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> I trust my AdBlocker more than any consent options/frameworks. I agree. But, I have nothing against ads, just poorly behaved nuisance ads. I want content pro

> I trust my AdBlocker more than any consent options/frameworks. I agree. But, I have nothing against ads, just poorly behaved nuisance ads. I want content providers to get paid, I just don't want to surrender my privacy and eyeballs for that to occur. So, I'm trying to think of some rules for well behaved ads, that I would allow to come through my AdBlocker. 1) privacy - hosted on neutral, log-free and audited website so no tracking information gained and no additional information in the URL query parameters 2) image - ad image is an appropriate size in kb, has no animation and is a strait img tag (i.e. no javascript to do funny things on hover, click or over time). 3) render - image size is included in page html (avoid annoying layout shifts as the page renders) Anything i'm missing? I think this would be an interesting check-box for an AdBlocker app/plugin. Missing: * some way to stop an advertiser from uploading the same image 50k times with a slightly different name to do tracking. could probably be covered easily with the way billing is done so this would be cost prohibitive.

kgwxd 8y ago
If sites just hosted their own ads, blockers wouldn't stand a chance. I wouldn't trust a third-party, centralized, site (users should have demanded that their browsers block third-party content from the begining of the web) and it wouldn't stop the host from doing their own on-site tracking. Self hosted ads are the only that will ever be allowed past my blocker, and I've seen about 3 sites in the past 10 years that do it.
- lugg 8y ago
  Thankfully it's hard to prevent click fraud with self served ads otherwise ad companies would have been all over this.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    Classically, a site could sell their own advertising space and serve them from their own infrastructure. This would be preferred. More careful vetting of advertisers/ads, more targeted without personally identifying info, and less malware being served by ad networks, intentionally or otherwise.
  - kgwxd 8y ago
    Pay-per-click is a bad model. Ad networks are a bad model. Ad companies are a bad model. Website businesses should get a proper advertising department (or be the department if they're small) like TV, papers, podcasts, vlogs, magazines, billboards, sports arenas, and the hundreds of other outlets that advertise, without tracking, and make millions doing it. Then the site owners and the advertisers can work out how to trust each other without getting consumers and their machines involved, again, like all other advertising works. And when people stop going to a site because it has a full page animated image with embarassing audio and a well-disguised close button, it will be nobodies fault but site owner for allowing such an ad.
    - lugg 8y ago
      Ok, now as an advertiser how can I scale that to a thousand sites? And as a small website I update on the weekend how can I go find these advertisers consistently and easily. Not really sure how we got here but we did..
- krapp 8y ago
  Most people using ad blockers don't care whether the ads are self-hosted, nor do the makers of most ad blockers. If sites hosted their own ads, those ads would still be blocked by almost everyone as soon as the blacklists were updated.
  - kgwxd 8y ago
    They'll just keep moving the target, it would be indistinguishable from regular content.
    - krapp 8y ago
      > They'll just keep moving the target, it would be indistinguishable from regular content. Not everyone will have the ability to do that effectively, or even have a platform for it, and users can simply avoid sites where native advertising is obvious. If some advertising just becomes unobtrusive, and most of it disappears, then that may still be a win-win for a lot of people. This isn't a fight site owners can win with technical measures or deception - unlike every other form of mass media, the web is designed to put as much control over content presentation in the hands of the consumer as the producer, and users are now aware that advertising is something they can opt in to. If sites offer content with high enough quality, they might be able to convince people to let their ads through, assuming those ads don't interfere with user experience too much. But just trying to sneak it past people isn't going to work forever, any more than ad banners did.
      - kgwxd 8y ago
        It's not hard to do by any means. Put it randomly inline with other content and don't give it any special attributes. How is any blocker going to catch that without hogging my cpu and killing my battery, or worse, sending details about the page im viewing off to a third party?
        krapp 8y ago
        >Put it randomly inline with other content and don't give it any special attributes That would only Experience sports, training, shopping and everything else that's new at Nike from any country in the world your content unreadable.
- stordoff 8y ago
  I've seen one site start doing that (or at least proxying the ads through their own servers) - all ads come [random 8 letter domain].ay.[domain].com (which I immediately reversed because they started using it to serve auto-playing video). If it was hosted on their main domain, I wouldn't have a chance (at least without more tools).

kgwxd 8y ago

If sites just hosted their own ads, blockers wouldn't stand a chance. I wouldn't trust a third-party, centralized, site (users should have demanded that their browsers block third-party content from the begining of the web) and it wouldn't stop the host from doing their own on-site tracking. Self hosted ads are the only that will ever be allowed past my blocker, and I've seen about 3 sites in the past 10 years that do it.

lugg 8y ago
Thankfully it's hard to prevent click fraud with self served ads otherwise ad companies would have been all over this.
- acct1771 8y ago
  Classically, a site could sell their own advertising space and serve them from their own infrastructure. This would be preferred. More careful vetting of advertisers/ads, more targeted without personally identifying info, and less malware being served by ad networks, intentionally or otherwise.
- kgwxd 8y ago
  Pay-per-click is a bad model. Ad networks are a bad model. Ad companies are a bad model. Website businesses should get a proper advertising department (or be the department if they're small) like TV, papers, podcasts, vlogs, magazines, billboards, sports arenas, and the hundreds of other outlets that advertise, without tracking, and make millions doing it. Then the site owners and the advertisers can work out how to trust each other without getting consumers and their machines involved, again, like all other advertising works. And when people stop going to a site because it has a full page animated image with embarassing audio and a well-disguised close button, it will be nobodies fault but site owner for allowing such an ad.
  - lugg 8y ago
    Ok, now as an advertiser how can I scale that to a thousand sites? And as a small website I update on the weekend how can I go find these advertisers consistently and easily. Not really sure how we got here but we did..
krapp 8y ago
Most people using ad blockers don't care whether the ads are self-hosted, nor do the makers of most ad blockers. If sites hosted their own ads, those ads would still be blocked by almost everyone as soon as the blacklists were updated.
- kgwxd 8y ago
  They'll just keep moving the target, it would be indistinguishable from regular content.
  - krapp 8y ago
    > They'll just keep moving the target, it would be indistinguishable from regular content. Not everyone will have the ability to do that effectively, or even have a platform for it, and users can simply avoid sites where native advertising is obvious. If some advertising just becomes unobtrusive, and most of it disappears, then that may still be a win-win for a lot of people. This isn't a fight site owners can win with technical measures or deception - unlike every other form of mass media, the web is designed to put as much control over content presentation in the hands of the consumer as the producer, and users are now aware that advertising is something they can opt in to. If sites offer content with high enough quality, they might be able to convince people to let their ads through, assuming those ads don't interfere with user experience too much. But just trying to sneak it past people isn't going to work forever, any more than ad banners did.
    - kgwxd 8y ago
      It's not hard to do by any means. Put it randomly inline with other content and don't give it any special attributes. How is any blocker going to catch that without hogging my cpu and killing my battery, or worse, sending details about the page im viewing off to a third party?
      - krapp 8y ago
        >Put it randomly inline with other content and don't give it any special attributes That would only Experience sports, training, shopping and everything else that's new at Nike from any country in the world your content unreadable.
stordoff 8y ago
I've seen one site start doing that (or at least proxying the ads through their own servers) - all ads come [random 8 letter domain].ay.[domain].com (which I immediately reversed because they started using it to serve auto-playing video). If it was hosted on their main domain, I wouldn't have a chance (at least without more tools).