4 ms·

Ads are allowed to run arbitrary JS, but that doesn't mean they are allowed to do arbitrary things by policy. That is, the technical restrictions are not able t

by jefftk 5y ago

Ads are allowed to run arbitrary JS, but that doesn't mean they are allowed to do arbitrary things by policy. That is, the technical restrictions are not able to be as strict as the policy. A bunch of us were working on a project where ads would be fully declarative, and so no longer able to run arbitrary JavaScript, but this received very little interest outside of Google (advertisers didn't want to move to a new format, publishers didn't care) and we moved on. (Still speaking only for myself)

_hyn3 5y ago
Why is it up to the advertisers and publishers?
- Tsiklon 5y ago
  I suppose they're the paying customers.
- fault1 5y ago
  how do you think google, an adtech company, makes money?
- jsnell 5y ago
  If they tried to unilaterally make such a change and ban the old formats, both the advertisers and publishers would complain to competition regulators around the world. And whether you think there would be any merit to those complaints or not, the outcome would still be another round of lawsuits with billions on the line.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    > with billions on the line Not my money. Why should I care about lawsuits between advertising networks and their advertisers, regulators and so on?
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      > Why should I care You don't need to. But the person is asking why Google is or is not doing a particular thing. So it is their interests that are relevant to the current discussion, not yours.
barneygale 5y ago
I do wish google engineers would do something positive for society and switch to a career in subsistence farming. No one needs ads. Not arbitrary JS ads, not declarative ads, not personalised ads, not any ads.
- jefftk 5y ago
  But what do you see as the alternative for funding sites? The site we're on is funded by (declarative, non-personalized, non-obtrusive) ads. I would rather have ads than paywalls.
  - luckylion 5y ago
    "Made for Adsense" sites have no value, if they get shut down, nothing is lost. Normal sites that switched to Adsense have become worse, because now they need clicks and engagement above all else, incentivizing click-bait and low-effort content. Nothing would be lost if they switched to subscription models and provided valuable content. There's little in between in my opinion, it's either "site doesn't use Adsense, it's a company site / personal blog / some institution", "site was made only to make money by adsense with the lowest price content possible, had a bunch of links bought and now provides a passive income to some SEO" and "site used to provide quality content, loses readership to spam-sites because Google has fucked up their sorting algos and now switches to low-value content as well, because anything else can't be financed". Twitch shows that people are very willing to pay for content. I'd very much be happy to if that removed all of the spam.
  - Ansil849 5y ago
    If a website cannot survive without ads, maybe it doesn't need to actually exist in the first place. The world will go on.
    - jefftk 5y ago
      I do think the world would go on, but it's a world I would like less. Some things would move behind paywalls, others would move to the boundary of whatever was considered advertising (sponsored content? Product placement?)

by jefftk 5y ago

_hyn3 5y ago

Why is it up to the advertisers and publishers?

Tsiklon 5y ago
I suppose they're the paying customers.
fault1 5y ago
how do you think google, an adtech company, makes money?
jsnell 5y ago
If they tried to unilaterally make such a change and ban the old formats, both the advertisers and publishers would complain to competition regulators around the world. And whether you think there would be any merit to those complaints or not, the outcome would still be another round of lawsuits with billions on the line.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  > with billions on the line Not my money. Why should I care about lawsuits between advertising networks and their advertisers, regulators and so on?
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    > Why should I care You don't need to. But the person is asking why Google is or is not doing a particular thing. So it is their interests that are relevant to the current discussion, not yours.

barneygale 5y ago

I do wish google engineers would do something positive for society and switch to a career in subsistence farming. No one needs ads. Not arbitrary JS ads, not declarative ads, not personalised ads, not any ads.

jefftk 5y ago
But what do you see as the alternative for funding sites? The site we're on is funded by (declarative, non-personalized, non-obtrusive) ads. I would rather have ads than paywalls.
- luckylion 5y ago
  "Made for Adsense" sites have no value, if they get shut down, nothing is lost. Normal sites that switched to Adsense have become worse, because now they need clicks and engagement above all else, incentivizing click-bait and low-effort content. Nothing would be lost if they switched to subscription models and provided valuable content. There's little in between in my opinion, it's either "site doesn't use Adsense, it's a company site / personal blog / some institution", "site was made only to make money by adsense with the lowest price content possible, had a bunch of links bought and now provides a passive income to some SEO" and "site used to provide quality content, loses readership to spam-sites because Google has fucked up their sorting algos and now switches to low-value content as well, because anything else can't be financed". Twitch shows that people are very willing to pay for content. I'd very much be happy to if that removed all of the spam.
- Ansil849 5y ago
  If a website cannot survive without ads, maybe it doesn't need to actually exist in the first place. The world will go on.
  - jefftk 5y ago
    I do think the world would go on, but it's a world I would like less. Some things would move behind paywalls, others would move to the boundary of whatever was considered advertising (sponsored content? Product placement?)