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"People are getting p*ssed off with the huge data loads pages impose without their consent" This is an absurd statement. Users know that many sites are ad-supp

"People are getting p*ssed off with the huge data loads pages impose without their consent" This is an absurd statement. Users know that many sites are ad-supported. Whether they like it or not is independent of that, but consent is given by visiting them. Complaining that sites need ad revenue to support their operations is childish. The fair solution is not ad-blocking tools, but a general browser settings that says that you do not wish to see ads at all. This information should be transmitted to the site requested so that the content provider can offer you a subscription if they provide one or to serve you a blank page that says politely to buzz off. Doing an end-run around ads is no different that sneaking into the backdoor of a venue without buying a ticket.

gorena 11y ago
Consent? I send an HTTP request. Server sends an HTTP response. My browser (or not browser - is cURL violating "consent"?) interprets that as I wish. If you don't want to show me content, return a 3XX/4XX/5XX.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  And then you'd cry and moan that the big bad website is forcing you to view ads.
yoklov 11y ago
Nothing would prevent content providers from sending ads even if you selected that setting. In fact, that is almost certainly what would always happen, since it would require exactly no change from the current state.
zodPod 11y ago
It's not consent when you go to a mostly-text site and are served 14-15MB of content that you don't even see. Not when I have 2GB of available data a month. I am referencing a previous post on here but I don't remember any of the details except that the site they were using as the demo used like 14MB of data but was a page with a couple paragraphs of text on it because it was pulling in a bunch of ad information.
coldpie 11y ago
Lol, did you just censor the word "pissed"?
unprepare 11y ago
>Doing an end-run around ads is no different that sneaking into the backdoor of a venue without buying a ticket. This is a curious statement. Tickets are sold in limited quantities Venues have limited available space Those alone make the comparison completely moot. A better comparison would be: If I video tape (download) a tv show (website), and then watch it by fast-forwarding through commercials (ad-blocking) - have i done something akin to sneaking into a concert? Have i stolen something? I've certainly kept the content creators from gaining an additional ad impression, which is how they make money. What exactly was wrong here? In what way is adblocking any different from using a DVR to skip commercials?
- s73v3r 11y ago
  No, the concert analogy is valid. It still costs the website bandwidth and server time to serve the website to you.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  I find it very curious indeed. In my browser on my hardware in my home, the marketing types are insisting that I MUST watch their ads or I am cheating. This is of course a natural impulse, for them. They put a lot of effort into creating manipulative words and images, and there I go ignoring them. Must be frustrating. But to claim I'm in the wrong is a species of hubris I don't subscribe to. When I buy the sunday newspaper, I dump the wad of ads in the trash before I leave the convenience store. Nobody jumps out of the bushes and claims I'm stealing. In fact I make an effort to ignore ads all day long, whether its ignoring billboards, posters, spam email etc. None of that is 'stealing'. I sympathize with folks who see their livelihood disappearing as the Internet evolves. But blamethrowing isn't going to move us forward. They'll just have to come up with something new.
  - keithpeter 11y ago
    Actually, I rather like a clever advertising hoarding (aka billboard). Some of the little ads you get on buses can be quite funny. These things occupy a tiny percentage of my field of view for a few seconds. They may leave a trace of positivity about the thing being advertised in a general sort of way. The thing about intrusive adverts in Web pages is the visual noise and the tracking of behaviour across sites. The latter will probably become regulated in some way as the legislative systems respond to the properties of this new medium. The former will prove self defeating ultimately - the more strident the intrusion, the more people will use whatever settings/programs they can to avoid it. I recently actually used a command line Web browser to read the text of an article - a few hundred words - because I could not actually see the text in Firefox because of the huge file load contained in the page.
na85 11y ago
Oh please. Spare us the sanctimonious BS. It's no different at all? In any way?

gorena 11y ago

Consent? I send an HTTP request. Server sends an HTTP response. My browser (or not browser - is cURL violating "consent"?) interprets that as I wish. If you don't want to show me content, return a 3XX/4XX/5XX.

s73v3r 11y ago
And then you'd cry and moan that the big bad website is forcing you to view ads.

yoklov 11y ago

Nothing would prevent content providers from sending ads even if you selected that setting. In fact, that is almost certainly what would always happen, since it would require exactly no change from the current state.

zodPod 11y ago

It's not consent when you go to a mostly-text site and are served 14-15MB of content that you don't even see. Not when I have 2GB of available data a month. I am referencing a previous post on here but I don't remember any of the details except that the site they were using as the demo used like 14MB of data but was a page with a couple paragraphs of text on it because it was pulling in a bunch of ad information.

coldpie 11y ago

Lol, did you just censor the word "pissed"?

unprepare 11y ago

>Doing an end-run around ads is no different that sneaking into the backdoor of a venue without buying a ticket. This is a curious statement. Tickets are sold in limited quantities Venues have limited available space Those alone make the comparison completely moot. A better comparison would be: If I video tape (download) a tv show (website), and then watch it by fast-forwarding through commercials (ad-blocking) - have i done something akin to sneaking into a concert? Have i stolen something? I've certainly kept the content creators from gaining an additional ad impression, which is how they make money. What exactly was wrong here? In what way is adblocking any different from using a DVR to skip commercials?

s73v3r 11y ago
No, the concert analogy is valid. It still costs the website bandwidth and server time to serve the website to you.
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
I find it very curious indeed. In my browser on my hardware in my home, the marketing types are insisting that I MUST watch their ads or I am cheating. This is of course a natural impulse, for them. They put a lot of effort into creating manipulative words and images, and there I go ignoring them. Must be frustrating. But to claim I'm in the wrong is a species of hubris I don't subscribe to. When I buy the sunday newspaper, I dump the wad of ads in the trash before I leave the convenience store. Nobody jumps out of the bushes and claims I'm stealing. In fact I make an effort to ignore ads all day long, whether its ignoring billboards, posters, spam email etc. None of that is 'stealing'. I sympathize with folks who see their livelihood disappearing as the Internet evolves. But blamethrowing isn't going to move us forward. They'll just have to come up with something new.
- keithpeter 11y ago
  Actually, I rather like a clever advertising hoarding (aka billboard). Some of the little ads you get on buses can be quite funny. These things occupy a tiny percentage of my field of view for a few seconds. They may leave a trace of positivity about the thing being advertised in a general sort of way. The thing about intrusive adverts in Web pages is the visual noise and the tracking of behaviour across sites. The latter will probably become regulated in some way as the legislative systems respond to the properties of this new medium. The former will prove self defeating ultimately - the more strident the intrusion, the more people will use whatever settings/programs they can to avoid it. I recently actually used a command line Web browser to read the text of an article - a few hundred words - because I could not actually see the text in Firefox because of the huge file load contained in the page.

na85 11y ago

Oh please. Spare us the sanctimonious BS. It's no different at all? In any way?