Advertisers Escalate Banner Ad War

AnonymousComrade writes: "In today's Newsbytes, there is an article about MediaBEAM GmbH, a German company that say they have developed Web server software that can detect whether a home browser is blocking banner ads or pop-ups. If the Web server detects blocking software, a message appears on the screen advising the 'free-loading' surfer that he has two choices if he wants access to the Web site's content: pay for it or be exposed to the ads. This sounds strange to me. Can they really include something in the download (Java or JS, I assume) that detects whether an ad picture has been downloaded or not? What if you have blocking S/W that not just blocks the download of the ad picture, but also modifies the HTML on-the-fly (a la the Proxomitron). Can they really distinguish this from a remote ad server that just isn't responding? And how long will it take before ad blocking S/W is updated to block this blocking-detection mechanism?"

Comments

Re:Lost cause

[aerique]

or tolerate the ads (what do they cost you anyway?!)

My sanity.

Eventually, the DMCA would apply.

[Elwood P Dowd]

If pop up ads started using techniques like this AnonymousComrade suggests, eventually the DMCA would apply. They could encrypt their content, their ActiveX control could decrypt it, and hacking IE to kill the popups would be illegal. They wouldn't even have to use real encryption. They could use ROT13, and the legislation would still work. Then they can use the revenue generated by the ads to purchase more congresspeople. It'll be great!

Re:Eventually, the DMCA would apply.

[tlk nnr]

They could encrypt their content, their ActiveX control could decrypt it, and hacking IE to kill the popups would be illegal.

I'm not sure if removing adds from a page is legal, even without the DCMA.
The author wrote a page with an add, and a filter app modifies the page and removes the add picture, without a permission from the author.
But modification is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner.

Selling an app that's only purpose is to remove adverts from web pages could infringe the authors rights.

Re:Eventually, the DMCA would apply.

[sfe_software]

I'm not sure if removing adds from a page is legal, even without the DCMA.
The author wrote a page with an add, and a filter app modifies the page and removes the add picture, without a permission from the author.

Most browsers allow you to override fonts and colors, toggle image downloading, disable scripting, and so on; blocking ads is only one more tiny modification to the page. Modifying the page is something that is commonly accepted for other purposes (accessibility, user preference, etc), so I don't think that argument will go far.

But modification is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner.

I'm not sure if this applies. You certainly can't modify a copyrighted work and distribute it, but if you purchase a book, you're free to scribble notes on the pages. If you listen to a CD, you can EQ it to taste. Thus, if you download a web page, you should be able to modify it as you wish for your own viewing.

Selling an app that's only purpose is to remove adverts from web pages could infringe the authors rights.

That's what some say about Tivo and Replay TV... and so far, I don't think a real big fuss has been raised. The difference of course is that commercial-skipping isn't the only use for the Tivo (nor is it an advertised feature), so ad-blocking software might have a more difficult time... but a general proxy with ad-blocking as an extra feature might be fine.

Re:Eventually, the DMCA would apply.

[DGolden]

> But modification is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner.

NO. NO. NO. NO.

Modification, followed by subsequent redistribution is restricted by copyright law.

The mainstream media giants have managed to socially engineer this knowledge out of the vast majoirty of the sheep^H^H^H^H^Hpeople.

If I, upon legitimately obtaining copyrighted material, screw around with it, I'm not breaking the law unless I give a copy of it or the modified version to someone else.

Think about it - if I buy a painting from you, I'm free to draw a silly moustache and glasses on it, but, according to societal conventions currently enshrined in our legal system, I can't (a) sell copies of the painting without your permission or (b) sell copies of the modified painting without permsission. (I'm also usually allowed sell the original painting to someone else (this area is much murkier, and the reason behind the legal blurb at the start of european books about "may not be sold on without imposing similar conditions on the buyer" stuff)- that's the freedom that UCITA and software EULAs try to fight)

That's all pretty much a mixture of common sense and courstesy - but what the lawyers and media giants have done, is, via tricky wording and paying for new laws, is destroy all that.

Via assinine laws like the DMCA, and WIPO treaty provisions, our feudal overlords / corporate masters have managed to erode such "fair use" rights of the average person.

Re:Eventually, the DMCA would apply.

[Elwood P Dowd]

No, the only thing that actually helps our failing economy would be purchasing the product that you see advertised.

Detecting

[tcr]

Can they really include something in the download (Java or JS, I assume) that detects whether an ad picture has been downloaded or not?

Hmm...
I guess they could cycle through document.images[..] in Javascript/JScript to check the existence/properties of each image element, and pop up a window if something was amiss...

Not sure what they could do if client-side scripting was disabled though. Other than perhaps checking the weblogs through a server script to see if an HTTP GET was made from your IP address to a particular ad object... sounds onerous.

From the article, sounds like the former?

How?

[keesh]

Only way I can think of is to make popup windows named, and then use JavaScript to check that mypopup.images['myimage'].src (??? not used JS for ages) is what it should be...

your browser will be assimilated ...

[beanerspace]

I dunno, but this sounds awfully "BORG" like. Even if they can figure out exactly what's getting through to, and visibile to my browser, do I want someone to know that information ?

Do websites using this bleeding edge ad technology take into account the variety of settings and the reasons for them ?

For example, the public library or a school. It bans ads to protect the little kids doing homework, but can't afford, not equitably employ "pay per play" sites.

Likewise, what about those who are in work situations where firewall and proxy filters are employed ?

This entire scheme seems almost too myopic ... and too borg like ... to be successfull.

There's a third option.

[Basalisk]

Always there is a third option.

In this case, it is to ignore the offensive website. When a company starts to insult the decisions of potential customers, they lose more customers than they gain.

But what if you need something that the website provides? Look elsewhere. When there are enough people requiring the services of one company, but who do not want to go to that company, another can come in. By being freindlier to their customers, all else being equal, they can gobble up market share.

But it's your choice whether the companies force-advertising you will succeed or not, because they depend on you, and not the other way around.

Good to see...

[The G]

...that they're fighting this battle on technical grounds. I hope we see a good clean fight, technology vs. technology, with no lawyers.

May the best code win.
--G

Re:They can just check the access.log

[Tet]

They can just check the access.log - however they will never know if it actually has been displayed.

Yep, or more likely, by the use of a web server module that does the sme thing without having to actually parse the logs. But that's not what they're claiming. In the article, they say that they "make contact" with the user's browser to determine if the ad has actually been displayed. The only way I can think of doing this is by embedding some JavaScript that checks to see if the page has been rewritten en route, and if so, posts something back to the web server, which can then modify its content accordingly. But even that won't be particularly effective, and your favourite blocking proxy should just be able to filter out the offending javascript anyway. And even if it didn't, it still wouldn't catch proxies that just serve a blank image instead of the requested ad. As far as the browser is concerned, it's been given the image it requested. I'm sceptical, but then all of my assumptions are based on having a sane browser. Who knows what MS have put in IE to give content providers control over the browser?

And what about text/speaking browsers?

[Masem]

Some browsers don't support JS, and cannot download images (eg: lynx, or browsers for sight-impared people). At least in the latter case, there's a legit reason for them to not have images.

In addition, in today's age of worms upon virus upon other nasty things, there is a sufficiently significant (probably around 10%) of users that have turned off Active Scripting in IE or the equivalent in NS to avoid such problems. I very much believe that these users have more of a right to keep this off than an advertizer has to force you to look at an ad.

Re:And what about text/speaking browsers?

[BadDoggie]

Some browsers don't support JS, and cannot download images...

Correct.

I very much believe that these users have more of a right to keep this off than an advertizer has to force you to look at an ad.

Also correct, but not in the you mean it. The page owners and creators -- as well as the advertisers -- can't force you to do anything. You go to a Web site by choice... most of the time, anyway.

However, you do not have some intrinsic or inalienable right to view the content of any site out there. Some sites you have to pay for (like Westlaw), some you just need to have a free membership, and some sites (like mine) don't care.

It galls me that so many people here piss and moan about having to register to read a NYT article. For fuck's sake, it's free! It takes a minute to do and, if you allow a cookie, you'll never have to bother with it again. In exchange for this, you get access to current stories in what is arguably one of the better US print journals (it's certainly referenced often enough here!).

Is the NYT in cahoots with the CIA, NSA and the Illuminati? Who cares?! As far as the NYT knows, my name is Mr. Potato Salad, I'm an 83 years old labourer and I live at 123 Happy-Go-Lucky Lane in East Timor. All the NYT cares about is being able to show advertisers unique visits/impressions so that the advertisers can pay instead of you and me. How fucking hard is that?

I draw the line when the ads become intrusive. Pop-unders, JavaScript, Flash, new windows, onOpen/onClose, etc., as well as any ad over 30K (if I'm on a dial-up) or more than half the data size of the page I want. This kind of crap has a tendency to crash my browser, disrupt or destroy work in another window. It also costs me a lot of money when I'm using a modem in Europe.

It's because people went ballistic at even the most innocuous of ads and started an arms race that we have the sorts of intrusive ads and methods we're now facing.

If you keep blocking the ads, then the advertisers will give up and you will get to pay for the content. It's that simple.

It doesn't take a lot of effort to hack the binaries and change a couple of spellings so that new instances can't be forced open, scrolling can't be blocked, etc. Now I just need to know how to stop the lame animated GIFs -- can anyone please tell me if there's a way to halt them in Konqueror the way I can by hitting ESC in Mozilla/Opera/IE? Maybe there's a way to display them only as static or disable the LOOP command.

My guess is that soon, content will be served only through the advertising locations, so that blocking the ads will block your receiving the content, as well. There will be a way around it, but it'll be a lot more complicated than adding a couple lines to the hosts file.

woof.

If the ad is condescending or annoying, I avoid the product. If it's informative, I pay attention.

Re:And what about text/speaking browsers?

[mcelrath]

If you keep blocking the ads, then the advertisers will give up and you will get to pay for the content. It's that simple.

Like most revolutions, no one really understands how to make money on the internet yet. Advertising isn't going to work. Enough people hate it, and the profit margins are low enough that it will eventually fail completely. Except for google. The internet is about information, not cramming trinkets down ignorant consumers' throats. Products on the internet have to compete on merits alone. People research products they want to buy on the internet. Your competitor's website is just a google search away...oops, your flashy banner gave the consumer an idea, but pissed him off, so he did a web search instead, and he went to your competitor.

Advertisement will fail in the long term if people do not buy the products advertised. I see lots of people claiming to be willing to put up with ads, but that's a moot point. No one is buying.

Now I just need to know how to stop the lame animated GIFs -- can anyone please tell me if there's a way to halt them in Konqueror the way I can by hitting ESC in Mozilla/Opera/IE?

Mozilla has an "Animated images should loop: As many times as image specifies, Once, or Never" option in Preferences->Privacy & Security->Images. My proxy, FilterProxy contains a module that will de-animate animated gifs, if you wanted to use a different browser. (you can turn off ad-filtering, if you find that offensive)

As to funding of sites not-selling-stuff? I don't know. Surely many of them will perish in the coming months. But you know what? It's not my responsibility to keep them in business by watching mind-numbing ads. And as I said, it wouldn't matter if I did since I never buy things through ads anyway, and that, ultimately, is where the money comes from. Sites are pulling out all the stops trying to come up with new ideas for funding. Some of them will succeed. Let's just hope they don't patent their business model...but that's another rant.

--Bob

Sure it can be done

[j7953]

The server can detect if your browser, after requesting an HTML page, also requests the contained images. I guess it works only if the pages are served from the sames server as the images.

Of course, you'll always see at least one web page, as the server doesn't know yet if you'll request the ads as well. If you don't, it can deny to handle further requests from your IP. They also cannot make sure (at least not by tracking requests) the ad is actually displayed, they can only make sure it's downloaded.

Still, I don't see a wide success for this technology. What about multiple people using the same IP -- the first one blocked ads, now the site is blocked for the other users as well? Even worse, dynamic IPs -- the guy who previously had my dial-up connection's IP blocked ads, now I cannot view the sites? Of course, they could require cookies, but those users that understand cookies will be really pissed off if they have to accept cookies they don't want to have to see ads they don't want to see.

Re:Sure it can be done

[morgus morphus]

From discussions I read on a german newssite from people who've tried this system it depends on a cookie to keep state.

So you needn't worry about other people in your flat being affected, however disabling cookies might defeat the system at the moment.

It would be theoretically possible to delay the download of the last 2/3 of the page until the banner has downloaded, however this would probably cause too many problems in real life.

As with any such systems it's not meant to discourage someone really determined but only make shure that 99% of pages get served with their banner.

I see many problems...

[sfe_software]

Lots of problems with this:

- The biggest problem I see is that many sites run ads from a third party network (eg, Doubleclick). More than likely this would only work for ads served by the same server.

- What if you simply disabled image downloading all together? Or use Lynx? Or disable whatever technology they are using (Java, JS, whatever) for other reasons, if that's the case?

- If you're behind a proxy, often times images are downloaded via a different IP than other content (images are generally considered cachable). I've seen this in my logs many times, mostly with scripts (which are generally non-cachable). Or, the user may download the image from a cache, and the server might assume the user hasn't seen it. With larger ISPs who cache content, this is easily conceivable.

- If you chose not to see ads, you probably aren't going to purchase any products advertised. So the advertisers get cheated, the visitors annoyed, and the site owner is the only one potentially gaining anything (though pissing everyone off isn't a good way to make money).

I'm so sick of ads personally, I've disabled Flash and Java (both of which seem to be used more for ads than anything else). I've also added *.doubleclick.net and a few others to my DNS cache (on my home network), so ads from those places simply come up empty for me (no ad servers at 127.0.0.1 :)

This reminds me of the CD copy protection crap: trying to extend a basic technology for purposes it wasn't intended for, for corporate gain, that only serves to harm the consumer. It won't fly.

why an arms race? try gentle persuasion

[circletimessquare]

one way they could do it is with a client-side script/applet that runs at the very tail-end of a loaded document. the client side stuff could profile the document object exactly as it is loaded and displayed on the browser, instructing the browser to describe the various properties of the document's objects (visible=false, unavailable=true, whatever)... that would reveal a blocked ad. then the script phones home with the results, detailed, or with a simple pass/ fail.

another way they could do it is by sensing whether or not the client sends out a request for the ad from the ad server at all.

if either is the case, so what? the next move in the arms race is for the blocking software companies to request the image anyways... just not display it, or spoof the document properties that indicate a properly displayed and enabled ad.

the german company mediabeam is ratcheting up the arms race, that is all.

i think the web ad ecosystem is in for an overhaul anyways... pop-under ads, etc., just seem like a desparate last-ditch attempt at old-school ideas of ad prominence... the web is not tv, it is not radio... they will get it someday.

why not go for subtlety instead? win users over to your site with gentle persuasion, not howling insistence.

what the heck am i talking about? try google's understated and creative approach (zdnet article from june). wired also raved about google's novel ad approaches, all of which have a simple theme: potential customers want to be gently persuaded, not knocked over the head with a salami and dragged to your storefront. (the wired article is in the current october issue- "Google's Secret Formula: How a no-nonsense search engine built a stealth advertising machine." only on newstands... not available on line until october 16)

you don't need fancy graphics... a few bytes of ascii with an href in the right spot and you probably have a better time at snagging a customer than any strongarm tactics anyways...

did you like my post? have me write one for you and boost your karma with just a small one-time donation of $5.95. but act now! i'm slowly losing my faculties so karma supplies are limited.

;-)

What makes banner different from paper ads?

[edgrale]

I'm not trying to flame anyone.

When we read our daily paper (which we pay for) we get ads too, right? What makes sites that much different? We don't pay for the contest on sites, in stead we see ads, is that so bad? Sure, I hate pop-up ads as much as you do and I thing those should be shot on sight.

But really, does a small banner like the one on slashdot bother that much? I'm okay with the ads on Zdnet and C|net too (the ones in the center of the article). Just ignore it, no one is forcing you to click on it. Just as no one is forcing you to go and buy whatever is advertized in your local paper.

Keep it as it is now, don't force people to click on ads or to close a window that pops up each time you surf a site and people will have no problem with the ads.

Just my 0.02 euros :)

Re:What makes banner different from paper ads?

[costas]

Banner ads worsen the user experience; print ads do not. Regular banner ads take up my bandwidth and worsen my browser's responsivenss. So, yeah, I will use a proxy, no question.B ack when I had a 1.2M DSL line, I didn't care about ads that much. I only resorted to the Proxomitron when pop-ups and pop-unders became the vogue.

The industry needs to get smarter. Download ads after (not before) the content of the page has loaded. Stop annoying the user. A click-through ad is much better than a pop-under or a flashing fake Windows alert box any day of the week. Sponsor content instead of obstracting its delivery. Something.

Re:What makes banner different from paper ads?

[Croaker]

Banner ads, in general don't bug me.

What made me reach for my revolver (err... ad blocking software) was that godamned "click the monkey" ad. (In case you've never seen it, it's some dumb ad with a monkey zipping around the background).

Usability tests of websites agree... movement kills the ability to read. Having something zipping around in your perefrial vision distracts your ability to read content. Content is what I came to the website for. If I can;t read the content, why should I go there?

So, since the advertising numbnuts that push animated banner ads poisoned the well, I've been using ad blocking software. Apparently, people still haven't learned, as I have seen godawful flash advertisements slip through my ad blockers, again making the page friggin' unreadable.

Most print ads do not disrupt. There are a few exceptions (I noticed once that a magazine started to place ads in a stripe across the middle of the page, and had each column of text jump over the ad, so in reading the story your eyes would be forced to jump over the ad space two or three times. They knocked that off after two isses). In general, print ads seem to have struck a balance between getting the reader's attention and disrupting the reader's ability to enjoy the content... which is their purpose in reading the book/magazine/newspaper in general. This has happened through evolution. Those that annoyed their readers with ads were less likely to survive.

Ads on the web right now are about the sophistication of those cheesy local cable ads. You know, the ones you can tell are stuck in by the local cable company, because the sound is suddenly too loud, there's usually bad audio, and the video is of poor quality. And like those cheesy cable ads, they tend to be inserted not by the producer of the content, but of third parties (such as doubleclick) who may or may not be concerned about how disruptive the ads are to the site within which they are viewed.

Things are just getting worse in this space. I've seen more Flash ads on the web, which makes me think I should uninstall that damned plugin.

When you push things too far, when you make things annoying enough, don't be surprised when your audience pushes back, and does things like install ad filtering software. It's corporate conceit and stupidity to fight back with things that are supposed to technologically allow you to annoy the hell out of your potential customers. Hey guys, how about maybe adopting guidelines so your ads don't disrupt your audience's ability to do what they really came to your site to do? Like, for example, no movement. Totally static images. I know, not as flashy, not as sexy, but also not as annoying. If, in the end, I cannot read and enjoy the content of the site, I'm simply not going to come back. Then the site dies, just as surely as if they had no revenue from ads in the first place.

Most web sites need an income

[samael]

And how are the web site owners supposed to pay for the bandwidth you're using?

If you don't want to give them an income directly and don't want to give them an income indirectly, are they just supposed to pay out of the goodness of their hearts?

Re:Most web sites need an income

[Basalisk]

By selling things that people wish to buy.

That's how most companies make an income, by exchanging goods or services for money.

Not by selling advertising space, and providing freebies or sausage sizzles or other methods to attract eyeballs.

These people are targeting the wrong customers. Instead of targeting the people visiting the site to buy stuff, they are targeting the people with ads to sell.

Re:This is just a case of too little, too late

[cshotton]

Had this been introduced in 2000, the dot-com crash might have been averted.

A charitable view of this product, but a seriously naive view of what caused the dot-com crash. First, not every dot-com had its business model predicated on ad revenue. But the real reason that the dot-coms crashed is a simple one. They weren't creating any value. In an economy that rewards profits, very few of the dot-coms' business plans actually recognized this simple fact. Many were predicated on some Ponzi-like exit strategy (if they had one at all), be it an IPO, acquisition, or the holy grail, viral adoption.

The reality is that there was simply too much venture capital and too few experienced investors. In '98, you could write a business plan on a piece of toilet paper and get it funded by someone. Now, if you don't have a clear path to profitability with 24 months, a shipping product, near break-even revenues, and a seasoned management team, don't even bother wasting the trees to print your plan. The VCs don't want to see it. They're still trying to dig their way out of billions in failed companies and trying to save the companies they still have.

These guys would probably have ruled the dot-com world, if they'd gotten their act together and released this when it might have been useful.

Probably not. Most likely, they'd have gone the same way as all of the other companies who were part of the failed VC food chain. Once the capital dried up, it would have only been a matter of time before companies stopped buying their software. This is the secondary fall-out that killed all the companies with products and sales that were geared towards dot-com infrastructure. These guys would have been no different. As it stands now, this one shouldn't even be let out of the gate.

That only works for some sites

[Eimi Metamorphoumai]

A lot of sites really don't have anything to sell. Sure, the idea of Amazon or eBay having banner ads is a bit absurd, but news sites, opinion places, comic strips, or basically any place you go for information also needs to be able to support itself, and I really doubt /., for instance, could make a living of selling nifty t-shirts.

Re:That only works for some sites

[mav[LAG]]

I really doubt /., for instance, could make a living of selling nifty t-shirts.

You mean they have other sources of income??

Re:That only works for some sites

[mangu]

news sites, opinion places, comic strips, or basically any place you go for information also needs to be able to support itself

Before there was an Internet, I bought newspapers, comic magazines, books, etc. We used to pay for whatever information we wanted. Of course, newspapers and magazines also got a large part, perhaps most, of their income from advertising. But it was well organized, there are separate pages for ads, you don't have to read the classified pages to get to the editorial.

What website managers need to understand is that they have to offer value to their customers. And it's so easy. Why not offer better search engines? How often I have searched for something I wanted to buy, by poring through page after page of Altavista or Google, while having to see an endless list of stupid, blinking, obtrusive ads offering something I definitely do not want to buy.

Re:That only works for some sites

[egburr]

Generally the price you pay for a newspaper is for the delivery, whether by hand-delivery or locked in a paper-box. Advertising pays for the paper, press, ink, and employees' salaries. This is just how online sites whould work, too.

The difference is that online advertising is no longer something you can skim past while reading the story. Online advertising is now a very annoying, can't-be-ignored, get-in-your-face irritation. On top of that, much of the onlie advertising also tracks you to see where you saw the ad, how often you saw the ad, who you are, what other sites/ads you may be seeing, etc.

Back when online advertising was just a simple banner ad, I never even thought about trying to block it. When online advertising starting tracking where you went and what you did, I started looking at blocking options and started a half-assed attempt at blocking. When online advertising started getting really annoying and very difficult to just ignore, I got serious about blocking the ads.

The advertisers did it to themselves. They tried to force more upon us than they did with newspapers. They tried to gather much more information about us than they could with newspapers. (They probably are also paying less for the ads than they did with newspapers.) If they had left well enough alone and not gotten greedy, most people probably would never even have thought about blocking their ads.

Oh RIGHT...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, now, according to YOU, the peer-to-peer free flow of information THAT IS THE INTERNET (and had been for 20+ years) is suddenly "leeching" because some loser dot-bomb can't think of a real way to make money? Give me a break.

I don't recall Sunsite or Tsx-11 forcing ascii-ads down our throats in the FTP banner back in '93. I don't recall Tim Berners-Lee pining for an internet full of banner ads and griping about "leeches". I don't recall seeing the official DOD document subsection about preventing "leechers".

The usual mantra that originates from the dot-bombers, which you so aptly seem to parrot here, is that if you somehow block ads you are then "stealing" from the web site.

Excuse me? I pay for MY end of the pipe. I pay for the packets going in and out of MY end of the internet...are the dot-bombers going to pay ME for their use of my bandwidth to broadcast crap? Oh, didn't think so...the shoe is on the other foot now. Most spammers scuttle away like roaches when you say this to them, too.

Here's a newsflash: despite the best and worst efforts of dot-bombers, the Internet IS NOT LIKE TELEVISION. This is a peer-to-peer network we all share in. DON'T LIKE IT? THEN CLOSE UP SHOP AND SET UP ON AOL INSTEAD OF GRIPING ABOUT INTERNET "LEECHERS". If you want to force ads down the throats of the clueless in a server-based environment, AOL and MSN are designed for you...but not the Internet.

(We put up with 4 years of dot-bomb hyperbole and BS, and now we have to put up with another 4 of the former dot-bombers griping about how it was everyone else's fault they didn't make any money.)

Re:This is just a case of too little, too late

[Artemis3]

Oh, c'mon, you really think there is a large % of people actually blocking ads? It's a small group, 10% at best. Most of the crowd visiting those pages don't even know what a proxy or ad blocking software is, in fact most let spyware remain installed without they noticing.

The DOT.com crash was the result of its own demise. Some people were sold the idea of internet being the ultimate and biggest ever shopping mall, so they created an artificial sense or bubble that simply popped up when the reality check came; which was, basically, way too much more offer than real demand. Everyone knows that actually 70% of the DOT commers were in excess; it was simply a matter of time.

Now would you really check how much is asked for getting to the net on the first place, why they seem to think you have to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month for T1 like links; when people in Sweden pay 20$ montly for 10mbps lan speed like links to their homes?

I have to pay 80US$ for 256/64 DSL with forced NAT and no real ip or higher speeds options available, since this is "residential service". Now tell me, do i give a damn if the .coms don't get their .000005 cent for an ad banner display that i am never ever going to see or click, yet steals *my* bandwidth and even attempts to identify *me* with their stupid cookies?

Their "business" models were flawed from the first place.
Liberal capitalism is darwinian by its nature; leaving everything to the market forces alone will result in collapse of the small or the weak, no matter what.

etc/hosts is your friend

[DrSkwid]

here's what I do :

I maintain DNS entries of the sites I wish not to receive ads from and map them onto a local machine.

I then configure Apache to respond to the requests using mod_perl to strip the paths from the URI and leave me with just the filename.

I then return an image OF MY CHOOSING to be displayed in my browser. I have set of images to choose from with pictures made in various banner sizes from anime / pr0n / abstract / auto-texture generating scripts / mandlebrots / swf files I have made.

It makes online life more interesting and colourful.

By logging your outgoing requests you can even change the graphics for programs like icq & other banner toting stuff.

Some places defeat my plan by using their own hostname (images.slashdot.com is one example) or by using IP addresses. I plan to build an Apache proxy module for these but haven't got round to it yet.

Most of the websites I visit are return visits anyway so you soon get a feel for the ways the ad system works.

By using a DNS & Proxy I can configure not just my workstation but my whoel LAN so it becomes OS/Browser agnostic.

M

Re:They can just check the access.log

[Isofarro]

The only way I can think of doing this is by embedding some JavaScript that checks to see if the page has been rewritten en route, and if so, posts something back to the web server

All the Javascript would have to do is make sure the url property of the image element, or embed element, or object element is correct, and that the isLoaded property is set.

Although this would force people to surf with Javascript enabled - something thats proving more dangerous every day on a Windows based platform.

Or they could be complete muppets and force surfers to accept ActiveX objects - which would probably sideline most of the X community.

On the other hand, this company has decided adverts and banners is more important that the content - so be it. I prefer sites with content, and having a "This site is full of banners" type message in the form of "Remove proxy or else" is an excellent way of avoiding these sites, it happens to match with my surfing preferences.

These marketing companies should take a lesson out of Google's book. Their advert placement is unobtrusive and normally relevant to the search topic on hand - without the intrusive methods marketing types have forced on its visitors.

Doesn't require Javascript or ActiveX

[Isofarro]

The only way I can think of doing this is by embedding some JavaScript that checks to see if the page has been rewritten

Sorry, I'm being a muppet! No client side functionality is required - it can all be done using a web server module.

Its really simple:

• create a session for each "visitor"
  
• Initialise two counters in the session - number of pages requested and number of banners requested.
  
• For each page request received from this visitor, increment the page counter
  
• For each banner ad object (image, applet, flash, activeX etc) increment the banner counter
  
• Every now and again, divide on by the other.
  
• If the ratio is not good enough, warn user.
  

Since each banner ad needs to be HTTP requested from the server - and proxies tend to remove instances of <img src="bannerad.gif"... with their own blank image, its a doddle to track.

Re:Doesn't require Javascript or ActiveX

[dasunt]

Under windows, I have a modified hosts file that blocks out the more common ad servers. Since images are rather ugly, I use eDexter to display a blank image for me.

So, imagine the simple version of this (assuming I have javascript turned on, which is wrong, and assuming I use IE instead of Opera as my browser).

The IE script (which probably breaks other browsers, but...) checks to see if the ad image has arrived. It finds one. Maybe it goes further and checks to see if the image came from the ad server. It asks windows what's the ip addy is, and windows tells it 127.0.0.1, so everything checks out.

As long as it relies on simple ad banners, it fails. More complicated scripts could present a challenge, but a challenge that will be quickly solved if the ad checker becomes widespread.

On the other hand, thanks. Forgot that I haven't installed eDexter on the laptop yet. Need to conserve my 33.6k PCMIA modem's bandwidth, y'know.

Umm, seems simple enought to me...

[Telek]

Most likely they just detect if the banner has been displayed. On the client side blocking software, I'm assuming, just doesn't download the banners and blocks popup windows from even oppening, so if the ads don't get loaded successfully first, don't display content. Once the server has a successful load of the ad, you can send the content.

This of course won't stop anti-ad software from simply downloading the ad and not putting it on screen, but most blocking mechanisms just don't download the ad anyways.

However I think that we should not use blocking software. You are getting "free as in beer" content, so you should be required to "pay" for it, in this case with your time. The servers that you are reading your pages off of have bills to pay, and the only way that most of them can do this is to serve ads. The only reason why ads have gotten so fscking annoying is because the conventional style isn't working. Why isn't it working? Because people block it. So thus the more you work against the system, the nastier it will become.

Now seriously, how much trouble is it to read around a huge ad in the middle of your page? I'm being serious here. I have mental filtering. I just don't notice them anymore. I close popups usually before they're finished loading and even sometimes if I think the content is good I'll go and click on the ad just to give them a bit more money. Having these ads maybe adds 5% to the time required to read the article. Big whoop. Do it so that they can get paid. There is no free lunch, they have bills to pay and the least that you can do is to at least glance at the ads and sometimes click so that they can pay their bills. Because if people keep blocking then we will be forced to start physically paying to view pages, via micropayments perhaps, but we will pay because they have to pay their bills. It is much cheaper for us to just put up with the ads and that way it won't get much worse, and we won't be faced with having to pay physical cash to view the stuff that we want to view.

People aregue about "Artists' rights" and that they should be paid for their music that you download in MP3 form. Although I agree with this, the same thing applies here. People have spent their time to write the articles that you are viewing, and they deserve your patronage to put up with the ads so that they can pay their bills.

Re:Umm, seems simple enought to me...

[decesare]

This of course won't stop anti-ad software from simply downloading the ad and not putting it on screen, but most blocking mechanisms just don't download the ad anyways

FWIW, I think that the iCab browser for Macintosh is one of the few that I've seen that can be configured to not display images of a certain size on the page, just leaving a blank where the ad would have been. And, it comes pre-configured with a list of typical ad/banner sizes to screen out. I believe that it's a "download but don't display mechanism". Is there anything like this in Konqueror (I haven't been able to find it).

Now seriously, how much trouble is it to read around a huge ad in the middle of your page?

Depends on how annoying the ad is. There are two issues here: one is that the ad itself can takes up computing resources to display. Maybe those with 2GHz P4 machines don't mind this, but for those of us working with older processors, it unacceptably slows down the page display.

The second is just how distracting the ad itself is. I'm still trying to train that "mental filtering" of which you speak to screen out images of fast-moving monkeys or flashing blue and white images that I've seen that distract from what I'm trying to read. Some of these ads have gotten so ridiculous that I can't read the page on which the ad is placed. And a concept that web marketers don't seem to grasp is that maybe people will remember a product backed by an annoying ad, but how many people will really buy that product if they negatively remember the ads for that product?

The Underlying Problem

[pantaz]

Advertisers are not receiving adequate response for the amount of money they sink into online ads. The proliferation of in-your-face pop-up ads was their first response. Those still don't generate the desired traffic. They mistakenly believe that this is caused by ad blocking software. Marketing types can't believe that anyone can possibly resist their clever, highly targeted advertising campaigns. Therefore, too many folks must be blocking the ads -- if they see the ads, they won't be able to resist them. The marketers fail to realize that the largest group of ad-blocking users are people like us. We're not going to click on the ads even if they are forced upon us. If anything, we are less likely to as a form of protest.

Re:this bites..

[tshak]

Stuff like this gotta break some rule of "personal preferences"

Ya. I went into the CD store and told the cashier that it was my "personal preference" not to pay for the content on the CD. She said that it'd be illigal if I left the store without paying for them. It's like our rights are being stripped away from us online AND offline.

Re:this site already uses the blocker

[purplemonkeydan]

Yep, I can confirm this, running Norton Internet Security 2002.

Here's the Babelfished text they serve up if you are blocking ads:

The page requested by you cannot be represented unfortunately. This problem can have the following causes: An advertising filter (e.g. Web which ago, AdBlocker) prevents the announcement of banners. DirectBOX finances itself by advertisement. Please you deactivate the advertising filter.

Note: They can deactivate the advertisement on directBOX by a monthly payment. Click here, in order to activate directBOX the advertising filter.

Their Browser does not support an announcement of pictures. DirectBOX uses pictures as navigation item. We recommend to use you a current Browser.

Stiff bikkies Lynx users.

It's a war of escalation

[GordoSlasher]

I've been blocking ads for years. Not that I don't like to see ads - sometimes I really am interested in the products being offered. But such a large fraction of ads are now so visually annoying that I can't take them anymore. I don't want to punch the fscking monkey. I don't want bouncing pong balls drawing my eyes away from a software review. When I'm at work reading financial sites I don't want a huge pair of hooters trying to sell me an X10 cam - it's unprofessional in an office environment.

I prefer magazine-style ads: occasional full-page ads I can easily skip or read, smaller ads in the margins that are not intrusive. When I look at them, there they are, and when I look away, they don't pull my eyes back. The web was like this in the early days of advertising. Then the monkey-punching games and Vegas-style animations started to take over, and now we have big honking animated ads with an inch of content wrapped around them, too distracting to read the actual web page content.

On TV the commercials are clustered together, then go away so you can view a few minutes of uninterrupted program content. If TV worked like the web, you would have a commercial running in the middle 60% of the sitcom stage with the actors squeezed into the margins around it, speaking lines between the commerical's music, and ducking under other smaller commericals, all competing for your attention. How long do you think people would watch such a program?

Bring back the days of less intrusive ads and I will turn off my ad blocker.

A lot of bunk

[Fnkmaster]

I see a lot of posts defending the brave upstanding advertisers who have to pay the bills.
Let's get something straight - I think everyone agrees with that sentiment. Some people seem to feel for moral reasons that the web should not subsist on advertising alone because it is an inherently offensive mix, the freedom of the information frontier and the crassest sort of commercialization ever.

Part of the problem is that those upholding the advertiser's point of view keep saying things like "they have a right to do it" and "if you didn't block it, we wouldn't have this problem. Stop blocking ads now!". The reality is that the only reason blocking has become even slightly common is because the ads have gotten SO much more incredibly intrusive and offensive with the obnoxious javascript toys at the disposal of the advertisers.

And why have the advertisers gotten so obnoxious? Why the move to pop-under, pop-over, run-around-my-fucking-page-chasing-my-cursor sorts of annoying ads? Because there is some sort of myth that people are supposed to click-through on ads and if we annoy the living shit out of them, they will click through. I'm sorry, clicking on ads just is terribly unlikely to ever happen and is not a meaningful metric of anything. People don't WANT to interrupt their precious time relaxing and browsing the web for information, news, pr0n or whatever to read your ad shit. Now if you were nice, showed me a banner ad and let me click to queue something up in my bookmarks or some client side info-base, I might want to come back to it later, maybe. But you should be fucking happy that I even saw your ad, glimpsed your logo and have cognizance that you exist.

As soon as your ad association in my mind goes from "oh that looks neat" to "fucking assholes make me click all over the place" I guarantee you I'm gonna go looking for blocking software and I'm sure as hell not going to have positive associations with your product (apparently these advertisers don't care and they just want any association at all). But I guarantee I will never buy anything from X10 or anybody who gives me a pop-under. Furthermore I consider it outside of my contract of usage for a site that they can force me to waste my time chasing click-unders. Give me banner ads, fine, if they are too big and take up more of my screen than the content I won't read your site, IN THE SAME WAY I'D TOSS A PAPER PUBLICATION THAT DID THE SAME. But don't abuse javascript to wreak havoc on my browser or browsing experience or I will be forced to take defensive technological measures against your hostile advertising. I'd rather not have access to your site than feel like nothing other than a click-through prostitute.

There's a reason TV has something like 4 minutes of advertising every 30 minutes - if they had any more people would shut off their fucking TVs and cancel their cable subscriptions.

Idea (all sides win)..

[nightfire-unique]

How about an ad blocker, that still downloads all images or files marked as ad related (according to the ads database or logic code) .. so that the site still gets the money, but instead of displaying the ad and annoying the user, it simply pushes it to /dev/zero.

Sure, it still uses bandwidth, but other than that - no harm done. Anyone who feels this strongly is *not* going to buy the product of aggresive advertisement in either case (so the advertiser loses nothing), the website gets some cash, and you save screen space.

Thoughts?

Legality (and hype)

[nick_davison]

While it may well be the case in the US that they don't have to make their sites visible to people using different settings, it's starting to become a legal issue in the UK.

As disabled people do have every right to access content, things like making a site usable with alt tags is starting to become a genuine legal issue. Telling a visually impared person that they must turn on the features that make a site physically unusable to them would be breaching equal opportunity laws. Curiously, most of the UK laws wandered out of the EU and so I'd imagine that Germany, where this company is based, is much the same.

Of course there is one other option no one seems to be looking at: "Who cares whether it'll pan out? Creating this hype will generate a lot of interest in the company and maybe help raise enough money to see us through the current downturn." A lot of companies that planned to get to IPO this year seem to be doing this at the moment. Whether or not they have a tech and whether or not it's actually viable, if you create enough talk and hype, you might still be able to get a few investors that you wouldn't have got otherwise and just maybe you'll stay in business long enough to come up with a more viable product.

Warez sites already do this ...

[AftanGustur]

When you make a request do download blabla.html, the web server makes a conneciton to the server that serves the ads to see if your IP address has downloaded /gci/ads?ad12345&UniqueID. If it doesn't receive a response in 30 secs, it assumes that you didn't download the ad and you don't get to download blabla.html.

This is already beeing done ...

This is not stealing!!!

[Eric E. Coe]

Repeat after me 3 times: I am not responsible for a anybody else's business model (or lack thereof).

I have no intrinsic moral obligation to make sure that a vendor's business is profitable or is based on a viable revenue stream. The net is by default a public place. Putting up a website is the same as putting a notice up on a bulletin board. Filtering out banner ads (having your client software ignore them) is like ignoring them in wetware (which is what most people do anyway). Or zapping/muting a commercial on TV.

OTOH, putting up coercive software on the site to limit access to content is the vendor's priviledge. There is no intrinsic difference between password-protected content and this "must download the ads too" software. (I suspect that the customer response will be similar.) Your choices are: don't patronize the site, comply with the restictions, or evade the restrictions. There is no morality associated with any of these choices, it is merely a matter of market pressures and a technological arms race. (Remember, the closest ecological analogue of a vendor-client relationship is that of preador and prey. They are not your friends.)

Arms race prediction

[DickBreath]

You can do this purely on the server side. No cookies. No by IP address. No javascript. No Java. Possibly without even using frames.

First, with frames. Send them a tiny page with frames. A frame for the ad(s) and a frame for the content. The tiny frame containing html contains custom url's for both the content and the ads. That is, the "session id" is embedded in the url's, without using cookies.

When the browser requests the url for content, the content stream is stalled until the ads are downloaded, or at least started. Since ads and content are tied to the same "session", you can tell which content goes with which ads. But you don't penalize others behind a NAT. The server can still be load balanced because a database keeps track of the sessions -- which can be very short lived. So even multiple servers can be used, as long as they share a common database -- or some rpc mechanism to ensure evil ads have been served before "unstalling" the stream for the content.

I said do it without frames. Simply send the html stream of the main page. Ads appear in the stream before content, which almost means necessarily "above" the content. When the stream gets right up to the point where it is to start delivering content, you stall the stream until the ad image(s) are at least requested.

Possible problem: are there any browsers that cannot request the ad image while the main content page is stalled? i.e. non multi-threaded?

Possible countermeasure: when your junkbusting proxy detects ads, it must deliver fake ads to the browser (or better, rewrite the content stream so that there aren't even ad spaces in the content), and it must make a pretense of requesting ads from the server. The proxy would continue to suck down the ad images until the content is delivered -- then abruptly close the ad stream connections. This way, if the server isn't willing to unstall the content until the ads are fully delivered, all you wasted is the bandwitdh to get the ads, but you don't see them. If the server is willing to unstall the content as soon as ads are requested, then you drop the connection on the ads asap. Using such a proxy, the server is unable to detect that you didn't actually see the ads. You at least went through the pretense of downloading the ads.

I don't see any counter-counter-measure that the evil advertisers could employ. From their point of view, you are a normal browser, downloaded both the ads and content. How can they further tell that you can't see the ads without going to more invasive techniques like Javascript?

I've often wondered about using javascript to deliver the content. You send down a javascript program that writes new content into an <ilayer>. But the javascript can be obfuscated. Even the "content" can be compressed with the javascript effectively unzipping it as it writes content into the layer. This almost certianly requires real javascript running in the browser to render the content part. The javascript could attempt to detect that the ads have been rendered first.

Now the counter-counter-counter-measure. Let the javascript and rendering happen in the ad busting proxy. The proxy is designed so that its rendering engine renders a data structure in memory. You then run filters on this data structure. Pattern matching. (Lisp anyone?) It's like a regular expression, but without the same kind of syntax. You do the recognition on the final page, which is expected to be structured a certian way. The ad, which falls in a familiar place is removed, and then new html is written from the in-memory data structure rendering of the original html. The new html is sent from the proxy to the end user.

Then what about a counter-counter-counter-counter-measure? Well, the evil advertisers could start sending you the content as a java applet. The applet contacts the server via. a non http stream and gets the content through a secret non-standard means. But only if the ads were delivered.

But then the counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-measure is to run the applet in a faked environment that fools it into connecting to the server and think that the ads were deliverd on the local page.

But then the counter counter counter counter counter counter measure is to serve both the ads and content together in a single big applet which uses a proprietary non-standard means obtain both the ads and content over a special stream from the server. Any attempts to circumvent this is a violation of the DMCA. They automatically record your IP address, look up your location, and to an XMLRPC call to the local FBI office's server to send goons to your door.

Then the counter counter counter counter counter counter counter measure is to stop visiting such sites. (And to bitch and complain on slashdot.)

Then the counter*8 measure is to lobby for custom legislation that requires you to browse to their web site if you were a regular visitor before, and to watch their ads. Alternately they can send party comrads to your home to force feed you the ads.

Finally, you must download and install their TeleScreen(tm) applet which uses your computer's usb camera and microphone to give them two-way telescreen access to your home to ensure that you are watching your dialy minimum recommended allowance of ads, as determined by federal standards.

What is the counter*9 measure?

In defense of "the freeloaders"

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

I'd like to address the "just view the damned ads, you freeloading hippies" crowd.

Personally, the reason I started blocking banner ads (a little over a year ago) was because of one very specific ad--that stupid "punch the monkey ad".

It managed to crap more web no-nos into an ad than I ever though possible:

1. I froze my browser, as my browser had to load the Java runtime to display it. This is nontrivial time under Netscape, and used to be a lengthy wait under IE, as well.
2. It moved. Quickly. Very distracting when you're trying to use Altavista to look up a particular bit of LaTeX wizardry.
3. If my mouse cursor hovered over the ad, the ad captured mouse focus, and caused my mouse cursor to not always move as it normally would (largely due to the overhead by the Java runtime, I'm sure--I was using a SPARC LX at the time).
4. It would frequently cause Netscape to dump core, and would occasionally cause IE to just freeze-up completely.

At the time, it was a very popular ad. I don't know what I was typing to into Altavista to make it trigger (LaTeX->latex? Monkeys? WTF?), but I seemed to get it every five pages, and Netscape dumping core every five pages was not conducive to my finding out this LaTeX technique, which I needed right then to finish a CS paper (I'd have used Fondren Library, but this was before the Rice campus library stayed open 24 hours daily).

So, as a temporary fix, I disabled Java (I didn't need it at the time), used a different search engine (Google), got what I needed, and then installed Squid+Cameron Simpson's Ad Zapper (once I'd turned-in my paper), and the problem went away. I could have Java as I needed it (Rice's CS departmnet loves Java. Turning it off in a web browser meant not being able to do certain coursework), and my browser didn't crash because of stupid monkeys.

The clear message I'd like to deliver is I don't mind non-intrusive advertising. In fact, most banner ads are very interesting, so long as they don't flash or titter about annoyingly, and don't stupidly try (and fail) to look like dialog boxes (looks really stupid under OpenWin). Occasionally, I click one. However, if it pops up in a separate window, if it spawns things in other windows, if it creates offscreen windows, if it crashed my browser, if it litters my hard drives with cookies, if it prevents me from clicking on your page, or if it dances around like a stupid monkey, I will disable it, and I will go elsewhere.

There are probably a lot of technically-minded users that feel the same way. I don't want to steal content--I don't have this need to remove all adverts from the pages I'm viewing (although, I will strip them out, if need to print the page). But, my computer is my computer, and if your website can't sit in its window and behave itself, you've just lost a viewer.

Current web advertising unacceptable

[Chris Johnson]

The current state of web advertising is comparable to TV advertisements that come out of the TV, walk over to you or follow you into the kitchen or bathroom and tug on your sleeve whining 'buy me!'.

That's bad advertising, plain and simple. It's been _proven_ through marketing research that if you get too annoying you unsell your product, most notably that's been proven through market research of particular sorts of TV advertising.

We're not talking about 'just let these poor people make money, will you?', we're talking about enabling them to hose themselves through severely stupid and bad advertising. The people using ad blockers are doing advertisers a FAVOR- that is valuable data, that information. They often accompany this with other valuable data- announcements that "if it was all quiet well-behaved banner ads that didn't blink or flash or move a lot, we wouldn't feel compelled to be doing this". That's valuable information. Since when is a random consumer's browsing history more valuable than an outright, impassioned statement of that consumer's preferences on how they want to be courted, advertising-wise?

Intrusive web advertising can be compared to billboards: the people attempting to use it can make a big fuss about how it's a moral imperative that they should be allowed to do this, but it's not only a lie, it's not even a healthy or useful thing to be doing. They are wrong in wishing to do it. If they are allowed to do it they will actually harm advertising in general- though this does create a window of opportunity for well-behaved advertisers, as well as substantially driving down the costs for well-behaved advertisers. Still... if you don't actively hate the entire field of advertising, it's hard to justify these abusive, useless practices, which harm advertising in general.

David Ogilvy considered advertising the art of 'speaking well about' things. Abusing people to the point that they are blindly, acutely hostile to anything resembling advertising makes it that much harder to do it properly and sensibly.

Just as restrictions are placed on the use of roadside billboards, I would like to see this abusive web advertising restricted by regulation and government oversight. It's plain that these people cannot and will not behave or police themselves.

The opinion of an ad exec

[sinster]

Ok, here I am, talking about advertising again.

Assuming that the software works 100% (read: it blocks content if and only if the ads weren't viewed), then it will kill advertising revenue. The reason is all about click through ratios. It goes back to my previous statements: if someone doesn't want to view ads, then they aren't gonna be clicking on ads. And if they aren't clicking on ads, then forcing them to see the ad only lowers your click through ratio. And that means that you can't charge as much for advertising as you would otherwise be able to. So your costs go up, your revenues go down, and things are bad all around.

This doesn't even address the repercussions of the simple fact that forcing your viewers to also view ads is gonna piss them the hell off.

And then there's the technology itself. I could see it done in 2 ways: java/javascript and redirected frames.

The java/javascript method would require the user to have java enabled. And if they don't have java enabled, clearly the system won't work. Trying to put up a website that doesn't work for users with java or javascript disabled doesn't work. There are far too many users out there who have them disabled. Hell, I wish all users disabled them, but that's just me.

The redirected frame would be the best way. Make the ad server serve out an HTML frame that contains a link to the graphic and another link to a 1 pixel frame on the host's server. The host's server sits there and counts the hits on this other frame, and when it reaches the right number, serves out the content. But this doesn't prevent the user from blocking the ad graphic at all. It works if the user blocks the ad frame, but doesn't prevent the user from just blocking the ad graphic.

The only way you could tell that the real graphic is actually displayed is to send out java or javascript that knows the checksums for the ads that the user is going to be served, and then compares the checksums before the real content is displayed. But once again that depends on the user having java or javascript enabled. And it also requires the ad host's webserver to be integrated with the ad network's webserver. Only really big sites can afford to do that integration, because it means that they have to own their own ad server and content server. Ad servers are highly expensive. Yes, there are freeware ad servers out there, but none of them have the speed that a high traffic site needs, or they lack reasonable targeting options.

All in all, I'd say that this new beast is going to be a miserable failure. The problem isn't that this beast exists, but that someone actually thought it would be a good idea. That means that I have to get back into the propa^H^H^H^H^Heducation war again.

Re:Revenue is made by selling product, not banners

[Telek]

what product does a news site offer?
what product does /. offer?
what product does google offer?

they're all services. you do to use their sites. the only money that they can get back in return from the money that they spend such that you can use their site is by banner ads. I'm not saying that's their product, but I am saying that that is the only way that they are going to make any sort of money. readership on the net doesn't pay bills. popup ads and clickthrus do. If a site is sufficiently big enough and their normal ads scheme isn't working because of either insufficient readership or too much readership or people blocking ads then the powers that be will do what they must do in order to increase revenue.

Don't forget that it's not only rising costs but lower ad revenue simply because the advertisers are paying less now than they were before and the advertisers are demanding more intrusive advertisements. Some websites simply have no choice but to increase the obtrusiveness of their advertisements because otherwise they'd be out of business due to changing prices in either hosting or ad based revenue.

I wonder how you'll feel when /. announces that they've been told that they must increase their ads revenue.

And lastly don't forget that things are dominated by one thing : money. If you can make more money by doing this, they you'll do it. Very simple concept.

So I'm curious then. How do you justify the bandwidth that you use off the sites which ads you block? They're paying so that you can get free content and you don't even have the curtosey to view the ads so that they can pay their bills?

Sounds a lot like the MP3 "I buy more after I try!" talk that I hear a lot of. There is absolutely no evidence to proove that most people who listen to MP3s buy more CDs than before, and a lot of evidence that prooves the contrary... Increasing overall CD sales doesn't proove that at all. Someone posted a good comment on one of the other threads that said something along the lines of either :

a) pay for the CDs and give the artists what they're due
-or-
b) don't listen to their music.

This is the same thing. You are incurring them a cost by viewing their content that they are providing to you free of charge with the only request that you view advertisements so that they can pay their bills. How do you justify blocking those ads? If you don't like their advertising scheme then perhaps you should not be visiting their site.

Sorry if I seem a little bitter here, but I'm getting tired of the hypocrisy in general (not aimed at you).