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> developer of best-in-class ad-filtering technology found in millions of browsers and products around the world I must admit, this is pretty funny... there is

> developer of best-in-class ad-filtering technology found in millions of browsers and products around the world I must admit, this is pretty funny... there is "ublock" which users are tricked into installing (instead of the real ublock origin), which uses their "acceptable ads" and people have said that their business model is based on extorting ad companies to pay them to not block their ads

josephcsible 5y ago
Is "acceptable ads" really a bad thing? I'm not opposed to seeing any ads; I just don't want badly behaved ones. And is there a less bad alternative to accomplish that?
- blibble 5y ago
  I wonder how many users install an product that claims to be an "ad blocker" so they can see different ads
- karaterobot 5y ago
  For you, this might be a great solution. I think most people who install an adblocker do it because they don't want to see any ads, so it defeats the purpose.
- mcherm 5y ago
  > I'm not opposed to seeing any ads; I just don't want badly behaved ones. While I support this sentiment, a definition of "badly behaved ads" which is based on whether or not the advertiser paid money to some third party is just not a definition I can live with.
  - criddell 5y ago
    That's not the definition though, is it?
    - SahAssar 5y ago
      You have to pay a fee to get on to the acceptable ads list, right?
      - criddell 5y ago
        You have to pay tuition to attend MIT but that's not all you have to do to leave there with a degree.
        cowpig 5y ago
        And did you know that you need to add or remove hydrogen ions to change the pH of a solution? Anyway, back to the conversation we were having
        JadeNB 5y ago
        You can explain why you think it's a bad analogy, but this kind of dismissive snark helps no one.
        cowpig 5y ago
        I agree in principle but I also feel like there needs to be a minimum threshold of effort or topical relevance in a comment or the discussion becomes a kind of Gish Gallop[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
        Kye 5y ago
        How about a Gish Trot? Use flowery language to further confuse and it's Gish Dressage.
        vrc 5y ago
        I always have heard the “gallop” in this context pronounced “guh-LOP” with the stress on the second syllable.
- pgrote 5y ago
  I think that is a legitimate question. The issue becomes there is no standard or method to ensure acceptable ads. A static ad without javascript is acceptable to me. Maybe not to someone else. But ... the ad industry would never accept a static ad more akin to a billboard than a tracking device. Many times in the past malware has found its way into networks run by the more highly regarded ad systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising If a content publisher refuses to let people read articles without a subscription or with an ad blocker, I am ok with that. It is their choice.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > the ad industry would never accept a static ad more akin to a billboard than a tracking device. Is JS synonymous with tracking? Why can't you just track server side? I don't see how removing JS from ads would prevent FB from targeting me on my FB feed.
    - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
      Without JS phoning home everywhere there's a 'share on Facebook' button, Facebook can only track your activity on their site.
    - IX-103 5y ago
      Depends on the "ad product" being sold. For "I'll pay you to put this image on the page" ads you might not need JavaScript. For "I'll pay you if someone clicks on the ad" it might also be possible. For "I'll pay if the visitor sees the ad on the page" (which requires the ad to know if it is in the viewport), then JavaScript is 100% necessary. Likewise for "I'll pay you if you show the ad and then the person you showed it to buys the advertised item within the next 30 days". L The ads market is a very complex and competitive industry. This means that practically every display side provider has their own special "ad product" to differentiate themselves. Almost all of these require JavaScript to implement their key features. In addition there could be 4 or even more parties involved in showing an ad (publisher, publisher's supply side provider, advertiser's display side provider, advertiser, plus miscellaneous middlemen). These different parties may not trust each other, so they currently use JavaScript to send (via `fetch`) themselves information about the auction to check up on each other.
- radley 5y ago
  "Acceptable" for whom? After AdBlock made their acceptable ads deal with Google, they whitelisted stuff like sexy girls and misinfo videos in the Recommended Videos side-list on YouTube. Fake Ublock is probably the same way.
  - qoi24u5xnlqeuq 5y ago
    previous employer had a hush-hush-don't-talk-about-it deal with ABP. $1mi per month to allow a subset of our ads all over the internet. ...which all the tracking cookies included. It was a great deal for everyone, but people who installed ABP.
- grey_earthling 5y ago
  Privacy Badger may be useful to you. It blocks trackers, which just so happens to prevent some ads from loading. I've seen websites ask me to disable my ad blocker when I only have Privacy Badger enabled (on top of Firefox's built-in behaviour).
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  I think so. You ask a server for something and it bundles that thing with other bits crafted to make you do something other than what you originally contacted the server for. It might exploit a buffer overflow or it might exploit a distractable human, but it's malware just the same.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  Yes, it's a bad thing. Because you can't choose what's acceptable, they do. You won't decide the topic, format, quantity, density, duration, nature or interruption type. Which is different for you, me, or your children. What's more, ads are not made for your benefit, ever, but to the benefit of the advertiser which may (but statistically more likely may not) align with yours. And also because: - the incentive gets twisted, which means you can't trust ublock on the long run. - unkown unknowns means down the road, some ads will manage to track you or serve malicious content despite ublock filtering. - ads paid content is a terrible business model which take a price people are not wired to assess nor realize they pay for something they disguise as free yet has an impact on the entire society. Not a great thing to encourage. And I say all that as someone who gets revenue from ads.
  - diffeomorphism 5y ago
    > because you can't choose That seems like just an implementation detail. If users are able to choose/vote what is "acceptable" that seems like a concept worth trying.
  - mundo03 5y ago
    Right, any idea on how to keep content accessible and people with paychecks maintaining it?
    - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  - gorhill 5y ago
    > you can't trust ublock on the long run Why is this? Would you also say this for other long running open source projects which have never breach the trust of their users?
    - tpxl 5y ago
      Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't uBlock handed over (changed owners? don't quite know how to put it) and uBlock origin started later precisely because uBlock breached the trust of their users?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  As far as I'm concerned, all advertisers can go to hell. If a majority of advertisers had behaved themselves we would never have invented ad blockers[0] in the first place. This industry has proven time and time again that they are the scum of the fucking earth and cannot be trusted. I for one am tired of giving them any chances. [0] pop up blockers, originally
  - dheera 5y ago
    Yes this. I've had it with ads that pop up filling up the screen while I'm reading halfway through a sentence, spewing cookies all over the place, and loading megabytes of JavaScripts on a 2G connection. They can all pay the consequences now of me blocking them. If they had been well-behaved and stuck to inline ads with no cookies, I would have left them there.
  - IcyClAyMptHe 5y ago
    Totally agree with this. Even if advertisers weren't tracking me everywhere (which is a whole other massive issues), advertising even at its least offensive is designed to generate a want or need I didn't have before. I don't need to be convinced to spend ever more money on the latest gadget, no matter how "cool" I might find it. It's all just advertisers revving that hedonistic treadmill. If you live in the city, advertisers manipulate you every waking minute of your day, bombarding you from billboards, on tv, on the internet, and are constantly shoving their disgusting garbage in front of your eyes in new ways; at petrol pumps, on your tv menu, right in front of you on a taxi cab. Worse still, the more you pay to avoid this trash, the more you become attractive to them as someone with money to spend. I can't remove the ads as a walk about the city, but for damn sure I'll remove them wherever I can in my home. Pi hole, ublock origin, sponsor block etc, all running to keep this crap out of my life. If people wont pay money for what creators are making, and they can't provide it for free, I'm fine with it going away. It probably wasn't worthwhile to begin with - only "addictive". Ads are a scourge and make me sick. There are no "acceptable ads".
  - motoxpro 5y ago
    I'm happy to watch ads so I don't have to pay for Instagram, Google Search & Docs, Gmail, Twitch, Youtube and most of my podcasts. I wouldn't be able to afford it if I couldn't pay with scrolling of my mouse past such ad (or my data, no worries)
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  The only ads I find acceptable are those served by the site itself. As soon as they load in a third party like Google, I'm out.
- celticninja 5y ago
  Banksy said this in relation to billboard type ads but it applies to online advertising too. Is there an acceptable rock you would allow someone to throw at your head? >Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  It seems complicated and pointless to keep an acceptable ads list, if I'm going to block some, why not block them all? While I only really care about blocking badly behaved ads, the easiest way to do so is to block all of them. Also, the fact that they are taking money to get on the 'acceptable ads' list looks a little shady. It could be (let's be generous) misinterpreted as a third party just elbowing in to get a cut of the transaction, like some kind of protection racket. I'd worry this sort of thing might draw unwanted attention in some jurisdictions, even if it really isn't warranted. Why bother going with the solution that is both technically and ethically more complicated? Just do the dumb thing and block everything.
- heisenbit 5y ago
  Not a bad thing as the word acceptable notes. BUT as the definition of acceptable is not in the hands of the accepting receiver but in the hands of the sender the word acceptable is used in a twisted manner. You are told it is acceptable but their behavior will be driven by forces yielding anything but acceptable. Ignore what they say - their behavior matters and incentives are stacked against your interests with no effective limits.
detaro 5y ago
Huh? What does eyeo have to do with uBlock? Adblock plus is their thing.
- ajayyy 5y ago
  It is officially one "team" now https://eyeo.com/teaming-up-for-new-products-the-teams-behind-adblock-plus-and-adblock-combine/ https://eyeo.com/teaming-up-for-new-products-the-teams-behin... Historically, it always seemed like it was one company though as Adblock codebase has been based on Adblock plus codebase for years, and they both use Acceptable ads. Edit to avoid confusion: Fake "uBlock" (not to be confused with uBlock Origin) is owned by AdBlock https://www.ublock.org/blog/an-update-on-ublock/ https://www.ublock.org/blog/an-update-on-ublock/
  - efdee 5y ago
    That article is about the team(s) behind Adblock and Adblock Plus. It has nothing to do with uBlock Origin.
    - ajayyy 5y ago
      uBlock != uBlock Origin uBlock is a scam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin#uBlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin#uBlock https://ublock.org https://ublock.org
  - xxpor 5y ago
    Adblock/ABP != uBlock Origin
  - detaro 5y ago
    ... and what does that have to do with uBlock? (EDIT: and if you edit in answers to questions into your original comment, please mark that as an edit)
    - erk__ 5y ago
      uBlock (Not origin) was acquired by AdBlock (not plus), look under the uBlock header here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin#uBlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin#uBlock
ballenf 5y ago
Feels like a bad time to bite the hand that was willing to defend a precedent that serves everyone (if publishers were successful there, they'd have a much easier time arguing in other countries for "harmonization" legislation).
- 1f60c 5y ago
  Let's hope their lawyers don't read HN. :-)
- gowld 5y ago
  It's a good time to think about how to fund legal defense for free / open source software, and not rely on alliances with scammy companies.
- Aperocky 5y ago
  Precedent or not, they have no ability to enforce any of such ridiculous claim had it gone the other way, it's like certain governments trying to 'ban' encryption.
whimsicalism 5y ago
> and people have said that their business model is based on extorting ad companies to pay them to not block their ads i mean, it is. ABP is basically modern day protection racket
- brezelgoring 5y ago
  If it is, I like this protection racket. Inflamatory statements aside, and whether or not online advertising is acceptable in its current form, there is a need they are fulfilling. If people don't find ads to be hospitable to their user experience then people don't find ads to be hospitable to their user experience, period. You can argue why all you want, in the meantime, ABP is there to get rid of them for you.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    No, they are there to get companies to pay them hundreds of thousands of $ in order to get them to unblock their advertising. They'll also mistakenly introduce bugs to destroy your on-site metrics if you don't pay up.
  - simonbw 5y ago
    But ABP isn't there to get rid of them for you, they're there to get paid for allowing you to see them. Not only that, they're trying to weaken the other adblockers that are there to get rid of ads for you.
    - Taywee 5y ago
      > Not only that, they're trying to weaken the other adblockers that are there to get rid of ads for you. I'm going to need a citation for that. I don't use ABP for obvious reasons, but I don't really see them as a problem; they're effectively extorting money from advertising companies, which are absolute scum and deserve to lose any and all profits that they have made (not only for scummy business practices and an entire business model built around the worst kind of psychological manipulation and data mining, but actually convincing people that they are good for supporting a "free web" as if they are some charitable benefactors giving free money out of the good of their hearts). The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I haven't been able to suss out any way that they do any real harm to the end users, but if they do actually do harm to other ad blockers, that would be some actual harm, but I am having trouble finding any evidence of this anywhere.
zxcvbn4038 5y ago
Reminds me of https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/13/business/media-business-advertising-lawyers-for-spider-man-win-fight-over-times-square.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/13/business/media-business-a... where a bunch of billboard owners in Times Square (New York City) tried to sue Sony over digitally replacing the advertisements in scenes in a Spiderman Movie. Luckily the judge in that case came to a similar conclusion. I'm still dubious the city skylines can be copyrighted - NYC believes they own the copyright on the city's skyline. I'm also dubious that the NYC Subway can copyright the route indicators (letters in circles). https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/the-port-authority-thinks-it-owns-the-new-york-city-skyline/375256/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/the-por... http://www.fordhamiplj.org/2010/01/07/mta-symbols-intellectual-property-or-new-york-citys-public-domain/ http://www.fordhamiplj.org/2010/01/07/mta-symbols-intellectu...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- detritus 5y ago
  I've helped on a few jobs that required representing the skyline of London (in advertising, for example) and my clients have always been very careful to ensure that modern landmarks aren't entirely accurate, to avoid this kind of complication.
- wefarrell 5y ago
  Going after photographers who have the subway signs in the background is one thing, but going after businesses for copying their font seems entirely different to me. They're a corporation who paid a lot of money for the rights to it, how is is different than Walmart or Netflix going after companies for using their fonts?
  - nybble41 5y ago
    The GP's linked article[0] doesn't say anything about fonts. It says that the MTA sued someone for using the letter 'N' in a circle on a T-shirt. Not even the same color scheme. Judging from the examples on one of the MTA's branding pages[1], there doesn't seem to be anything particularly unique about the font they're using. They don't even mention it by name. Other sources claim the official signage is a mix of Helvetica and Akzidenz Grotesk. In any case, fontface designs are not copyrightable in the US. Fonts can be (as programs/data) but that isn't really relevant here. [0] http://www.fordhamiplj.org/2010/01/07/mta-symbols-intellectual-property-or-new-york-citys-public-domain/ http://www.fordhamiplj.org/2010/01/07/mta-symbols-intellectu... [1] http://web.mta.info/developers/resources/line_colors.htm http://web.mta.info/developers/resources/line_colors.htm
jnurmine 5y ago
For some reason I wasn't aware that ABP supported "Acceptable Ads". How does Eyeo make money?
- happybuy 5y ago
  > How does Eyeo make money? They charge advertisers to be part of their 'acceptable ads' scheme that then allows these ads to be shown to users of their ad blocking products (ADP, Adblock Plus, Ublock).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- vrc 5y ago
  They allow certain search engines’ search-ads to pass through for a nominal fee. Those search engines happily support Eyeo because it’s easier to have a single, friendly, and known enemy that dominates the market.
happybuy 5y ago
Yes, Eyeo is a dodgy company that misrepresents their product and how they actually really make money from users & advertisers. As one of the largest ad blockers around they also try and extinguish any potential competition before it has a chance to establish itself. When I initially released my ad blocker for the iPhone and Mac – Magic Lasso Adblock (https://www.magiclasso.co/ https://www.magiclasso.co/) they attempted to stop its distribution through the Apple App Stores. They sent legal threats directly to myself and then to Apple claiming that they own the term 'adblock' and demanded that my product stop using that term in any marketing or App Store keywords. This went on for months with them constantly pushing less and less plausible evidence for their ownership of the term. I eventually told their enforcement loonies to stop contacting me and provided evidence to Apple that their claims are baseless (which meant their claims directly to Apple could also be ignored). They eventually stopped but I can see how their tactics could discourage any new entrants in the space.
- haasted 5y ago
  That's ridiculous. They themselves adopted the Adblock term from the original open source project that they initially derived their product from (http://web.archive.org/web/20090222145638/http://adblockplus.org/en/history http://web.archive.org/web/20090222145638/http://adblockplus...). If any trademark exists for Adblock, it's probably not theirs.
WA 5y ago
If you can read German, the blogger Sascha Pallenberg wrote an in-depth piece in 2013 about the scammy nature of eyeo: https://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk/ https://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke...

josephcsible 5y ago

Is "acceptable ads" really a bad thing? I'm not opposed to seeing any ads; I just don't want badly behaved ones. And is there a less bad alternative to accomplish that?

blibble 5y ago
I wonder how many users install an product that claims to be an "ad blocker" so they can see different ads
karaterobot 5y ago
For you, this might be a great solution. I think most people who install an adblocker do it because they don't want to see any ads, so it defeats the purpose.
mcherm 5y ago
> I'm not opposed to seeing any ads; I just don't want badly behaved ones. While I support this sentiment, a definition of "badly behaved ads" which is based on whether or not the advertiser paid money to some third party is just not a definition I can live with.
- criddell 5y ago
  That's not the definition though, is it?
  - SahAssar 5y ago
    You have to pay a fee to get on to the acceptable ads list, right?
    - criddell 5y ago
      You have to pay tuition to attend MIT but that's not all you have to do to leave there with a degree.
      - cowpig 5y ago
        And did you know that you need to add or remove hydrogen ions to change the pH of a solution? Anyway, back to the conversation we were having
        JadeNB 5y ago
        You can explain why you think it's a bad analogy, but this kind of dismissive snark helps no one.
        cowpig 5y ago
        I agree in principle but I also feel like there needs to be a minimum threshold of effort or topical relevance in a comment or the discussion becomes a kind of Gish Gallop[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
        Kye 5y ago
        How about a Gish Trot? Use flowery language to further confuse and it's Gish Dressage.
        vrc 5y ago
        I always have heard the “gallop” in this context pronounced “guh-LOP” with the stress on the second syllable.
pgrote 5y ago
I think that is a legitimate question. The issue becomes there is no standard or method to ensure acceptable ads. A static ad without javascript is acceptable to me. Maybe not to someone else. But ... the ad industry would never accept a static ad more akin to a billboard than a tracking device. Many times in the past malware has found its way into networks run by the more highly regarded ad systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising If a content publisher refuses to let people read articles without a subscription or with an ad blocker, I am ok with that. It is their choice.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > the ad industry would never accept a static ad more akin to a billboard than a tracking device. Is JS synonymous with tracking? Why can't you just track server side? I don't see how removing JS from ads would prevent FB from targeting me on my FB feed.
  - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
    Without JS phoning home everywhere there's a 'share on Facebook' button, Facebook can only track your activity on their site.
  - IX-103 5y ago
    Depends on the "ad product" being sold. For "I'll pay you to put this image on the page" ads you might not need JavaScript. For "I'll pay you if someone clicks on the ad" it might also be possible. For "I'll pay if the visitor sees the ad on the page" (which requires the ad to know if it is in the viewport), then JavaScript is 100% necessary. Likewise for "I'll pay you if you show the ad and then the person you showed it to buys the advertised item within the next 30 days". L The ads market is a very complex and competitive industry. This means that practically every display side provider has their own special "ad product" to differentiate themselves. Almost all of these require JavaScript to implement their key features. In addition there could be 4 or even more parties involved in showing an ad (publisher, publisher's supply side provider, advertiser's display side provider, advertiser, plus miscellaneous middlemen). These different parties may not trust each other, so they currently use JavaScript to send (via `fetch`) themselves information about the auction to check up on each other.
radley 5y ago
"Acceptable" for whom? After AdBlock made their acceptable ads deal with Google, they whitelisted stuff like sexy girls and misinfo videos in the Recommended Videos side-list on YouTube. Fake Ublock is probably the same way.
- qoi24u5xnlqeuq 5y ago
  previous employer had a hush-hush-don't-talk-about-it deal with ABP. $1mi per month to allow a subset of our ads all over the internet. ...which all the tracking cookies included. It was a great deal for everyone, but people who installed ABP.
grey_earthling 5y ago
Privacy Badger may be useful to you. It blocks trackers, which just so happens to prevent some ads from loading. I've seen websites ask me to disable my ad blocker when I only have Privacy Badger enabled (on top of Firefox's built-in behaviour).
__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
I think so. You ask a server for something and it bundles that thing with other bits crafted to make you do something other than what you originally contacted the server for. It might exploit a buffer overflow or it might exploit a distractable human, but it's malware just the same.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Yes, it's a bad thing. Because you can't choose what's acceptable, they do. You won't decide the topic, format, quantity, density, duration, nature or interruption type. Which is different for you, me, or your children. What's more, ads are not made for your benefit, ever, but to the benefit of the advertiser which may (but statistically more likely may not) align with yours. And also because: - the incentive gets twisted, which means you can't trust ublock on the long run. - unkown unknowns means down the road, some ads will manage to track you or serve malicious content despite ublock filtering. - ads paid content is a terrible business model which take a price people are not wired to assess nor realize they pay for something they disguise as free yet has an impact on the entire society. Not a great thing to encourage. And I say all that as someone who gets revenue from ads.
- diffeomorphism 5y ago
  > because you can't choose That seems like just an implementation detail. If users are able to choose/vote what is "acceptable" that seems like a concept worth trying.
- mundo03 5y ago
  Right, any idea on how to keep content accessible and people with paychecks maintaining it?
  - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
- gorhill 5y ago
  > you can't trust ublock on the long run Why is this? Would you also say this for other long running open source projects which have never breach the trust of their users?
  - tpxl 5y ago
    Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't uBlock handed over (changed owners? don't quite know how to put it) and uBlock origin started later precisely because uBlock breached the trust of their users?
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
As far as I'm concerned, all advertisers can go to hell. If a majority of advertisers had behaved themselves we would never have invented ad blockers[0] in the first place. This industry has proven time and time again that they are the scum of the fucking earth and cannot be trusted. I for one am tired of giving them any chances. [0] pop up blockers, originally
- dheera 5y ago
  Yes this. I've had it with ads that pop up filling up the screen while I'm reading halfway through a sentence, spewing cookies all over the place, and loading megabytes of JavaScripts on a 2G connection. They can all pay the consequences now of me blocking them. If they had been well-behaved and stuck to inline ads with no cookies, I would have left them there.
- IcyClAyMptHe 5y ago
  Totally agree with this. Even if advertisers weren't tracking me everywhere (which is a whole other massive issues), advertising even at its least offensive is designed to generate a want or need I didn't have before. I don't need to be convinced to spend ever more money on the latest gadget, no matter how "cool" I might find it. It's all just advertisers revving that hedonistic treadmill. If you live in the city, advertisers manipulate you every waking minute of your day, bombarding you from billboards, on tv, on the internet, and are constantly shoving their disgusting garbage in front of your eyes in new ways; at petrol pumps, on your tv menu, right in front of you on a taxi cab. Worse still, the more you pay to avoid this trash, the more you become attractive to them as someone with money to spend. I can't remove the ads as a walk about the city, but for damn sure I'll remove them wherever I can in my home. Pi hole, ublock origin, sponsor block etc, all running to keep this crap out of my life. If people wont pay money for what creators are making, and they can't provide it for free, I'm fine with it going away. It probably wasn't worthwhile to begin with - only "addictive". Ads are a scourge and make me sick. There are no "acceptable ads".
- motoxpro 5y ago
  I'm happy to watch ads so I don't have to pay for Instagram, Google Search & Docs, Gmail, Twitch, Youtube and most of my podcasts. I wouldn't be able to afford it if I couldn't pay with scrolling of my mouse past such ad (or my data, no worries)
notreallyserio 5y ago
The only ads I find acceptable are those served by the site itself. As soon as they load in a third party like Google, I'm out.
celticninja 5y ago
Banksy said this in relation to billboard type ads but it applies to online advertising too. Is there an acceptable rock you would allow someone to throw at your head? >Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
bee_rider 5y ago
It seems complicated and pointless to keep an acceptable ads list, if I'm going to block some, why not block them all? While I only really care about blocking badly behaved ads, the easiest way to do so is to block all of them. Also, the fact that they are taking money to get on the 'acceptable ads' list looks a little shady. It could be (let's be generous) misinterpreted as a third party just elbowing in to get a cut of the transaction, like some kind of protection racket. I'd worry this sort of thing might draw unwanted attention in some jurisdictions, even if it really isn't warranted. Why bother going with the solution that is both technically and ethically more complicated? Just do the dumb thing and block everything.
heisenbit 5y ago
Not a bad thing as the word acceptable notes. BUT as the definition of acceptable is not in the hands of the accepting receiver but in the hands of the sender the word acceptable is used in a twisted manner. You are told it is acceptable but their behavior will be driven by forces yielding anything but acceptable. Ignore what they say - their behavior matters and incentives are stacked against your interests with no effective limits.

detaro 5y ago

Huh? What does eyeo have to do with uBlock? Adblock plus is their thing.

ajayyy 5y ago
It is officially one "team" now https://eyeo.com/teaming-up-for-new-products-the-teams-behind-adblock-plus-and-adblock-combine/ https://eyeo.com/teaming-up-for-new-products-the-teams-behin... Historically, it always seemed like it was one company though as Adblock codebase has been based on Adblock plus codebase for years, and they both use Acceptable ads. Edit to avoid confusion: Fake "uBlock" (not to be confused with uBlock Origin) is owned by AdBlock https://www.ublock.org/blog/an-update-on-ublock/ https://www.ublock.org/blog/an-update-on-ublock/
- efdee 5y ago
  That article is about the team(s) behind Adblock and Adblock Plus. It has nothing to do with uBlock Origin.
  - ajayyy 5y ago
    uBlock != uBlock Origin uBlock is a scam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin#uBlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin#uBlock https://ublock.org https://ublock.org
- xxpor 5y ago
  Adblock/ABP != uBlock Origin
- detaro 5y ago
  ... and what does that have to do with uBlock? (EDIT: and if you edit in answers to questions into your original comment, please mark that as an edit)
  - erk__ 5y ago
    uBlock (Not origin) was acquired by AdBlock (not plus), look under the uBlock header here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin#uBlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin#uBlock

ballenf 5y ago

Feels like a bad time to bite the hand that was willing to defend a precedent that serves everyone (if publishers were successful there, they'd have a much easier time arguing in other countries for "harmonization" legislation).

1f60c 5y ago
Let's hope their lawyers don't read HN. :-)
gowld 5y ago
It's a good time to think about how to fund legal defense for free / open source software, and not rely on alliances with scammy companies.
Aperocky 5y ago
Precedent or not, they have no ability to enforce any of such ridiculous claim had it gone the other way, it's like certain governments trying to 'ban' encryption.

whimsicalism 5y ago

> and people have said that their business model is based on extorting ad companies to pay them to not block their ads i mean, it is. ABP is basically modern day protection racket

brezelgoring 5y ago
If it is, I like this protection racket. Inflamatory statements aside, and whether or not online advertising is acceptable in its current form, there is a need they are fulfilling. If people don't find ads to be hospitable to their user experience then people don't find ads to be hospitable to their user experience, period. You can argue why all you want, in the meantime, ABP is there to get rid of them for you.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  No, they are there to get companies to pay them hundreds of thousands of $ in order to get them to unblock their advertising. They'll also mistakenly introduce bugs to destroy your on-site metrics if you don't pay up.
- simonbw 5y ago
  But ABP isn't there to get rid of them for you, they're there to get paid for allowing you to see them. Not only that, they're trying to weaken the other adblockers that are there to get rid of ads for you.
  - Taywee 5y ago
    > Not only that, they're trying to weaken the other adblockers that are there to get rid of ads for you. I'm going to need a citation for that. I don't use ABP for obvious reasons, but I don't really see them as a problem; they're effectively extorting money from advertising companies, which are absolute scum and deserve to lose any and all profits that they have made (not only for scummy business practices and an entire business model built around the worst kind of psychological manipulation and data mining, but actually convincing people that they are good for supporting a "free web" as if they are some charitable benefactors giving free money out of the good of their hearts). The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I haven't been able to suss out any way that they do any real harm to the end users, but if they do actually do harm to other ad blockers, that would be some actual harm, but I am having trouble finding any evidence of this anywhere.

zxcvbn4038 5y ago

Reminds me of https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/13/business/media-business-advertising-lawyers-for-spider-man-win-fight-over-times-square.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/13/business/media-business-a... where a bunch of billboard owners in Times Square (New York City) tried to sue Sony over digitally replacing the advertisements in scenes in a Spiderman Movie. Luckily the judge in that case came to a similar conclusion. I'm still dubious the city skylines can be copyrighted - NYC believes they own the copyright on the city's skyline. I'm also dubious that the NYC Subway can copyright the route indicators (letters in circles). https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/the-port-authority-thinks-it-owns-the-new-york-city-skyline/375256/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/the-por... http://www.fordhamiplj.org/2010/01/07/mta-symbols-intellectual-property-or-new-york-citys-public-domain/ http://www.fordhamiplj.org/2010/01/07/mta-symbols-intellectu...

deleted 5y ago
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detritus 5y ago
I've helped on a few jobs that required representing the skyline of London (in advertising, for example) and my clients have always been very careful to ensure that modern landmarks aren't entirely accurate, to avoid this kind of complication.
wefarrell 5y ago
Going after photographers who have the subway signs in the background is one thing, but going after businesses for copying their font seems entirely different to me. They're a corporation who paid a lot of money for the rights to it, how is is different than Walmart or Netflix going after companies for using their fonts?
- nybble41 5y ago
  The GP's linked article[0] doesn't say anything about fonts. It says that the MTA sued someone for using the letter 'N' in a circle on a T-shirt. Not even the same color scheme. Judging from the examples on one of the MTA's branding pages[1], there doesn't seem to be anything particularly unique about the font they're using. They don't even mention it by name. Other sources claim the official signage is a mix of Helvetica and Akzidenz Grotesk. In any case, fontface designs are not copyrightable in the US. Fonts can be (as programs/data) but that isn't really relevant here. [0] http://www.fordhamiplj.org/2010/01/07/mta-symbols-intellectual-property-or-new-york-citys-public-domain/ http://www.fordhamiplj.org/2010/01/07/mta-symbols-intellectu... [1] http://web.mta.info/developers/resources/line_colors.htm http://web.mta.info/developers/resources/line_colors.htm

jnurmine 5y ago

For some reason I wasn't aware that ABP supported "Acceptable Ads". How does Eyeo make money?

happybuy 5y ago
> How does Eyeo make money? They charge advertisers to be part of their 'acceptable ads' scheme that then allows these ads to be shown to users of their ad blocking products (ADP, Adblock Plus, Ublock).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
vrc 5y ago
They allow certain search engines’ search-ads to pass through for a nominal fee. Those search engines happily support Eyeo because it’s easier to have a single, friendly, and known enemy that dominates the market.

happybuy 5y ago

Yes, Eyeo is a dodgy company that misrepresents their product and how they actually really make money from users & advertisers. As one of the largest ad blockers around they also try and extinguish any potential competition before it has a chance to establish itself. When I initially released my ad blocker for the iPhone and Mac – Magic Lasso Adblock (https://www.magiclasso.co/ https://www.magiclasso.co/) they attempted to stop its distribution through the Apple App Stores. They sent legal threats directly to myself and then to Apple claiming that they own the term 'adblock' and demanded that my product stop using that term in any marketing or App Store keywords. This went on for months with them constantly pushing less and less plausible evidence for their ownership of the term. I eventually told their enforcement loonies to stop contacting me and provided evidence to Apple that their claims are baseless (which meant their claims directly to Apple could also be ignored). They eventually stopped but I can see how their tactics could discourage any new entrants in the space.

haasted 5y ago
That's ridiculous. They themselves adopted the Adblock term from the original open source project that they initially derived their product from (http://web.archive.org/web/20090222145638/http://adblockplus.org/en/history http://web.archive.org/web/20090222145638/http://adblockplus...). If any trademark exists for Adblock, it's probably not theirs.

WA 5y ago

If you can read German, the blogger Sascha Pallenberg wrote an in-depth piece in 2013 about the scammy nature of eyeo: https://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk/ https://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke...