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I feel like there's a simpler explanation that's still not 'good intentions': 1. Lots of people are using adblockers to block all ads, including Google's, and

I feel like there's a simpler explanation that's still not 'good intentions': 1. Lots of people are using adblockers to block all ads, including Google's, and they don't like that. 2. People mostly install adblockers to block really annoying ads.* 3. By building in an adblocker that blocks annoying ads, people will stop installing full adblockers that also block Google's ads. *There are real issues with non-annoying ads, like tracking, but I don't think most people know or care very much about that.

dhimes 9y ago
This is the explanation they give in the post.
rahoulb 9y ago
> There are real issues with non-annoying ads, like tracking, but I don't think most people know or care very much about that. I speak to a lot of people who find "retargeting" deeply creepy. The awareness of the problem is there. However, they don't understand what causes it, how it works or that it's even possible to stop it.
- hinkley 9y ago
  Its also just bad salesmanship. There was an electronics store called CompUSA. I didn’t always shop there but I did buy Christmas presents there. Then one year they started using transparent shopping bags. Which means you can’t shop for anybody that is on the trip with you, or lives with you. It made it a hassle to keep a secret and I just gave up. So now if I am looking at jewelry for my partner, ads for the exact things I looked at will follow me around for the next several weeks. Dumber still, it will show me ads for an expensive item I already bought. Telegraphing my purchase history. If someone just bought a new TV, then showing then TV ads is pretty much the dumbest move you can make. The target is at an all time low for probability of purchasing that item. And worse, you risk triggering buyer’s remorse. Repeatedly. But this is Amazons engineering culture. Don’t reason about anything. Just try it and see. It’s amoral most of the time (but refusing to address ethics is itself immoral). They are basically a giant factory for throwing spaghetti against a wall to see what sticks. I think all they can do is get more parasitic until people say no.
  - ryanmerket 9y ago
    Wait. What does retargeting have to do with Amazon’s Engineering culture? Seems like a large leap in logic. Couldn’t it just as easily say “well, that’s Facebook’s caching layer not updating fast enough to remove finished campaigns?”
    - hinkley 9y ago
      Its a casualty of their philosophy on code. If the numbers look good it doesn’t matter whose idea it was or how crazy it sounded. They tell you this pretty much at the top of the indoctrination material. It certainly keeps them out of analysis paralysis, no question. But any armchair psychologist can tell you this is essentially numbing. Not listening to your fears or emotions can be as unhealthy as dwelling on them. Zero is not the only alternative to Too Much. These things take balance.
      - radicaldreamer 9y ago
        I just don't think this is true. There's plenty of shady and scummy stuff that Amazon can do (and other online retailers do) which Amazon doesn't do. It's far more straightforward at building customer loyalty by getting them stuff more cheaply than other retails, much faster, with free shipping by squeezing their own margins.
      - mmirate 9y ago
        I haven't even interviewed with Amazon, but I'm still curious: outside of "office politics" bullshit, why should an idea ever be judged by who made it or its _a priori_ "apparent craziness", let alone given that it has been tested? (regardless of the test results; if they were negative then any other concerns are redundant)
  - visarga 9y ago
    The behaviour you described is a bug. The "throw everything at the wall" advertising technique - also known as the contextual multi-armed bandit problem - should adapt to changes in the context, such as when an expensive TV set has been bought. It's part of the reinforcement learning subfield, which is the spearhead of AI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit#Contextual_bandit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit#Contextual_...
eli 9y ago
If people no longer feel the need to install a stronger ad blocker why is that bad?
- dao- 9y ago
  Because there's still the privacy problem that many don't fully understand. That's why Mozilla's approach is tracking protection which also happens to block annoying ads. But yes, if the concern is only bringing in line what people "feel" with the product you want to sell, then Google's strategy makes perfect sense.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  They're doing it, not to block ads, but to make sure ads reach you. So the question gets philosophical in a hurry. What is the "goodness" of an otherwise generous act done for self-serving reasons? Is it good or bad to write a check to an orphanage for the publicity? Is it good or bad to save someone's life because they owe you money? Is it good or bad to block certain ads to make sure other ads still reach you?
  - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
    > Is it good or bad to block certain ads to make sure other ads still reach you? If there is a growing product that works better, and fully blocks ads and your goal is only to quickly take over the market and do a worse job then I say 'no' that's not being altruistic... If they put up a big banner saying "only works half as well at blocking ads as the competition" then maybe it's a little better.
  - nsgi 9y ago
    It may not be good, but it's not being done on the pretence of being good. The question is, how is it bad?
- KallDrexx 9y ago
  I would be surprised if the chrome ad blocker will block Ads for Google's own properties like Youtube, and while most ads probably adhere to the advertising standards they have still be caught accidentally serving crypto-mining ads (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-even-youtube-serves-ads-with-cpu-draining-cryptocurrency-miners/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-e...). So to me it's bad because it's opening up people's computers to exploitation that even Google can't control.
bzbarsky 9y ago
There's another step here: Google encouraging paywalls for people who do have an adblocker installed. Paywalls that they themselves will service. See https://support.google.com/fundingchoices/answer/7362965?hl=en https://support.google.com/fundingchoices/answer/7362965?hl=... and its explicit mention in https://www.blog.google/topics/journalism-news/building-better-web-everyone/ https://www.blog.google/topics/journalism-news/building-bett...
- kiriakasis 9y ago
  i read the link only in part, but this look reasonable. if you exclude ads and paywall how should they make money? moreover when mozzilla made attempt to "non-tracking privacy-respectful ads" in the mr robot scandal everyone was at their throat. how should site make money then?
  - bzbarsky 9y ago
    If you don't see the issue with Google enabling putting up paywalls, but only on sites that are showing ads that belong to them or to companies that made a deal with them, while blocking ads on sites that don't do Google's bidding, I'm not sure what to tell you. Note that they are not being public with their list of sites that they will block ads on and reason why; nothing prevents them from putting sites on that list for any arbitrary reason they want.
  - TheAceOfHearts 9y ago
    I use uBlock Origin, but it's pretty easy to bypass: host ads on your own site. That's how ads worked in other forms of media for ages. How about providing a meaningful service and request adequate compensation? Paywalls work fine for quality content. There's tons of proof that people are willing to pay for books, games, movies, and music. But by having a paywall, you lose out on search indexing. You can't have your cake and eat it.
    - Zarel 9y ago
      Hosting ads on your site isn't actually enough. uBlock Origin can and does block by CSS selector (and that's the default behavior if you use right-click -> Block Element). It _does_ get pretty hard to block if your ads are bespoke native advertisements, though.
the_duke 9y ago
I personally find the ads on Google search really annoying. I'd never use Google if Ublock didn't hide them.
- lugg 9y ago
  Without adblock, google died a decade ago.
tgtweak 9y ago
Bingo.
JoshMnem 9y ago
> People mostly install adblockers to block really annoying ads.* Many people use ad blockers because they want to block all ads. There are many reasons to block them, including malware, privacy, and brainwashing. If ads works to manipulate behavior (and they do, otherwise people wouldn't buy them), and you don't want to be manipulated, you shouldn't let professionals attempt to hijack your brain (whether those attempts are done via ads, Facebook-style feeds, or other ways).
- chacham15 9y ago
  This is a very pessimistic view of the world. Not all ads are attempts to hijack your brain. For example, if you were already thinking about buying a specific keyboard and then saw an ad for that same keyboard with a 10% discount, that ad would have actually provided positive value to you. You save money for the thing that you already want. Not all ads are like that, but the example goes to show that there is a spectrum and that its not black and white.
  - mquander 9y ago
    Assuming the premises of your scenario (that the ad didn't change anything about you to make you more likely to buy the keyboard, or adversely influence you in any other way), the display of this ad is a disaster for the advertiser. Advertisers will work as hard as they can to make that not happen.
    - mingfli 9y ago
      Not true. If I know you want a keyboard and that you can buy it from 100 different stores, I would probably give you a discount to buy it from me as long as it still makes me money.
    - drdeca 9y ago
      This is true. However, I do think that there are a few (possibly rare) cases where advertisements can cause a mutual benefit. If I intend to purchase a product of a certain category, and would like to choose one with a particular property, but am under the assumption that no such product exists, and I see an ad for such a product, correcting my impression, I may, as a result, purchase that product instead of competitors which don't have the property that I desire, which satisfies both my own wants, and the wants of the company advertising the product. This has happened to me at least once. However, most ads that I see do not provide me with any new information, and the strategy of having ads follow users around after the first time they see it seems somewhat contrary to this type of benefit, and I don't totally understand why it is understood to be effective.
Spoom 9y ago
I think the actual plan may be one step once their own blocker is released: 1. Declare all ad blockers in the Chrome Web Store now obsolete, and ban them.
ksrm 9y ago
Unless they block YouTube ads, I think a lot of people are still going to use an ad blocker.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  Yup, the most annoying ads I encounter on a daily basis are youtube ads. If they don't block them, I don't know what's the point of a adblocker.
BurningFrog 9y ago
So the intention is to give people a way to remove annoying ads. I'd say that's obviously a good intention. The fact that Google also can gain from it doesn't change that to me, but I realize others have different moral philosophies.
otabdeveloper2 9y ago
>*There are real issues with non-annoying ads, like tracking, 99% of online tracking comes from Google Analytics, not ads. > ...but I don't think most people know or care very much about that. Indeed...
lucb1e 9y ago
So those are two reasons because 1 and 3 are the same: google wants themselves unblocked.
WhyNotHugo 9y ago
> 2. People mostly install adblockers to block really annoying ads.* I don't really think there's any other kind of ad. For the majority of us, there's absolutely no value in ads; so there's no reason I'd want them displayed.
- lancescaterpie 9y ago
  > For the majority of us, there's absolutely no value in ads They do give value, they allow sites to operate without some subscription or entrance fee.

dhimes 9y ago

This is the explanation they give in the post.

rahoulb 9y ago

> There are real issues with non-annoying ads, like tracking, but I don't think most people know or care very much about that. I speak to a lot of people who find "retargeting" deeply creepy. The awareness of the problem is there. However, they don't understand what causes it, how it works or that it's even possible to stop it.

hinkley 9y ago
Its also just bad salesmanship. There was an electronics store called CompUSA. I didn’t always shop there but I did buy Christmas presents there. Then one year they started using transparent shopping bags. Which means you can’t shop for anybody that is on the trip with you, or lives with you. It made it a hassle to keep a secret and I just gave up. So now if I am looking at jewelry for my partner, ads for the exact things I looked at will follow me around for the next several weeks. Dumber still, it will show me ads for an expensive item I already bought. Telegraphing my purchase history. If someone just bought a new TV, then showing then TV ads is pretty much the dumbest move you can make. The target is at an all time low for probability of purchasing that item. And worse, you risk triggering buyer’s remorse. Repeatedly. But this is Amazons engineering culture. Don’t reason about anything. Just try it and see. It’s amoral most of the time (but refusing to address ethics is itself immoral). They are basically a giant factory for throwing spaghetti against a wall to see what sticks. I think all they can do is get more parasitic until people say no.
- ryanmerket 9y ago
  Wait. What does retargeting have to do with Amazon’s Engineering culture? Seems like a large leap in logic. Couldn’t it just as easily say “well, that’s Facebook’s caching layer not updating fast enough to remove finished campaigns?”
  - hinkley 9y ago
    Its a casualty of their philosophy on code. If the numbers look good it doesn’t matter whose idea it was or how crazy it sounded. They tell you this pretty much at the top of the indoctrination material. It certainly keeps them out of analysis paralysis, no question. But any armchair psychologist can tell you this is essentially numbing. Not listening to your fears or emotions can be as unhealthy as dwelling on them. Zero is not the only alternative to Too Much. These things take balance.
    - radicaldreamer 9y ago
      I just don't think this is true. There's plenty of shady and scummy stuff that Amazon can do (and other online retailers do) which Amazon doesn't do. It's far more straightforward at building customer loyalty by getting them stuff more cheaply than other retails, much faster, with free shipping by squeezing their own margins.
    - mmirate 9y ago
      I haven't even interviewed with Amazon, but I'm still curious: outside of "office politics" bullshit, why should an idea ever be judged by who made it or its _a priori_ "apparent craziness", let alone given that it has been tested? (regardless of the test results; if they were negative then any other concerns are redundant)
- visarga 9y ago
  The behaviour you described is a bug. The "throw everything at the wall" advertising technique - also known as the contextual multi-armed bandit problem - should adapt to changes in the context, such as when an expensive TV set has been bought. It's part of the reinforcement learning subfield, which is the spearhead of AI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit#Contextual_bandit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit#Contextual_...

eli 9y ago

If people no longer feel the need to install a stronger ad blocker why is that bad?

dao- 9y ago
Because there's still the privacy problem that many don't fully understand. That's why Mozilla's approach is tracking protection which also happens to block annoying ads. But yes, if the concern is only bringing in line what people "feel" with the product you want to sell, then Google's strategy makes perfect sense.
rdiddly 9y ago
They're doing it, not to block ads, but to make sure ads reach you. So the question gets philosophical in a hurry. What is the "goodness" of an otherwise generous act done for self-serving reasons? Is it good or bad to write a check to an orphanage for the publicity? Is it good or bad to save someone's life because they owe you money? Is it good or bad to block certain ads to make sure other ads still reach you?
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago
  > Is it good or bad to block certain ads to make sure other ads still reach you? If there is a growing product that works better, and fully blocks ads and your goal is only to quickly take over the market and do a worse job then I say 'no' that's not being altruistic... If they put up a big banner saying "only works half as well at blocking ads as the competition" then maybe it's a little better.
- nsgi 9y ago
  It may not be good, but it's not being done on the pretence of being good. The question is, how is it bad?
KallDrexx 9y ago
I would be surprised if the chrome ad blocker will block Ads for Google's own properties like Youtube, and while most ads probably adhere to the advertising standards they have still be caught accidentally serving crypto-mining ads (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-even-youtube-serves-ads-with-cpu-draining-cryptocurrency-miners/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-e...). So to me it's bad because it's opening up people's computers to exploitation that even Google can't control.

bzbarsky 9y ago

There's another step here: Google encouraging paywalls for people who do have an adblocker installed. Paywalls that they themselves will service. See https://support.google.com/fundingchoices/answer/7362965?hl=en https://support.google.com/fundingchoices/answer/7362965?hl=... and its explicit mention in https://www.blog.google/topics/journalism-news/building-better-web-everyone/ https://www.blog.google/topics/journalism-news/building-bett...

kiriakasis 9y ago
i read the link only in part, but this look reasonable. if you exclude ads and paywall how should they make money? moreover when mozzilla made attempt to "non-tracking privacy-respectful ads" in the mr robot scandal everyone was at their throat. how should site make money then?
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  If you don't see the issue with Google enabling putting up paywalls, but only on sites that are showing ads that belong to them or to companies that made a deal with them, while blocking ads on sites that don't do Google's bidding, I'm not sure what to tell you. Note that they are not being public with their list of sites that they will block ads on and reason why; nothing prevents them from putting sites on that list for any arbitrary reason they want.
- TheAceOfHearts 9y ago
  I use uBlock Origin, but it's pretty easy to bypass: host ads on your own site. That's how ads worked in other forms of media for ages. How about providing a meaningful service and request adequate compensation? Paywalls work fine for quality content. There's tons of proof that people are willing to pay for books, games, movies, and music. But by having a paywall, you lose out on search indexing. You can't have your cake and eat it.
  - Zarel 9y ago
    Hosting ads on your site isn't actually enough. uBlock Origin can and does block by CSS selector (and that's the default behavior if you use right-click -> Block Element). It _does_ get pretty hard to block if your ads are bespoke native advertisements, though.

the_duke 9y ago

I personally find the ads on Google search really annoying. I'd never use Google if Ublock didn't hide them.

lugg 9y ago
Without adblock, google died a decade ago.

tgtweak 9y ago

Bingo.

JoshMnem 9y ago

> People mostly install adblockers to block really annoying ads.* Many people use ad blockers because they want to block all ads. There are many reasons to block them, including malware, privacy, and brainwashing. If ads works to manipulate behavior (and they do, otherwise people wouldn't buy them), and you don't want to be manipulated, you shouldn't let professionals attempt to hijack your brain (whether those attempts are done via ads, Facebook-style feeds, or other ways).

chacham15 9y ago
This is a very pessimistic view of the world. Not all ads are attempts to hijack your brain. For example, if you were already thinking about buying a specific keyboard and then saw an ad for that same keyboard with a 10% discount, that ad would have actually provided positive value to you. You save money for the thing that you already want. Not all ads are like that, but the example goes to show that there is a spectrum and that its not black and white.
- mquander 9y ago
  Assuming the premises of your scenario (that the ad didn't change anything about you to make you more likely to buy the keyboard, or adversely influence you in any other way), the display of this ad is a disaster for the advertiser. Advertisers will work as hard as they can to make that not happen.
  - mingfli 9y ago
    Not true. If I know you want a keyboard and that you can buy it from 100 different stores, I would probably give you a discount to buy it from me as long as it still makes me money.
  - drdeca 9y ago
    This is true. However, I do think that there are a few (possibly rare) cases where advertisements can cause a mutual benefit. If I intend to purchase a product of a certain category, and would like to choose one with a particular property, but am under the assumption that no such product exists, and I see an ad for such a product, correcting my impression, I may, as a result, purchase that product instead of competitors which don't have the property that I desire, which satisfies both my own wants, and the wants of the company advertising the product. This has happened to me at least once. However, most ads that I see do not provide me with any new information, and the strategy of having ads follow users around after the first time they see it seems somewhat contrary to this type of benefit, and I don't totally understand why it is understood to be effective.

Spoom 9y ago

I think the actual plan may be one step once their own blocker is released: 1. Declare all ad blockers in the Chrome Web Store now obsolete, and ban them.

ksrm 9y ago

Unless they block YouTube ads, I think a lot of people are still going to use an ad blocker.

dingo_bat 9y ago
Yup, the most annoying ads I encounter on a daily basis are youtube ads. If they don't block them, I don't know what's the point of a adblocker.

BurningFrog 9y ago

So the intention is to give people a way to remove annoying ads. I'd say that's obviously a good intention. The fact that Google also can gain from it doesn't change that to me, but I realize others have different moral philosophies.

otabdeveloper2 9y ago

>*There are real issues with non-annoying ads, like tracking, 99% of online tracking comes from Google Analytics, not ads. > ...but I don't think most people know or care very much about that. Indeed...

lucb1e 9y ago

So those are two reasons because 1 and 3 are the same: google wants themselves unblocked.

WhyNotHugo 9y ago

> 2. People mostly install adblockers to block really annoying ads.* I don't really think there's any other kind of ad. For the majority of us, there's absolutely no value in ads; so there's no reason I'd want them displayed.

lancescaterpie 9y ago
> For the majority of us, there's absolutely no value in ads They do give value, they allow sites to operate without some subscription or entrance fee.