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Because Uber, a company in a completely unrelated field, is engaging in what you see as unethical behavior does not give you the right to defraud other companie

Because Uber, a company in a completely unrelated field, is engaging in what you see as unethical behavior does not give you the right to defraud other companies of any kind. It's fraud because it aims to register false clicks to deceive and confuse the companies that provide ads. It causes trouble for website owners, who can easily lose their entire income stream because they will be banned if the amount of false clicks on their site is deemed to be too high. If you don't like ads, don't go to sites that have them.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Uber is related here because you asked about HN (site or community) supporting something, and Uber is one of the most popular startups in the tech crowd. I further conclude that if said crowd doesn't seem to mind Uber's behaviour then it definitely shouldn't mind this extension, because it also provides value to users and, as opposed to Uber, is not actually illegal. But let's drop that, it was just me being snarky in the morning. It's not a fraud, no matter how advertisers want to call it. It wouldn't fly in court. You serve me some buttons, I click them. I haven't signed any document, implicitly or explicitly, between me and ad network that would oblige me to view or click their buttons in a way they want it to. So let's not use strong words where they don't belong. Yes, it aims to register false clicks to deceive and confuse the companies that provide ads - because those companies give negative utility to users an it's in everyone's personal interest to get rid of them. It's tracking, it's spreading malware, but it's also simply shoving ugly shit in users' face. We have a right to strike back. > It causes trouble for website owners, who can easily lose their entire income stream because they will be banned if the amount of false clicks on their site is deemed to be too high. I say, good riddance. Site quality and trustworthiness is anti-correlated with ad count anyway. > If you don't like ads, don't go to sites that have them. No. If you don't like people not viewing your ads, paywall. Oh, but your paywall has to be leaky or else Google goes away? Well, welcome to the Internet. It was supposed to be a medium of information exchange, not a shopping mall.
- sparkzilla 11y ago
  Some men just want the world to burn.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    And some just want to burn out the weeds that have taken over the garden. You should consider it lucky that we're only talking about this extension. Per the other article that's currently on the front page[0], we could instead build an army of robots that would roam the world and punch advertisers to keep them down. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611053
pnt12 11y ago
An income stream means nothing when you spy on all your users for a couple of bucks. Maybe next time show them a huge red sign saying "to use this site, you must let us collect and sell all your private information". No legalese, just plain english, let the users know what they're getting into. Then we can talk about contracts and frauds. Fortunately, ad blockers are pretty popular right now and the agencies will have to get their shit together wether they like it or not. Or maybe come up with even more evil techniques, who knows.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Uber is related here because you asked about HN (site or community) supporting something, and Uber is one of the most popular startups in the tech crowd. I further conclude that if said crowd doesn't seem to mind Uber's behaviour then it definitely shouldn't mind this extension, because it also provides value to users and, as opposed to Uber, is not actually illegal. But let's drop that, it was just me being snarky in the morning. It's not a fraud, no matter how advertisers want to call it. It wouldn't fly in court. You serve me some buttons, I click them. I haven't signed any document, implicitly or explicitly, between me and ad network that would oblige me to view or click their buttons in a way they want it to. So let's not use strong words where they don't belong. Yes, it aims to register false clicks to deceive and confuse the companies that provide ads - because those companies give negative utility to users an it's in everyone's personal interest to get rid of them. It's tracking, it's spreading malware, but it's also simply shoving ugly shit in users' face. We have a right to strike back. > It causes trouble for website owners, who can easily lose their entire income stream because they will be banned if the amount of false clicks on their site is deemed to be too high. I say, good riddance. Site quality and trustworthiness is anti-correlated with ad count anyway. > If you don't like ads, don't go to sites that have them. No. If you don't like people not viewing your ads, paywall. Oh, but your paywall has to be leaky or else Google goes away? Well, welcome to the Internet. It was supposed to be a medium of information exchange, not a shopping mall.

sparkzilla 11y ago
Some men just want the world to burn.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  And some just want to burn out the weeds that have taken over the garden. You should consider it lucky that we're only talking about this extension. Per the other article that's currently on the front page[0], we could instead build an army of robots that would roam the world and punch advertisers to keep them down. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611053

pnt12 11y ago

An income stream means nothing when you spy on all your users for a couple of bucks. Maybe next time show them a huge red sign saying "to use this site, you must let us collect and sell all your private information". No legalese, just plain english, let the users know what they're getting into. Then we can talk about contracts and frauds. Fortunately, ad blockers are pretty popular right now and the agencies will have to get their shit together wether they like it or not. Or maybe come up with even more evil techniques, who knows.