3 ms·

>Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face. No, the illegal-ness doesn't come from the clicking, it comes from the fact you're clicking

by gruez 9mo ago

>Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face. No, the illegal-ness doesn't come from the clicking, it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. That's also why filling out a credit card application isn't illegal, but filling out the same credit card application with phony details is.

rvnx 9mo ago
Even one of the users here above mentions the malicious intent: > I hate advertisers so I'm gonna get back at them by making them pay more.
_factor 9mo ago
The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet. You’re not defrauding anyone if you have your extension click all ads in the background and make a personalized list for you that you can choose to review. The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.
- gruez 9mo ago
  >The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet. How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever? >The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud. You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference
  - _factor 9mo ago
    In a credit application there is a signature and binding contract. If I fill in false information knowingly, the intent is clear and written. If you send me an unsolicited mailer with a microchip that tracks my eyes and face as I read it, you’ve already pushed too far. To then claim my using a robot to read it for me is fraud ignores the invasion of privacy you’ve already instituted without my express consent (digital ads are this). It’s not fraud if it’s self-defense from corporate overreach.
    - gruez 9mo ago
      >In a credit application there is a signature and binding contract. If I fill in false information knowingly, the intent is clear and written. At best that gets you off the hook of fraud charges, but not tort claims, which are civil, and don't require intent. >It’s not fraud if it’s self-defense from corporate overreach. There's no concept of "self-defense" when it comes to fraud, or torts.
      - deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
      - jniles 9mo ago
        I am super curious how far this goes. If, hypothetically, I wore some sort of glasses that kept facial recognition from identifying and tracking me at my local grocery store, would that constitute a civil infringement in the future? What about extensions that skip embedded ads in a YouTube video? Is that tortuous interference with the view counter that creators use to market their reach?
  - Tor3 9mo ago
    >How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever? It's so different that it can't even be compared. There's nothing similar there. >>The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud. > You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference. No, you're not harming the business. You're simply not following the business idea of the "business". Anyone can have a business idea of some type. Not a single person on earth has any obligation to fulfill that business idea. But somehow some people believe the opposite.
Gabrys1 9mo ago
What if someone unironically wants to automatically click all the ads to support the websites they visit
- rvnx 9mo ago
  Some sort of Robinhood of advertising, taking from the big, to give to the small
- billyp-rva 9mo ago
  You'd be doing way more harm than good. The battle between ad networks and unscrupulous website owners using bots to fake ad clicks has been going on forever.
- freitasm 9mo ago
  Ads pay in different forms. Some pay per click (PPC), some pay per thousand impressions (CPM). Clicking with the intention of helping doesn't help. Only clicking with genuine interest helps.
  - c22 9mo ago
    I don't think the question was about whether this would actually help the advertisers. (I suspect it was rhetorical.) Of course the defense will now be harder to execute for anyone who reads this thread.
bilekas 9mo ago
> it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. You're defrauding nobody. People purchase visibility and clicks when they purchase advertising. not conversions or sales.
- gruez 9mo ago
  >People purchase visibility and clicks when they purchase advertising. not conversions or sales. Again, you're ignoring intent in all of this. It's not illegal to default on a loan, or even to refuse to pay it back (eg. bankruptcy), but it is illegal to take out a loan with the specific intent to not pay it back (eg. if you know you're planning on declare bankruptcy right afterwards).
prophesi 9mo ago
> No, the illegal-ness doesn't come from the clicking, it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. That's also why filling out a credit card application isn't illegal, but filling out the same credit card application with phony details is. You might technically be right. But I'd recommend contacting EFF, if, somehow, installing AdNauseam brings you into legal trouble. On the realm of search engines and ad networks I love to remind people that Google took out "don't be evil" from their motto and pressured anyone within US jurisdiction to remove Page and Brin's appendix #8 (at the least it's removed from their original school of Stanford). 8 Appendix A: Advertising and Mixed Motives https://www.site.uottawa.ca/~stan/csi5389/readings/google.pdf https://www.site.uottawa.ca/~stan/csi5389/readings/google.pd...
- deaux 9mo ago
  http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf stanford.edu, and the appendix is there. In fact on the link you gave the appendix is cut short - looks like an OCR/copying issue but then at a glance it doesn't seem to happen elsewhere which is a little suspicious. I'm not sure what you're talking about.
  - prophesi 9mo ago
    I must have somehow missed that one; glad that ancient site without HTTPS is still up. Here are the two top results I get from searching for it from Stanford[0][1], and you can see that this section of the appendix is missing. Google's also has it missing[2]. So no, I don't think I'm crazy. [0] http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/361/1/1998-8.pdf http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/361/1/1998-8.pdf [1] https://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/Brin98Anatomy.pdf https://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/Brin98Anatom... [1] https://research.google/pubs/the-anatomy-of-a-large-scale-hypertextual-web-search-engine/ https://research.google/pubs/the-anatomy-of-a-large-scale-hy...
    - deaux 9mo ago
      Just clicked on your first link. The appendix is there? Page 18 of the PDF.

by gruez 9mo ago

rvnx 9mo ago

Even one of the users here above mentions the malicious intent: > I hate advertisers so I'm gonna get back at them by making them pay more.

_factor 9mo ago

The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet. You’re not defrauding anyone if you have your extension click all ads in the background and make a personalized list for you that you can choose to review. The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.

gruez 9mo ago
>The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet. How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever? >The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud. You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference
- _factor 9mo ago
  In a credit application there is a signature and binding contract. If I fill in false information knowingly, the intent is clear and written. If you send me an unsolicited mailer with a microchip that tracks my eyes and face as I read it, you’ve already pushed too far. To then claim my using a robot to read it for me is fraud ignores the invasion of privacy you’ve already instituted without my express consent (digital ads are this). It’s not fraud if it’s self-defense from corporate overreach.
  - gruez 9mo ago
    >In a credit application there is a signature and binding contract. If I fill in false information knowingly, the intent is clear and written. At best that gets you off the hook of fraud charges, but not tort claims, which are civil, and don't require intent. >It’s not fraud if it’s self-defense from corporate overreach. There's no concept of "self-defense" when it comes to fraud, or torts.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - jniles 9mo ago
      I am super curious how far this goes. If, hypothetically, I wore some sort of glasses that kept facial recognition from identifying and tracking me at my local grocery store, would that constitute a civil infringement in the future? What about extensions that skip embedded ads in a YouTube video? Is that tortuous interference with the view counter that creators use to market their reach?
- Tor3 9mo ago
  >How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever? It's so different that it can't even be compared. There's nothing similar there. >>The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud. > You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference. No, you're not harming the business. You're simply not following the business idea of the "business". Anyone can have a business idea of some type. Not a single person on earth has any obligation to fulfill that business idea. But somehow some people believe the opposite.

Gabrys1 9mo ago

What if someone unironically wants to automatically click all the ads to support the websites they visit

rvnx 9mo ago
Some sort of Robinhood of advertising, taking from the big, to give to the small
billyp-rva 9mo ago
You'd be doing way more harm than good. The battle between ad networks and unscrupulous website owners using bots to fake ad clicks has been going on forever.
freitasm 9mo ago
Ads pay in different forms. Some pay per click (PPC), some pay per thousand impressions (CPM). Clicking with the intention of helping doesn't help. Only clicking with genuine interest helps.
- c22 9mo ago
  I don't think the question was about whether this would actually help the advertisers. (I suspect it was rhetorical.) Of course the defense will now be harder to execute for anyone who reads this thread.

bilekas 9mo ago

> it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. You're defrauding nobody. People purchase visibility and clicks when they purchase advertising. not conversions or sales.

gruez 9mo ago
>People purchase visibility and clicks when they purchase advertising. not conversions or sales. Again, you're ignoring intent in all of this. It's not illegal to default on a loan, or even to refuse to pay it back (eg. bankruptcy), but it is illegal to take out a loan with the specific intent to not pay it back (eg. if you know you're planning on declare bankruptcy right afterwards).

prophesi 9mo ago

> No, the illegal-ness doesn't come from the clicking, it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. That's also why filling out a credit card application isn't illegal, but filling out the same credit card application with phony details is. You might technically be right. But I'd recommend contacting EFF, if, somehow, installing AdNauseam brings you into legal trouble. On the realm of search engines and ad networks I love to remind people that Google took out "don't be evil" from their motto and pressured anyone within US jurisdiction to remove Page and Brin's appendix #8 (at the least it's removed from their original school of Stanford). 8 Appendix A: Advertising and Mixed Motives https://www.site.uottawa.ca/~stan/csi5389/readings/google.pdf https://www.site.uottawa.ca/~stan/csi5389/readings/google.pd...

deaux 9mo ago
http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf stanford.edu, and the appendix is there. In fact on the link you gave the appendix is cut short - looks like an OCR/copying issue but then at a glance it doesn't seem to happen elsewhere which is a little suspicious. I'm not sure what you're talking about.
- prophesi 9mo ago
  I must have somehow missed that one; glad that ancient site without HTTPS is still up. Here are the two top results I get from searching for it from Stanford[0][1], and you can see that this section of the appendix is missing. Google's also has it missing[2]. So no, I don't think I'm crazy. [0] http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/361/1/1998-8.pdf http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/361/1/1998-8.pdf [1] https://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/Brin98Anatomy.pdf https://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/Brin98Anatom... [1] https://research.google/pubs/the-anatomy-of-a-large-scale-hypertextual-web-search-engine/ https://research.google/pubs/the-anatomy-of-a-large-scale-hy...
  - deaux 9mo ago
    Just clicked on your first link. The appendix is there? Page 18 of the PDF.