4 ms·

> unsolicited advertising Advertising doesn't show up on site without the OWNER of the site wanting it to be there.

by viro 5y ago

Retric 5y ago
Website’s can recommend showing me advertising all they want, but it needs my computer equipment to render. Auto playing video adds are both unsolicited and consume significant amounts of expensive cellular data. It’s quite simply theft of resources.
- viro 5y ago
  Its not theft its you paying for the service of the website. What la la land do you live in.
  - Arthur8 5y ago
    Just to nitpick. What has the first to do with the second? If I finance my free-to-eat restaurant by stealing bikes, the first part (free-to-eat) does not justify the second (stealing). One could even argue, that If I am upfront about this and tell everybody that I steal bikes and that you have to agree to this practice to eat at my restaurant, the situation does not change much. I suspect, your point is that If I only steal bikes of people eating in my restaurant and I ask for permission if they are seated(1), then this is not stealing. Because of the permission. I would argue. It is an incredible.... bad deal for the one eating in my restaurant and it seems to be in bad faith. It is even another story, if it is the only restaurant or food source in town. Then it goes well beyond stealing… (1) And I certainly use all (bad/dark) tricks you can think of to get their permission.
- dantheman 5y ago
  You're visiting the site - you agree to it. Words have meaning and it's not theft, just like a store requiring you to wear a shirt isn't stealing from you, you have to buy the shirt.
  - gpm 5y ago
    A store requiring you wear a shirt isn't theft. A store seeing you walked into the store, and without telling you in advance that this is the deal, picking your pocket for $20 and forcing a shirt on over your head is theft, even if they afterwards claim that the $20 is for the shirt. I'm not sure I agree with the advertising is theft analogy, but this is a bad counter example.
  - Retric 5y ago
    By reading this comment you agree to pay me 100$. Except that’s not how contracts work. A website is easily capable of requiring users to accept an actual agreement to see the content, but simply adding it to HTML isn’t a contract any more than listing it in some TOS somewhere is.
    - skinkestek 5y ago
      It is not a contract and there exist a very similar arrangement that has existed for way longer: commercial radio
      - Retric 5y ago
        Commercial radio doesn’t cause me to connect to third party services.
      - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
        I don't incur additional costs for listing to a radio station that decides to play 30 second HD audio ads between segments. Unlike going to a blog to _read_ something and being forced to watch (and pay for the bandwidth) a 30 second HD video. I asked for a few hundred kb of data. They send me what could amount to several hundred megs of data. Many places in the world still are subject to metered data.
        dantheman 5y ago
        What do you mean of course your endure costs - you're paying for the electricity running the radio, and the wear and tear on your device.
Freak_NL 5y ago
It wouldn't be quite as bad if the owner actually chose the advertisements shown, suitable for the article or service shown (like they do in a newspaper or magazine). The owner might get subtle ads for tailored shirts, while I get animated punch-the-monkey¹ or some dumb freemium game. 1: Not sure if these are actually still around. I usually don't last five seconds before installing an ad-blocker.
- olegious 5y ago
  Sites have complete control over the types of advertising that appears on their pages, down to whitelisting only specific brands or even specific ads- but most sites don't care beyond, "no adult products."
- jonas21 5y ago
  That's not how it works at newspapers and magazines (at least the ones with any sort of journalistic integrity). The editorial and advertising departments are firewalled from each other - for good reason. You wouldn't want journalists to be pressured by advertisers into favorable coverage. The people writing articles have no idea what ads are going to run next to their articles, and the advertisers have no control over the content of the articles. The owner of the publication might set limits on what advertisers to accept, but they're not choosing which ads run next to what content.

> unsolicited advertising Advertising doesn't show up on site without the OWNER of the site wanting it to be there.

by viro 5y ago

> unsolicited advertising Advertising doesn't show up on site without the OWNER of the site wanting it to be there.

Website’s can recommend showing me advertising all they want, but it needs my computer equipment to render. Auto playing video adds are both unsolicited and consume significant amounts of expensive cellular data. It’s quite simply theft of resources.

viro 5y ago
Its not theft its you paying for the service of the website. What la la land do you live in.
- Arthur8 5y ago
  Just to nitpick. What has the first to do with the second? If I finance my free-to-eat restaurant by stealing bikes, the first part (free-to-eat) does not justify the second (stealing). One could even argue, that If I am upfront about this and tell everybody that I steal bikes and that you have to agree to this practice to eat at my restaurant, the situation does not change much. I suspect, your point is that If I only steal bikes of people eating in my restaurant and I ask for permission if they are seated(1), then this is not stealing. Because of the permission. I would argue. It is an incredible.... bad deal for the one eating in my restaurant and it seems to be in bad faith. It is even another story, if it is the only restaurant or food source in town. Then it goes well beyond stealing… (1) And I certainly use all (bad/dark) tricks you can think of to get their permission.
dantheman 5y ago
You're visiting the site - you agree to it. Words have meaning and it's not theft, just like a store requiring you to wear a shirt isn't stealing from you, you have to buy the shirt.
- gpm 5y ago
  A store requiring you wear a shirt isn't theft. A store seeing you walked into the store, and without telling you in advance that this is the deal, picking your pocket for $20 and forcing a shirt on over your head is theft, even if they afterwards claim that the $20 is for the shirt. I'm not sure I agree with the advertising is theft analogy, but this is a bad counter example.
- Retric 5y ago
  By reading this comment you agree to pay me 100$. Except that’s not how contracts work. A website is easily capable of requiring users to accept an actual agreement to see the content, but simply adding it to HTML isn’t a contract any more than listing it in some TOS somewhere is.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    It is not a contract and there exist a very similar arrangement that has existed for way longer: commercial radio
    - Retric 5y ago
      Commercial radio doesn’t cause me to connect to third party services.
    - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
      I don't incur additional costs for listing to a radio station that decides to play 30 second HD audio ads between segments. Unlike going to a blog to _read_ something and being forced to watch (and pay for the bandwidth) a 30 second HD video. I asked for a few hundred kb of data. They send me what could amount to several hundred megs of data. Many places in the world still are subject to metered data.
      - dantheman 5y ago
        What do you mean of course your endure costs - you're paying for the electricity running the radio, and the wear and tear on your device.

Freak_NL 5y ago

It wouldn't be quite as bad if the owner actually chose the advertisements shown, suitable for the article or service shown (like they do in a newspaper or magazine). The owner might get subtle ads for tailored shirts, while I get animated punch-the-monkey¹ or some dumb freemium game. 1: Not sure if these are actually still around. I usually don't last five seconds before installing an ad-blocker.

olegious 5y ago
Sites have complete control over the types of advertising that appears on their pages, down to whitelisting only specific brands or even specific ads- but most sites don't care beyond, "no adult products."
jonas21 5y ago
That's not how it works at newspapers and magazines (at least the ones with any sort of journalistic integrity). The editorial and advertising departments are firewalled from each other - for good reason. You wouldn't want journalists to be pressured by advertisers into favorable coverage. The people writing articles have no idea what ads are going to run next to their articles, and the advertisers have no control over the content of the articles. The owner of the publication might set limits on what advertisers to accept, but they're not choosing which ads run next to what content.