced personally, or is it just from the companies reputations that are on the whitelist?
- nugget 11y agoI experienced it personally and switched from ABP to uBlock as a result.
- epistasis 11y agoThanks, that's good to know, I'll keep an eye out for this!
- anabis 11y agoThis caught my attention, as I am allowing "acceptable" ads. 1. What was the ad like? 2. Didn't disabling "acceptable" ads on ABP work?
- nugget 11y ago1. Standard native click bait. 2. I didn't test disabling but assume that it would work as advertised - I didn't want to support a company that would enable whitelisting/acceptable ads as default in order to build up enough users as a means of extorting everyone else in the ecosystem.
- nosuchthing 11y agoSeems almost like extortion.. the advertisers already paid for advertising but now Crystal demands additional payments from the advertisers or else it blocks the ads. The websites don't seem to get any additional payment from Crystal for this "vetting".
- epistasis 11y agoIt could seem like extortion, or it could seem like certification. Websites have proven that they're terrible at vetting ads for security and intrusiveness, they do not care about that. By paying a different company to perform the certification, then there's less of a conflict of interest. Of course, this depends on trusting someone. Trust can be misplaced, but I already know I can't trust websites, so Im looking for someone else.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- outericky 11y agoCertification in your sense is conforming to a certain standard. This is extortion. Basically "conforming" is paying. That's extortion. Pay are demands or no soup for you.
- manigandham 11y agoThe adblocker companies cant be trusted either since they only stand to gain from this behaviour. ABP makes tens of millions from this. The only way trust works is if there's a neutral 3rd party that represents all sides and has respect.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dapearce 11y agoAccording to the article it sounds like an optional feature which can be turned off. It allows people who want to support ad-based publishers with quality ads, while still blocking the heavy junk. Not an unacceptable thing to me, especially if it makes the developer some extra money without forcing me to let the ads through.
- Karunamon 11y agoIt's always an "optional feature" - but the app is closed source. Also, given that the blockers don't have the sophistication level that you'd expect from say, µBlock, where you can just click on something annoying and banish it, is that ad being displayed because the ad company is giving backhanders to the developer, or was it just missed in the filter? Who knows? Ad blocking software having "acceptable ads" is identical to antivirus software having "acceptable viruses". Ooh, I just reread the article. The company trying to convince blocking software to do this is the outfit behind the original Adblock Plus, the original people who started this practice.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- yuhong 11y agoI don't think ads are the same as viruses. There are different kinds of ads for example, and not all of them use tracking or even pay by the pageview.
- anonymfus 11y agoThey are malicious memes. Analogy could be about their effect on brains.
- nugget 11y ago
- guyzero 11y agoThis is exactly what the most popular desktop browser ad blockers do.
- mtgx 11y agoYou mean what Adblock Plus alone does.
- adiabatty 11y ago> > large amounts of low-quality advertising. > Is there any other kind? I'd say The Deck manages to be high-quality, low-volume advertising. One of their rules is "our ad is the only ad on the page". http://decknetwork.net/ http://decknetwork.net/ Artisanal ad networks targeted to web workers don't exactly _scale_ to the rest of the ad industry, but non-irritating advertising exists.
- mbesto 11y agoThere are a few others who also operate with the same model, but they are generally considered small businesses (or "lifestyle businesses"). Unfortunately these inherently have ceilings to them and market dynamics dictate you will always have someone more greedy who will try to build AdSense-like dominance.
- tedunangst 11y agoThis is where the people making the blocklists get stuck. Marcus Aurelius, ad block developer, decides that the deck ads aren't that annoying, don't break the page they're on, are low bandwidth, don't track you, etc. And so MA leaves them out of the list. But everyday he gets 100 bug reports "I still see ads!!!" from users who never want to see a single advertisement on any site ever. What's MA going to do? Probably give up.
- kawera 11y agoOr maybe build a "Block this" feature on touching.
- noreally 11y agoThey've had that feature in strip clubs for years.
- tedunangst 11y agoThe architecture of iOS content blockers seems not to allow that. No information is allowed to flow from safari to the ad block app (to allay concerns that the app itself is spying on you).
- markcerqueira 11y ago> Is there any other kind? Yes there is. Sometimes I see ads for stuff that I didn't know about and am genuinely interested in. Yes, it's rare, but it does happen.
- newscracker 11y agoOne reason I didn't jump into buying an ad blocker was because I knew there could be some free ones coming in. Another reason was because I knew there could be some compromises that the makers of the ad blockers would make "in good faith" on behalf of their users (which could also be a sellout or seen as a sellout). I'm glad I didn't buy Crystal. I would've been frustrated enough to request a refund from Apple if I did.