3 ms·

and to all site owners moaning about people using adblock : this is why we can't have nice things. as long as policies like this exist, I'll block anything remo

and to all site owners moaning about people using adblock : this is why we can't have nice things. as long as policies like this exist, I'll block anything remotely able to track me.

fchollet 12y ago
It is very difficult to get somebody to understand something when they have some amount of income depending on not understanding it. Of course site owners are always going to stand behind the ad-supported model of the web, even though it creates all the wrong incentives for content creators and massively degrades the user experience. And generally, degrades the very value proposition of the web. (disclaimer: I run a 5k DAU social network with no ads).
- tech-no-logical 12y ago
  true. but as long as site owners use ad-providers that track me, I don't really care. I will gladly reconsider my blocking ads if and when ad-providers are used that don't do this. maybe site-owners should pressure ad-providers to provide a track-free service ?
  - dspillett 12y ago
    The lower targeting potential reduces the value of the ad site as it is sold down the chain, so if the site owners are using the ads to fund themselves they are unlikely to as for this en-mass as it would reduce their income. Of course you could argue the moral and inconvenience cases as sites make these judgements when choosing advert networks already but "a bit of tracking" does not have the same moral weight to most as "porn and gambling" or "the annoyance of pop-ups/unders and drive-by install attempts" when deciding where they are comfortable to take money from.
    - mitchty 12y ago
      Then why don't the sites provide the same options that you get with some ios apps. Default is free with ads, otherwise pay a nominal fee to remove the ads. Without the latter the ads being compulsory is just enforcing advertising on your users without knowing if they even want it.
      - dspillett 12y ago
        Probably because it is more work in that environment. To accept payments for an ad-free version you need to create and maintain some sort of payment processing, and of course user authentication & session management. With iOS apps a lot of this is baked in. Also it is much easier (for a non-technical user at least) to just skip the ads on the web using browser plug-ins, than it is to get around them in an app, so to an extent this extra work may be wasted and the number of people who take up the "pay for no ads" option might not be enough to warrant the work that goes into maintaining it. There are some sites that offer the "ads or pay" option so it presumably works out worthwhile for some sites, but I've not seen it often.
- GrinningFool 12y ago
  I will happily accept advertisements as long as they are self-hosted in a way that doesn't report back to any external entity. The problem [for me] is not the advertising as long as it's reasonably done (static, textual, non-invasive). It's the fact that every third party has their own behaviours, and I have no idea what any of them are. I instead must rely on the judgement of the person running the site - and most of them appear fairly unaware of the privacy implications associated with both advertisements and analytics services.
- nfoz 12y ago
  At least part of the problem is that we, as a society, have no idea how to fund the development of creative / digital works. We can't find good business models for this in general. I agree that ad-supported is terrible. But how else? I'm hopeful for donation-crowdfunding and simple, liquid micropayment options online. But I don't know that that could significantly displace ads.
  - king_jester 12y ago
    > At least part of the problem is that we, as a society, have no idea how to fund the development of creative / digital works. We can't find good business models for this in general. Very true. This says something about how we as a society values those works and how our economic organization discourages some kinds of work/content.
Wicher 12y ago
If it's the tracking you'd like to avoid, don't use ad blockers! They're the wrong tool for the job. They're for blocking ads. So they'll block ads that are not leaking your info (for your use case, a false positive) and will not (not necessarily) block other means by which you're being tracked (for your use case, a false negative). Use something like RequestPolicy (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy...) or PrivacyBadger (https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger) instead. That way, you're not blocking ads per sé — though a side effect of using RequestPolicy is that you won't see much ads — you're blocking the leakage of information to third parties instead. Using blanket ad blocking sends the wrong signal to site owners, and creates little incentive to do the 'right thing' — it lets the "bad apples" (which I imagine to be something like 99% of the online ad businesses) spoil it for the one percent that does value your privacy, with no way for anyone to improve. Using ad blocking for privacy reasons is not completely effective (false negatives) and worse, it's punishing individuals for the behaviour of the flock. ========================================================= Edit: Found the perfect example of the false-positive and false-negative I'm talking about above: http://www.gentoo.org http://www.gentoo.org . Harmless ads — just images inside html <a> anchors, loaded from the domain in the site URL. Not leaking anything. The ads help an organization I support. So what does AdblockPlus do (default settings)? It blocks them. What does RequestPolicy do? It lets them through.
- tech-no-logical 12y ago
  I tried requestpolicy, I found it too cumbersome to use. with adblock edge, I subscribe to 2 lists and I'm done. I'd try again if they adopt such a feature.
- mp3geek 12y ago
  So don't use Adblock Plus because it works too well? And if theres false positives with either the Adblock or Tracking lists it comes with whitelists get around certain website bugs.
  - vertex-four 12y ago
    No, don't use Adblock Plus because it blocks the wrong thing (if you're actually wanting to protect your privacy vs just avoid ads). You want to avoid tracking, so you avoid ads... leaving all the other methods of tracking out there, and blocking ads which don't track you at all.

and to all site owners moaning about people using adblock : this is why we can't have nice things. as long as policies like this exist, I'll block anything remotely able to track me.

fchollet 12y ago

It is very difficult to get somebody to understand something when they have some amount of income depending on not understanding it. Of course site owners are always going to stand behind the ad-supported model of the web, even though it creates all the wrong incentives for content creators and massively degrades the user experience. And generally, degrades the very value proposition of the web. (disclaimer: I run a 5k DAU social network with no ads).

tech-no-logical 12y ago
true. but as long as site owners use ad-providers that track me, I don't really care. I will gladly reconsider my blocking ads if and when ad-providers are used that don't do this. maybe site-owners should pressure ad-providers to provide a track-free service ?
- dspillett 12y ago
  The lower targeting potential reduces the value of the ad site as it is sold down the chain, so if the site owners are using the ads to fund themselves they are unlikely to as for this en-mass as it would reduce their income. Of course you could argue the moral and inconvenience cases as sites make these judgements when choosing advert networks already but "a bit of tracking" does not have the same moral weight to most as "porn and gambling" or "the annoyance of pop-ups/unders and drive-by install attempts" when deciding where they are comfortable to take money from.
  - mitchty 12y ago
    Then why don't the sites provide the same options that you get with some ios apps. Default is free with ads, otherwise pay a nominal fee to remove the ads. Without the latter the ads being compulsory is just enforcing advertising on your users without knowing if they even want it.
    - dspillett 12y ago
      Probably because it is more work in that environment. To accept payments for an ad-free version you need to create and maintain some sort of payment processing, and of course user authentication & session management. With iOS apps a lot of this is baked in. Also it is much easier (for a non-technical user at least) to just skip the ads on the web using browser plug-ins, than it is to get around them in an app, so to an extent this extra work may be wasted and the number of people who take up the "pay for no ads" option might not be enough to warrant the work that goes into maintaining it. There are some sites that offer the "ads or pay" option so it presumably works out worthwhile for some sites, but I've not seen it often.
GrinningFool 12y ago
I will happily accept advertisements as long as they are self-hosted in a way that doesn't report back to any external entity. The problem [for me] is not the advertising as long as it's reasonably done (static, textual, non-invasive). It's the fact that every third party has their own behaviours, and I have no idea what any of them are. I instead must rely on the judgement of the person running the site - and most of them appear fairly unaware of the privacy implications associated with both advertisements and analytics services.
nfoz 12y ago
At least part of the problem is that we, as a society, have no idea how to fund the development of creative / digital works. We can't find good business models for this in general. I agree that ad-supported is terrible. But how else? I'm hopeful for donation-crowdfunding and simple, liquid micropayment options online. But I don't know that that could significantly displace ads.
- king_jester 12y ago
  > At least part of the problem is that we, as a society, have no idea how to fund the development of creative / digital works. We can't find good business models for this in general. Very true. This says something about how we as a society values those works and how our economic organization discourages some kinds of work/content.

Wicher 12y ago

If it's the tracking you'd like to avoid, don't use ad blockers! They're the wrong tool for the job. They're for blocking ads. So they'll block ads that are not leaking your info (for your use case, a false positive) and will not (not necessarily) block other means by which you're being tracked (for your use case, a false negative). Use something like RequestPolicy (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy...) or PrivacyBadger (https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger) instead. That way, you're not blocking ads per sé — though a side effect of using RequestPolicy is that you won't see much ads — you're blocking the leakage of information to third parties instead. Using blanket ad blocking sends the wrong signal to site owners, and creates little incentive to do the 'right thing' — it lets the "bad apples" (which I imagine to be something like 99% of the online ad businesses) spoil it for the one percent that does value your privacy, with no way for anyone to improve. Using ad blocking for privacy reasons is not completely effective (false negatives) and worse, it's punishing individuals for the behaviour of the flock. ========================================================= Edit: Found the perfect example of the false-positive and false-negative I'm talking about above: http://www.gentoo.org http://www.gentoo.org . Harmless ads — just images inside html <a> anchors, loaded from the domain in the site URL. Not leaking anything. The ads help an organization I support. So what does AdblockPlus do (default settings)? It blocks them. What does RequestPolicy do? It lets them through.

tech-no-logical 12y ago
I tried requestpolicy, I found it too cumbersome to use. with adblock edge, I subscribe to 2 lists and I'm done. I'd try again if they adopt such a feature.
mp3geek 12y ago
So don't use Adblock Plus because it works too well? And if theres false positives with either the Adblock or Tracking lists it comes with whitelists get around certain website bugs.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  No, don't use Adblock Plus because it blocks the wrong thing (if you're actually wanting to protect your privacy vs just avoid ads). You want to avoid tracking, so you avoid ads... leaving all the other methods of tracking out there, and blocking ads which don't track you at all.