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> we should really come up with a community-driven criteria for Acceptable Ads Isn't that what ABP / Eyeo is doing? You may criticize them for the fee they ask

> we should really come up with a community-driven criteria for Acceptable Ads Isn't that what ABP / Eyeo is doing? You may criticize them for the fee they ask of the Ad companies to include / review their ads, but it's not like the fees are unfair or they aren't doing work that needs to be paid somehow. They even set up a non profit to deal with this matter. > or should disable un-vetted/not-whitelisted JavaScript alltogether. This is already being developed by the FSF as a Firefox extension. It makes the modern web completely unusable (of course) but it's the principle that counts, right? > Like https, this will put alternative ad networks out of business. How did https do anything like that?

TheKarateKid 9y ago
What Eyeo is doing amounts to theft or blackmail: Pay us or have your revenue reduced. They are a venture-funded company, so they are in it for more than the community, and can find other ways to monetize their service.
- etatoby 9y ago
  Regarding fees, only large entities (those with more than 10 million additional ad impressions per month due to participation in the Acceptable Ads initiative) have to pay. For these entities, our licensing fee normally represents 30 percent of the additional revenue created by whitelisting its acceptable ads. You are right. That fee is anything but fair. I was under the impression that they were operating their program under a non-profit, but it doesn't seem so.
- vexing 9y ago
  Hey, official eyeo (we're written with a lower letter now because it's fancy) representative here. Just clearing things up. As you pointed out, we're a company. That means making money to defend against lawsuits, paying employees, etc. It's not blackmail though, because as it was also pointed out, most websites join for free. No strings attached. Well, the strings are that the ads they want to display need to meet all of the Acceptable Ads criterias, which we found most users don't mind. That allows us to find a middle ground between "we're drinking all the beer and pay nothing" that other, more scorched-earth-like adblockers go for, and the "oh gods my eyes"-design some ad-bloated websites go for, which no one really wants. From a publisher perspective, we're not the evil guys either. We're not reducing anyone's revenue, we're allowing publishers to recuperate some of the losses caused by the user's choice of opting out of really annoying ads. Hope this made sense!
  - TheKarateKid 9y ago
    I appreciate the response, but it really doesn't justify what eyeo is actually doing to publishers. I've read about some of the amounts Google and others pay you and there's no justification for it to be that high. A large portion of your project is community-based, so why does it need millions to function? Other community based solutions and open-source projects fare just fine -- and yes they're still paid well. Also, it's frustrating to still see your company play the "help us out we're broke" card by asking for donations after install even though you're a venture-funded company. If anything, you guys should be going after the ad-networks since they are the ones allowing the malicious and rude ads to be placed - not the people whose livelihood depends on ads.
tannhaeuser 9y ago
re: https I meant that men-in-the-middle advertising such as by WLAN providers and ISPs is prevented, and rightly so. OTOH, this leads us into monopolism or duopolism which at this point might be even worse. The argument in this context is that whatever action Google does isn't bad per se and absolutely defensible from a security and even privacy PoV, but at the same time is something that helps Google first and foremost. In the same way, Google can present ad-blocking support in Chrome as a pro-consumer measure, when in reality its purpose is to go after the remaining alternative ad network revenue to achieve increasingly difficult growth. FSF's LibreJS initiative is laudible, and something I'm willing to support with what I'm offering on the web. I found that sites that have content worth reading typically aren't script-heavy and entirely usable without script, or by using either F/OSS JavaScript (including jquery) and "trivial scripts" according to FSFs definition. The notorious exceptions are Google Analytics, ReCaptcha, and maybe Disqus, for which solutions must be found. Google Analytics, and the necessity to make use of it might be a case where Google as a major sponsor of web standards are acting in conflict with a solution based on web standards. Wrt. ABP my initial gut reaction to paid ABP acceptable ads was extremely negative, but maybe I might reconsider.

TheKarateKid 9y ago

What Eyeo is doing amounts to theft or blackmail: Pay us or have your revenue reduced. They are a venture-funded company, so they are in it for more than the community, and can find other ways to monetize their service.

etatoby 9y ago
Regarding fees, only large entities (those with more than 10 million additional ad impressions per month due to participation in the Acceptable Ads initiative) have to pay. For these entities, our licensing fee normally represents 30 percent of the additional revenue created by whitelisting its acceptable ads. You are right. That fee is anything but fair. I was under the impression that they were operating their program under a non-profit, but it doesn't seem so.
vexing 9y ago
Hey, official eyeo (we're written with a lower letter now because it's fancy) representative here. Just clearing things up. As you pointed out, we're a company. That means making money to defend against lawsuits, paying employees, etc. It's not blackmail though, because as it was also pointed out, most websites join for free. No strings attached. Well, the strings are that the ads they want to display need to meet all of the Acceptable Ads criterias, which we found most users don't mind. That allows us to find a middle ground between "we're drinking all the beer and pay nothing" that other, more scorched-earth-like adblockers go for, and the "oh gods my eyes"-design some ad-bloated websites go for, which no one really wants. From a publisher perspective, we're not the evil guys either. We're not reducing anyone's revenue, we're allowing publishers to recuperate some of the losses caused by the user's choice of opting out of really annoying ads. Hope this made sense!
- TheKarateKid 9y ago
  I appreciate the response, but it really doesn't justify what eyeo is actually doing to publishers. I've read about some of the amounts Google and others pay you and there's no justification for it to be that high. A large portion of your project is community-based, so why does it need millions to function? Other community based solutions and open-source projects fare just fine -- and yes they're still paid well. Also, it's frustrating to still see your company play the "help us out we're broke" card by asking for donations after install even though you're a venture-funded company. If anything, you guys should be going after the ad-networks since they are the ones allowing the malicious and rude ads to be placed - not the people whose livelihood depends on ads.

tannhaeuser 9y ago

re: https I meant that men-in-the-middle advertising such as by WLAN providers and ISPs is prevented, and rightly so. OTOH, this leads us into monopolism or duopolism which at this point might be even worse. The argument in this context is that whatever action Google does isn't bad per se and absolutely defensible from a security and even privacy PoV, but at the same time is something that helps Google first and foremost. In the same way, Google can present ad-blocking support in Chrome as a pro-consumer measure, when in reality its purpose is to go after the remaining alternative ad network revenue to achieve increasingly difficult growth. FSF's LibreJS initiative is laudible, and something I'm willing to support with what I'm offering on the web. I found that sites that have content worth reading typically aren't script-heavy and entirely usable without script, or by using either F/OSS JavaScript (including jquery) and "trivial scripts" according to FSFs definition. The notorious exceptions are Google Analytics, ReCaptcha, and maybe Disqus, for which solutions must be found. Google Analytics, and the necessity to make use of it might be a case where Google as a major sponsor of web standards are acting in conflict with a solution based on web standards. Wrt. ABP my initial gut reaction to paid ABP acceptable ads was extremely negative, but maybe I might reconsider.