5 ms·

How about Microsoft including an ad blocker in the next Windows Update.

bemmu 17y ago
True, that would really hurt them. I can't even immediately come up with any reason why they couldn't do that, ad blockers are a very legit piece of software after all. Given how much sense this makes, what's been stopping MS from doing it so far?
- human_v2 17y ago
  Because MS is also an advertiser. Bing would become immediately worthless to advertisers if they did. Plus, assuming MS let their ads through and blocked Google's, Google would yell "anti-competition lawsuit" faster than you can say, well, anti-competition.
- jerf 17y ago
  Remember the anti-trust party that was started when Microsoft started giving away a free browser in competition with Netscape? That would be nothing compared to the storm that would emerge if Microsoft tried to directly attack AdWords from its still-a-convicted-monopolist position with an action like that.
  - justinsb 17y ago
    Agreed, but Microsoft could probably delay things for long enough to hurt Google sufficiently. It might be enough simply to auto-install it, hook customers on ad blocking, pay the fine, then send out a patch to make it opt-in only. My guess is that at the moment it seems that the DoJ really has its eyes on Google, and Microsoft doesn't want to pull a stunt like this and distract them.
  - robryan 17y ago
    Could play into Google's hands though if they tried to directly compete against windows, they would now have a great angle to convince people why they should make the change to a more open and neutral system.
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  Ad blockers create an unlicensed derivative work of the copyrighted works that are received, and they could likely be sued for that.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    Fair use.
    - nailer 17y ago
      ...would only cover a portion of the document.
  - tumult 17y ago
    No, they don't.
  - tsally 17y ago
    Plagiarism checkers that store copies of whole essays are considered fair use, so I doubt ad blockers violate copyright law.
  - InclinedPlane 17y ago
    This is just silly. If you were scraping a site's content and publishing it elsewhere maybe there would be a case, but for personal use you can create as many derivative works as you like under fair use. If not then accessibility features like screen readers and magnifiers (many of which are built into browsers) would be illegal. Users are free to modify site's content as much as they want, using adblockers or using cornify, etc. This is no different than someone cutting out parts of articles from a magazine to make their own collages. Once it's in your hands you can do what you like with it, as long as you don't republish it.
  - aaronblohowiak 17y ago
    http://news.cnet.com/Web-ad-blocking-may-not-be-entirely-legal/2100-1030_3-6207936.html http://news.cnet.com/Web-ad-blocking-may-not-be-entirely-leg...
  - 17y ago
- richardw 17y ago
  I think Google would put immense pressure on them via anti-trust if they did that. Besides, not everyone wants all ads blocked. When I search on Firefox, I don't even see ads on the RHS of Google. Sometimes I want to and don't need MS deciding what I'll see. MS would lose huge if they did this.
- axod 17y ago
  Because ad-blockers are trivially simple to get past.
chaosmachine 17y ago
Google would patch their ad code to get around it in an hour, tops. It's a cat and mouse game, and Microsoft isn't a particularly fast cat.
amalcon 17y ago
There must be some contractual or legal reason for them not to. Otherwise, they'd have done it a while ago, to try to "kill" the web as a platform. That said, yeah, this would hurt Google bad if it somehow happened.
pieceofpeace 17y ago
Because MS is also into advertising that is not likely. But if it did that Google would block Windows users' access to their services and show a message that MS is responsible for this mess _and_ sue MS for anti-competitive practices.
- tomjen2 17y ago
  They might not have a leg to stand on with an anti trust suit if Microsoft blocks their own ads as well. Not that that will prevent a suit, but it would be useful as a defence.
rubinelli 17y ago
Do you remember that one time when Microsoft tried to add "smart tags", keyword-based links that showed up as squiggly lines? Do you remember the uproar, even though there was a simple op-out mechanism, and how quickly they dropped the whole idea? That would be nothing compared with a bundled ad blocker.
- DougBTX 17y ago
  There is a similar feature in IE8 called "Accelerators", but with less uproar. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/faster.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/...

bemmu 17y ago

True, that would really hurt them. I can't even immediately come up with any reason why they couldn't do that, ad blockers are a very legit piece of software after all. Given how much sense this makes, what's been stopping MS from doing it so far?

human_v2 17y ago
Because MS is also an advertiser. Bing would become immediately worthless to advertisers if they did. Plus, assuming MS let their ads through and blocked Google's, Google would yell "anti-competition lawsuit" faster than you can say, well, anti-competition.
jerf 17y ago
Remember the anti-trust party that was started when Microsoft started giving away a free browser in competition with Netscape? That would be nothing compared to the storm that would emerge if Microsoft tried to directly attack AdWords from its still-a-convicted-monopolist position with an action like that.
- justinsb 17y ago
  Agreed, but Microsoft could probably delay things for long enough to hurt Google sufficiently. It might be enough simply to auto-install it, hook customers on ad blocking, pay the fine, then send out a patch to make it opt-in only. My guess is that at the moment it seems that the DoJ really has its eyes on Google, and Microsoft doesn't want to pull a stunt like this and distract them.
- robryan 17y ago
  Could play into Google's hands though if they tried to directly compete against windows, they would now have a great angle to convince people why they should make the change to a more open and neutral system.
aaronblohowiak 17y ago
Ad blockers create an unlicensed derivative work of the copyrighted works that are received, and they could likely be sued for that.
- jrockway 17y ago
  Fair use.
  - nailer 17y ago
    ...would only cover a portion of the document.
- tumult 17y ago
  No, they don't.
- tsally 17y ago
  Plagiarism checkers that store copies of whole essays are considered fair use, so I doubt ad blockers violate copyright law.
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  This is just silly. If you were scraping a site's content and publishing it elsewhere maybe there would be a case, but for personal use you can create as many derivative works as you like under fair use. If not then accessibility features like screen readers and magnifiers (many of which are built into browsers) would be illegal. Users are free to modify site's content as much as they want, using adblockers or using cornify, etc. This is no different than someone cutting out parts of articles from a magazine to make their own collages. Once it's in your hands you can do what you like with it, as long as you don't republish it.
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  http://news.cnet.com/Web-ad-blocking-may-not-be-entirely-legal/2100-1030_3-6207936.html http://news.cnet.com/Web-ad-blocking-may-not-be-entirely-leg...
- 17y ago
richardw 17y ago
I think Google would put immense pressure on them via anti-trust if they did that. Besides, not everyone wants all ads blocked. When I search on Firefox, I don't even see ads on the RHS of Google. Sometimes I want to and don't need MS deciding what I'll see. MS would lose huge if they did this.
axod 17y ago
Because ad-blockers are trivially simple to get past.

chaosmachine 17y ago

Google would patch their ad code to get around it in an hour, tops. It's a cat and mouse game, and Microsoft isn't a particularly fast cat.

amalcon 17y ago

There must be some contractual or legal reason for them not to. Otherwise, they'd have done it a while ago, to try to "kill" the web as a platform. That said, yeah, this would hurt Google bad if it somehow happened.

pieceofpeace 17y ago

Because MS is also into advertising that is not likely. But if it did that Google would block Windows users' access to their services and show a message that MS is responsible for this mess _and_ sue MS for anti-competitive practices.

tomjen2 17y ago
They might not have a leg to stand on with an anti trust suit if Microsoft blocks their own ads as well. Not that that will prevent a suit, but it would be useful as a defence.

rubinelli 17y ago

Do you remember that one time when Microsoft tried to add "smart tags", keyword-based links that showed up as squiggly lines? Do you remember the uproar, even though there was a simple op-out mechanism, and how quickly they dropped the whole idea? That would be nothing compared with a bundled ad blocker.

DougBTX 17y ago
There is a similar feature in IE8 called "Accelerators", but with less uproar. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/faster.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/...