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This sounds like a conflict of interest. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020515/business-google.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investin

This sounds like a conflict of interest. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020515/business-google.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020515/busine... On the other hand, I feel like we've been here with Google before, and they've generally done The Right Thing[tm]. How do we generally feel about people using this? Has Google done enough right that we might feel comfortable with them doing this? The general sense of other comments looks fairly bleak.

ReverseCold 9y ago
Why would it be a conflict of interest? They're probably going to block all ads that aren't their own/"approved" or something similar to that.
- matt4077 9y ago
  It's impossible for them to treat competitors' ads different from their own. That chrome update wouldn't have time to download before they got dragged to court by every ad network, the European Union, and the Department of Justice.
  - awalton 9y ago
    maybe the European Union. The DOJ has clearly given up the ghost of even attempting to regulate US companies, and the current political news is just more evidence in that direction. Google can draw out these lawsuits for decades while continuing their practices with impunity. They already have two incredibly well studied playbooks to draw from: Microsoft v DOJ and SCO v IBM.
matt4077 9y ago
Seeing as how the public debate has deteriorated, and the results that it has led to, I'm willing to put up with almost anything that can bring civil societies back to, well, "civility". One of the most important pillar of that is varied, but high-quality media. These, however, have been squeezed relentlessly over the last years, with no end in sight. People think reporting isn't worth anything (an almost literal quote in many of these threads), just because they can read the same stories at different outlet–ignoring that somebody still had to be there. Or they're legitimising their use of aggressive ad blockers with the tired the-media-is-so-bad cliché (...then why are you reading it?). There are two paths that I believe print media can get back on track: First, such an ad blocker that allows reasonable ads, i.e. not moving, obscuring, or for low-quality products. Second: a netflix-style subscription that gives access to many publications. Because as it is now, I can't justify paying for any single subscription (except for the rather cheap New Yorker). But I'm willing to pay something like $30-$50 dollars/month for the written words I consume. There's just nobody to take the money. I don't actually have much of a problem with Google. They have always been really excellent in such regards, especially considering how much potential for scandals they have. But I'd prefer more diversity, if at all possible. I guess this will hurt other adblockers quite badly, and I'm wondering if they didn't create this problem by not creating a product that fairly accounts for publishers' interests.

ReverseCold 9y ago

Why would it be a conflict of interest? They're probably going to block all ads that aren't their own/"approved" or something similar to that.

matt4077 9y ago
It's impossible for them to treat competitors' ads different from their own. That chrome update wouldn't have time to download before they got dragged to court by every ad network, the European Union, and the Department of Justice.
- awalton 9y ago
  maybe the European Union. The DOJ has clearly given up the ghost of even attempting to regulate US companies, and the current political news is just more evidence in that direction. Google can draw out these lawsuits for decades while continuing their practices with impunity. They already have two incredibly well studied playbooks to draw from: Microsoft v DOJ and SCO v IBM.

matt4077 9y ago

Seeing as how the public debate has deteriorated, and the results that it has led to, I'm willing to put up with almost anything that can bring civil societies back to, well, "civility". One of the most important pillar of that is varied, but high-quality media. These, however, have been squeezed relentlessly over the last years, with no end in sight. People think reporting isn't worth anything (an almost literal quote in many of these threads), just because they can read the same stories at different outlet–ignoring that somebody still had to be there. Or they're legitimising their use of aggressive ad blockers with the tired the-media-is-so-bad cliché (...then why are you reading it?). There are two paths that I believe print media can get back on track: First, such an ad blocker that allows reasonable ads, i.e. not moving, obscuring, or for low-quality products. Second: a netflix-style subscription that gives access to many publications. Because as it is now, I can't justify paying for any single subscription (except for the rather cheap New Yorker). But I'm willing to pay something like $30-$50 dollars/month for the written words I consume. There's just nobody to take the money. I don't actually have much of a problem with Google. They have always been really excellent in such regards, especially considering how much potential for scandals they have. But I'd prefer more diversity, if at all possible. I guess this will hurt other adblockers quite badly, and I'm wondering if they didn't create this problem by not creating a product that fairly accounts for publishers' interests.