Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Panama, Leeches, Comeuppance
Excuse me, is this well already poisoned? PHPee writes "Yesterday Slashdot posted an article (only thieves block pop-up ads) regarding anti-leech.com's anti-theft campaign. I happened to be one of many people who sent an email to anti-leech, explaining my disappointment, and I received an auto-responder message today, indicating anti-leech has posted a FAQ regarding its anti-theft campaign."
Wish he'd have been arrested for fraud, instead. MojoT writes "Following up from a previous story, Madison Priest, the so called inventor of a broadband Magic Box, was arrested Friday on drug trafficking charges and possession of a firearm by a felon. He must have been confusing the bit rate of his Magic Box with the number of hits he was getting off his stash."
You mean this stuff is just a kind of data? pelle writes "As a (non Panamanian) geek in Panama, I've been following the UDP story quite heavily. The Panamanian paper La Prensa reports that the Panamanian Supreme court has suspended the infamous order to block UDP's used for VOIP the Enteregulador (the governments regulator of utilities). The suspension was done on a complaint by a company called Net2Net Corp. There has been strong uproar amongst people in Panama about the blocking of the UPD's. So this is seen as a welcome thing. The article quotes Gonzalo Córdoba, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation as saying "Blocking the ports for accessing voice is a form of censorship". For Spanish readers the article is at: La Prensa Note, my Spanish aint all that yet, so I might have missed out several finer points."
I'll wait out the battle in my hobbit hole, thanks. An anonymous reader writes "First scooped at theonering.net: The official Lord of the Rings site has put up an amazing feature that goes into a lot of detail on the motion-capture techniques and programming that goes into the movies' battle scenes. It is one of the best-designed web features I have seen, very informative with interviews from the people working on it and interactive "design your own army"-type features. This should answer any questions left by the recent Slashdot article, and raise many more... (Requires Flash to view.)"
Don't PanIP Timothy Beere writes "Just a quick update to the Slashdot faithful. I received notice several weeks ago that PanIP was suing me and the PanIP Defense Group for the www.youmaybenext.com web site.
The lawsuit claims trademark infringement, defamation and unfair competition. They obviously see the web site as a big threat to their grand plan of suing the potential thousands of e-commerce sites that they could have targeted.
In a preliminary court hearing last week, a judge resoundingly denied their request for a Temporary Restraining Order against the web site. This is the same judge that will be hearing the patent case. We will soon be filing a motion to have PanIP pay all attorney's fees for the web site case as we feel this was nothing less than a litigation threat meant to restrain our free speech. Apparently PanIP doesn't think we have the right to inform people about what they're are doing. Or maybe they are feeling very uncomfortable with the spotlight shining on them.
One other note. We currently have 16 members in our FightBack Defense Group. The FightBack group will soon be posted on the web site.
On a personal note. I can't say enough about the overwhelming response I got from the original slashdot post. I knew if I could get the word out there that people would be disgusted by what PanIP is doing.
We are in the process of filing our responses for the Group and the case will soon be under way in the court. We are still hunting for good prior art in an effort to have their patents invalidated. We intend to stop PanIP and we need your support!"
That's funny, they cite google as a "multinational company" with lots of money... But wait, didn't google just start putting small unobtrusive ads on the service relatively recently? How, then, did they get to be this big corporation?
Very funny, IMHO.
Also their "technology" is not really effective at all. The bit where they claim to protect the HTML source of a page is absolutely ridiculous and simple to circumvent. Do they actually sell this crap??
Maybe it's just me, but they seem... well, weird. Kinda like those EARN $5,000,000 IN JUST THREE DAYS BY STUFFING ENVELOPES deals. Dunno. Maybe it's just me.
Oh, and the FAQ page tried to install some Gator scumware on load. I bet they did it because they knew the FAQ was going to get hit, because none of the other pages in the site did that.
This has already been discussed quite a bit. Is there any compelling legal argument that there is a real contractual obligation, express or implied, to force us to consume the advertising?
Interesting. How will they know if you don't load the popups? Seems like a scare tactic to me.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
The few advantages that VoIP has do not outweigh the reliability of the regular telephone. Not once in my lifetime do I ever remember my phone not working. The internet on the other hand, goes down often enough.
I don't think VoIP is anywhere near becoming mainstream for consumers but I can see it becoming very large in large corporations that constantly do long distance between offices or just want to save on network/phone infrastructure in the building.
*mentally kisses karma goodbye*
The article headline:
"Inventor arrested on drug charges"
In the article, it says he had a pound of marajuana, and two assault rifles. The article then goes on about drugs, drugs, drugs, more drugs.
Excuse me? The pound of dope was more of a threat (well, more newsworthy) than ASSAULT RIFLES?
*shakes head*
Not meant to be a troll, though I'm sure it'll be moderated as such. Just boggles my mind.
http://www.akardam.net/media/news/anti-leech-funny .png
That's all I'm going to say... this is too funny.
Why are you calling it theft?
Legally it is of course not theft to block pop ups (today)
TODAY?! This implies that at some point, they wish to have pop-up blocking declared ILLEGAL. This really scares me.
Legally it is of course not theft to block pop ups [but] it's like stealing something from us.
The only way to cover for that income is using banner ads and pop ups
Want money? GET A REAL JOB! What is so special about "pop-ups"? You can't find another way to fund yourself? Can't figure out a type of advertisting that doesn't piss people off? Read some books on capitalism, then adapt or die.
Seriously, these guys are nuts and will be out of business in a year. Meanwhile, all the small web sites will either die off or find a better way to support themselves.
Actually, now that I think about it.. I guess I don't mind these guys. They'll let me AVOID pop-ups and the sites that use them! Cool! Hell, I wish Mozilla would put up a dialog that says "oops, this site uses pop-ups, stay the fuck away". Then everybody wins!
Google is profitable without that much advertising. However, Google is a multinational huge company with an enourmous sale force and budget.
Gee, I wonder WHY Google is so successful? I wonder WHY Google doesn't have an "apologies" page like you do, trying to justify its existence. Maybe because they have a legitimate business model, not just a bunch of whining and crappy javascript?
Thank you,
Anonymous Coward who sounds pissed but really isn't
Then you have obviously never dealt much with PacWest Telecom. :-)
;)
I worked at an ISP that used PacWest for many dialup lines, as well as the office phone lines (tech support included) and PacWest had some sort of "hardware failure" that left all of the phone lines down for well over 10 hours.
It looks like they are taking contributions for the effort ala PayPal.
http://www.youmaybenext.com/help.html
If everyone pitched in a buck I bet we could blow PanIP out of the water. I know that I don't want any of my clients getting sued and all of them fit in the category that is being preyed upon by these parasites. Shoot, I just talked myself in to contributing a buck for every website I manage. I would suggest that if you build sites for others that you do the same.
I'm frankly amazed at the degree to which people go to redefine words to try to change the tenor and direction of debate. A good example is the anti-leech trying to redefine your desire to not read their advertising as theft. To use the word theft to describe such actions is to belittle the meaning of the word theft, making it useless to describe actual property crimes.
Anti-leech would have you believe that you are under some obligation to make their particular business model (which is apparently to gain money by annoying people with popups) or else you are stealing from them. They admit that in a legal sense, it is of course incorrect to call it theft, but in a moral sense such a label is justified.
They are, well, full of it.
It isn't the responsibility of consumers to make a particular broken business model profitable: that is the responsibility of business owners. If you can't figure out a way to make money on the Internet, then you can't, but it seems pretty silly to bitch at your target audience for that problem. When your viewers decide to employ pop-up blocking or ad-filtering software, they are sending you as their content provider a message: this stuff is not of value to me, I don't want to waste even a single brain cell dealing with it. It is true that eventually your advertisers will likely notice that the response rate from web based advertisements are ridiculously low and will stop spending money on click-throughs and the like, and that will (at least according to anti-leech) spell an end to many websites.
Which would of course be a hideous tragedy, because who doesn't want to read through more advertising.
Businesses should learn a new lesson: intrusive pop up advertising doesn't work. Spam doesn't work. Stop paying for it. Be creative, and try to make information about your product visible to those who actually want it, don't cast it scattergun style in front of millions of people for whom it just represents an annoyance. Browsers such as Mozilla now have pop-up blocking because users want it, and that means that the users don't want to read your add for X-10 cameras or you've won a free prize while trying to access their bank accounts. Listen to your customers, and develop a business based upon respecting them, not on blanketing them with crap everytime they log in.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sex - Find It
It seems that the site using anti-leech software (it blocks Opera in this instance) just got issued a notice from the RIAA to take down its CD cover scans section (must be due to lost profits!) If that's not juicy irony, I don't know what is.
"All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde
From the FAQ:
"A website cost time and money to run. Every time you visit a website you will cost the webmaster behind that website money as they have to pay for the bandwidth you use when downloading images, information etc. Most websites depend completely on revenue from advertising through banners and pop ups. If you start trying to block that income you will still cost the webmaster the same amount of money as before, but the webmaster won't earn any money from advertsing to cover the expence. The result is obvious as this get more and more common today. In the end this can mean that the website has to shut down!"
Whoa. Chill out there, spanky.
The internet is not your (or anyone elses) personal toll booth. You don't get to plop your ass down and start demanding fees. Nobody forced you to put up a website. Nobody forced you to put up content and expend effort making that content. Hell, I don't even care if you deny me your content if I don't jump through your hoops. That isn't the issue.
The issue here is simple; your branding of those who do not enthusiastically play your game as 'thieves.' On your front page there is a graphic which states, "15% of your visitors are thieves."
This is a little bit like having a store and thrusting pamphlets into the hands of people who enter the store, then calling them thieves if they refuse the material. Does it make sense to say that by refusing the pamphlet they are denying you a revenue stream? Do you think you would be kicked or merely laughed out of court with this argument?
Your argument that you've paid for content and people are stealing it is a bit like painting a picture, displaying it on the street and then charging people who look at it, calling those who refuse "thieves." It doesn't have any real-world analogue whatsoever and you're a fool if you think that the internet is your sandbox to do with as you please. Doubly so if you plan on trying to enforce it.
And while I'm here, what the hell makes you think you have the right, the right to control how my browser -- and my computer by extension -- acts?
Heck. I think I'm going to send you a bill right now for the time it took to write this content. I imagine you'll be happy to pay it, it's entirely consistent with your argument...
My
Limekiller
No clue. But I know what "assault rifle" means. Is that what you meant?
The quote is "for all intents and purposes", not "intensive purposes". I could maybe see how a purpose could be "of, relating to, or characterized by intensity", but I really don't think that's what you meant.
Goodbye karma!
Well, I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too... the campaign they are trying to start is funded by the ads they are serving up.
Ya know what -- I don't give a damn. I'll still leave the unsolicited pop-up blocker enabled in Mozilla, and if some dipsh!t site wants to use the anti-leech stuff, I'll fire up IE in a sacrificial process that I can kill if things get out of hand.
It's slightly different for the 'youmaybenext.com' application. That's clearly a commentary site describing the lawsuits and what they see as the fallout from them. No real malice or illegality there (just lots of indignation and anger). Many states have anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) laws. Running against those can get you bitch-SLAPPed.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
One of many things I liek about Opera is that it ignors Gator and all of the other assorted scumware out there. YAY!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
The Pan-IP defense fund should incorporate themselves in a state with anti-SLAPP laws on its books. (SLAPP = Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, often used when small groups try to block Housing and Industrial Developments). A number of states now carry laws like this that help protect small groups.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
What I really like about PopUP ads is that if you tell Mozilla not to load them, it won't load them. (I'm borrowing my mother-in-law's PC on vacation, and it only has IE - it's been popup city here....)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Looking back, Zekko's founders and investors see how Priest's endless stalling and laughable excuses should have made them more cautious.
Yes, this should have made them cautious, but the more important clue was his Material excess. I'm not one to begrudge a man a nice car, but by the same token, I won't invest in a company who has at it's head a man who spends to excess. *Cough*Oracle*ahem*. If Priest is spending money like water, then the money isn't going towards the product, real or not, it's going towards his personal taste, and that nets the investor nothing. That this flim flam netted so much dough without any documentation is a cautionary tale for even the private investor with a small portfolio.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
It looks like they are taking contributions for the effort ala PayPal.
<nitpick style="pedantic" value="trivial">
The expression a la is French for "in the manner or style of." I think the idiom you meant to use was via, which means "by the way of." I think you meant, "they are taking contributions for the effort via PayPal." On the other hand, you could have said, "they are taking contributions for the effort a la the EFF," which would have meant, "they are taking contributions in the same way that the EFF does." Whichever.
</nitpick>
I write in my journal
And it doesn't work all that well. I got *DENIED!* and then I hit the back button and the site likes me. Or maybe it's an Opera thing.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Wait! This gives me a great idea for a new advertising scheme! I think I'll call them "put up" ads!!! I'll make millions!! :D
Heh...just kidding. Actually, I am quite happy w/ Mozilla just blocking the pop-ups. I would probably be kind of annoyed if everytime I came to a site which uses pop-ups (which I don't see anyway because they are blocked) a dialoge popped up at me asking me if I want to block that site. The cookie one is annoying enough as it is for me. But I put up with that one because I want to know what sites are trying to put on my computer.
Just MHO...cheers. :)
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
[Voice over IP] will replace phones as we know it... why isnt it more widely used?
Just about the worst telephone call you can make-- in my experience-- is the US to Sydney, Oz. The call must be routed over a satellite link or something, because the lag is on the order of half a second. When you're talking to someone in Australia, you get used to saying, "How are you today?" and then waiting while the perceptible lag passes to hear the reply, "Fuck off, you piker! It's three in the bloody mornin'!"
Every VOIP call is like that, only the lag varies from a merely noticeable fraction of a second to between one and two seconds from moment to moment, due to varying net traffic conditions.
VOIP, in other words, is more annoying and less effective than your average instant messaging system.
I write in my journal
The other way to play it is to tell them "drop the suit or we'll squash you into the ground for making a frivolous attack on us" and hope that works, but unfortunately the patent system is biased towards people who can talk the patent office into giving them patents, so this is difficult.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Well, it sounds like you have never lived in or know anyone in an area with expensive toll charges. Try calling someone on the other side of the planet sometime. $.55 per minute adds up quickly. Imagine how much it costs to those with a deflated currency. That is where VoIP is making it big.
My name fits again.
I see the site fine. I use Mozilla. I have popups blocked. I also use privoxy to block advertisements. I have a default policy to deny all cookies. I can still see it fine (I suspect it uses some cookie trick).
However, this entire thing is a hack. You can't ever have any assumption be 100% true about clients that may or may not execute code you send them.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I went to the Anti-leech site.
;)
I'm using Proxomitron. I've been using it for a lonnnnng time.
Proxomitron blocked their popups, the ads on their site, and I stuffed a new script in, in order to get back my context menu. SAD Stuff.
I hope this is the trend for "anti-block" crap. I can get around that without even breaking a sweat.
Now, if only I could run proxomitron on Linux.
I can't beleive that they claim to stop stuff like Proxomitron. It's just about the perfect tool
HNCPBS
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
I was writing a reply to the anti-leech website when I realized that using the same logic, I could charge the site for my content!
.02,
I realize, of course, that the owner of anti-leech.com did not request the content in question, but this fact seems largely irrelevant to Mr. Wennberg. After all, much like the "thieves" who "steal" from his clients, he did not actually ask that I compose a reply, but I did and it did cost me bandwidth to post, time to create, etc., and as such I expect Mr. Wennberg to pay for the resources that have been expended.
It is in this vein that I have billed Mr. Wennberg for my rebuttal (content) on a net-30 basis and fully intend to collect. I really hope that Mr. Wennberg is consistent with his application of fairness. After all, I did spend a lot of time putting together my response and if he does not pay my bill, it might very well cause me to go out of business altogether.
---------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 19:42:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Jason Desjardins <jason@macross.com>
To: johan.wennberg@swipnet.se
Bcc: Jason Desjardins <jason@macross.com>
Subject: Crashspace: Invoice #0001
Anti-leech.com,
Thank you for your recent content purchase! Here is your order confirmation.
Invoice: 0001
Content:
----[%begin]----
From the FAQ [anti-leech.com]:
"A website cost time and money to run. Every time you visit a website you will cost the webmaster behind that website money as they have to pay for the bandwidth you use when downloading images, information etc. Most websites depend completely on revenue from advertising through banners and pop ups. If you start trying to block that income you will still cost the webmaster the same amount of money as before, but the webmaster won't earn any money from advertsing to cover the expence. The result is obvious as this get more and more common today. In the end this can mean that the website has to shut down!"
Whoa. Chill out there, spanky.
The internet is not your (or anyone elses) personal toll booth. You don't get to plop your ass down and start demanding fees. Nobody forced you to put up a website. Nobody forced you to put up content and expend effort making that content. Hell, I don't even care if you deny me your content if I don't jump through your hoops. That isn't the issue.
The issue here is simple; your branding of those who do not enthusiastically play your game as 'thieves.' On your front page [anti-leech.com] there is a graphic [anti-leech.com] which states, "15% of your visitors are thieves."
This is a little bit like having a store and thrusting pamphlets into the hands of people who enter the store, then calling them thieves if they refuse the material. Does it make sense to say that by refusing the pamphlet they are denying you a revenue stream? Do you think you would be kicked or merely laughed out of court with this argument?
Your argument that you've paid for content and people are stealing it is a bit like painting a picture, displaying it on the street and then charging people who look at it, calling those who refuse "thieves." It doesn't have any real-world analogue whatsoever and you're a fool if you think that the internet is your sandbox to do with as you please. Doubly so if you plan on trying to enforce it.
And while I'm here, what the hell makes you think you have the right, the right to control how my browser -- and my computer by extension -- acts?
Heck. I think I'm going to send you a bill right now for the time it took to write this content. I imagine you'll be happy to pay it, it's entirely consistent with your argument...
My
Limekiller
----[%end ]----
Total Charge: $90.00 USD
We bill on a net-30 basis. Past due accounts are charged an additional 18% annual APR fee, accrued every 30 days (1.5%).
Again, thank you for using Crashspace content!
Regards,
Jason
--
----
"I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse." - Charles V
My
Limekiller
Look closely at the banner ad that was running when I took a look at the Anti-Leech page.
The law does not call refusing to watch commercials theft or any other criminal offense. We don't live in an Orwellian time where you could be forced to watch the commercials. It's also not any civil offense I can think of -- you're not breaking any agreement you gave real or implied consent to. I think it's going to be pretty hard to make out any implied legally binding promise on your part to watch ads.
To use TV as an analogy, muting all the commercials is fine, and is anticipated by the advertisers. If anything the mute button has encouraged them to make ads less bombastic and more entertaining. However, it can get stickier, at least if you are recording and if you are using technology to block the ads. Recording is legal as a form of fair use, but I wonder if routine ad-blocking would raise a problem. I've heard this discussed in the context of these personal video recorders, where they could make ad-skipping very easy, but have made it slightly inconvenient to placate the industry. I don't know if this is out of legal concerns or political pressure. Now, ad blocking software might be a similarly suspect technology. But that seems weak, and as a practical matter the software will not be challenged.
However, I do think an ethical argument could be made that you should watch the ads, perhaps just occasionally as a compromise. We now the ads are what keep the lights on, and that the advertisers are asking for a little of our time in return to make their pitch. If they ask you up front, would you be willing to watch a few ads in exchange for your nighttime dose of Stargate? Slashdot or Salon ask us to pay a subscription to suppress ads; surely it's implied that they'd rather you didn't do it on your own, thus evading both their revenue streams and being at least a bit of a leech. You're not subscribing for the convenience of having them block the ads, you're paying to block the ads, period.
But this is perhaps just a lot of handwringing. Certainly ad-blocking is not a crime, but we have to acknowledge that in many cases, as with TV, we prefer ad-sponsorship over other models, such as paying. I used to use ad-blocking software and got tired of managing it. I now glance at the ads occasionally, or at least don't treat them like the Medusa, where a mere glance might be lethal. And, significantly, I avoid ad-choked sites altogether, denying myself the content while making the point that theirs is not a site to which I will give a "hit." If enough people do this, ad revenue drops and the site has to improve its scheme or perish.
Vote with your feet. Boycott sites you don't like, and respect the sites that you do visit by suffering the content the webmaster has to include not to die. If you don't like it, walk, and if you care enough, send the webmaster a note explaining why.
Sorry my prose rambles -- I'm still mulling this over.
Here's a response I was working on. I would send it, but I have no confidence they would actually read it.
Thank you for your response. I read your FAQ, and have the following questions and comments.
While I won't dispute that web sites take time to develop, many thousands of web sites operate non-commercially, and I've run several at no cost. The web is a place to share information. You characterize user preferences as theft, and even implicitly advocate turning that characterization into law:
In essence, therefore, you are attempting to restrict an environment of free exchange of information to support a commercial venture, based upon the fallacious argument that the environment depends on the success of that venture. I find that reprehensible.
Actually, according to this: http://www.google.com/press/investors.html, Google is privately funded, owned by a small consortium of U.S. IT business leaders. And despite having actually used Google's advertising services, I have not been contacted by any member of their vast sales force. I have received not even a single piece of spam. I point this out because Google's business success has come from their attitude toward their intended customers. People want unbiased, accurate, ad-free search results. Google is successful because they have found a way to give people what they want and a way to make money on it, rather than trying to force an outdated business philosophy to the Internet, and screaming epithets such as "thief!" when it doesn't work.
Four companies that I know of have tools for this now. It's a tiny, tiny niche market. There's going to be a shakeout real soon.
If only they'd do the same for me...
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
I translated this with a little help from Systran(Sherlock). I lay no claim to the words being mine though, as the article was written by someone else.
Court Suspends Internet Blockage Ruling
Mario A. Muñoz
andresm@prensa.com
The Supreme Court of Justice ordered to suspend the effects of the Public Services Regulating Body (ESRP) order that blocked the ports for voice over IP, due to a finding that it was constitutionally protected.
The motion was presented by the firm Infante, Garrido & Garrdio for the company Net2net Corp, in opposition to the Oct. 25th, 2002 resolution JD-3576 by the board of directors of the Regulating Body.
In a letter from the Chief Magistrate, Winston Spadafora, the Court asked for a report on the facts of the case and ordered the immediate suspension of the effects of the aforementioned resolution.
The President of the Regulating Body, Alex Anel Arroyo, thinks international calls made through the Internet are illegal.
The ESRP order was given to 50 Internet Service Providers, ordering them to block 24 UDP access ports that were used for voice transmission, including some companies that offered that service to the public.
Those ISPs have presented several requests to the ERSP for reconsideration (of the order).
Among the ISPs that issued the request are Intered, Ayayai.com, BellSouth Internet, Cable & Wireless Internet, Cable Onda, Compu Service Communications, GBNet a CCI Network, Inter.net, PanNet, Net2Net, and Senacyt.
The national Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Senacyt) criticized the resolution through its director, Gonzalo Cordova, who affirmed that blocking the voice access ports "constitutes a different form of censorship".
The ISPs position is added to that of the many users would be affected by blocking the access ports known as UDP (User Datagram Protocols)
All rights are reserved by Prensa corporation. internet@prensa.com
(hopefully those don't include translation rights)
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Meaning: We understand that after a whole bunch of people sent us pissed off emails, we understand that perhaps thief was not the most diplomatic term to use, but we're still too anal to change or apologize...
Maybe someone ought to send that "Webmaster" of that site a SPELL CHECKING Ad so they might be able to purchase one and put it to USE.
You keep going until you die..."Me".
If your customer is willing to add expense and time to block popups or commercials, then it means that you're service isn't as 'in-demand' as you think it is.
I can't help but think about Turner's comments about PVRs. I think it's funny he's willing to call people thieves for skipping commercials even though they spent $200-400 for that capability.
Okay, popups aren't the same. The thing is, though, if they're so disruptive that a user is willing to install an app to put a stop to them, then you're not really providing a service to your customer. (You're also not doing your advertising clients any good...)
Demanding that customers view your popups are not the proper way to handle this situation. Be creative. Cater to the needs of the user.
I'll give you all an example: Affiliate programs. I do lotsa research on the web before I buy expensive items. If somebody can provide me an honest point of view of what their experience is like with a product, and they help me decide to buy it, I'm happy to refer them to whoever I buy the product from. I'm even willing to provide a review for the items I buy so I can make a commission on future sales.
It's a little bit different than popups, isn't it? Cater to the seekers, not the passers by.
Are you a leech if you use open-source software without paying the creator for the use of it?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
hint #1: you don't succeed by calling people that visit your site "thieves"
But they're not calling their visitor-customers thieves. They are talking to the site owners and calling the end-users thieves, to appeal to the site owners' notion that they've been wronged, and even injecting a little moral outrage in there.
I'm analyzing not defending their sales tactics.
What I don't understand is why you can't just say "I didn't write the infringing software". If Ford infringed a patent while making my car, I don't think I would be liable. If a software company infringed on another company's patent while making the streaming system I use, why am I, as a site owner, liable? I have wondered this for quite some time.
maru
For some websites. Generaly the ones who use Anti-leech.
Frankly I have *no* problem with Anti-Leech. I think they put it quite eloquently in their faq:
You are the thief! You steal my screen by poping up pop ups
If you don't like pop ups, then use a pop up blocker! But then you are not welcome to Anti-Theft protected websites as you are not ready to give something in return.
If a website wants to use Anti-Leech, *let it* There's no reason it shouldn't.
True, I think that people who say "We should force you to view our ads if you use are service" are missing a key element that people who don't want to view they ads probably aren't going to click on them.. but hey it's their content and their choice to block, charge or whatever with it*
*So long as they don't try to prevent others from providing the same content *cough* siaa *cough*
Nature doesn't acknowledge pleas or namecalling if you can't get your food to survive. The buisness world is just another part of nature, if your methods of survival don't work, then you don't get to survive.
Nobody likes banners, popups, or spam all they do is annoy users and steal OUR bandwidth, so when your buisness model based on popups, banners or spam fails, analagously speaking you die.
Google's advertisments work because they're TARGETED. You search for something and they slip in a couple of text based ads related to WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR.
Here's a weird analogy: In Vietnam the U.S. dropped more blanketing bombs on North Vietnam than in all of WWII and it accomplished almost nothing. It was a stupid strategy because just like with mass spamming/popups the liklihood of any given bomb accomplishing something was nil just like the odds of any single ad generating a profit are nil, you're just wasting "bombs" that never make an impact just like your untargeted ads face a disinterested audience.
Google gets to survive because their method works, you don't because yours doesn't.
No hurry up and croak, we're tired of your bs.
Question everything
I find the argument about blocking ads on a webpage (or on TiVO) the same as I see P2P file sharing: Technology is changing things. It is not the law's place to hold up defunct business models. If websites can't survive without popups, if television can't survive TiVO, and if the recording industry can't survive P2P, I say good. Something better will take their place. Something the people actually want. It's capitalism in action, why can't anybody important see that?
No sig for you.
And you can get any sort of mind altering substance, legal or not, if you have a strong enough desire to do so. Even countries that execute dope users (PRC) cannot prevent this traffic
You are correct in noting that assault rifles are not practical weapons with which to commit crimes. Yet mind altering drugs and the paraphenalia used to consume them are even LESS likely to be used as adjuncts to violent crime. When was the last time some one held up a liquor store with a bong? Point proven!
Sounds like a good argument to legalize dope to me. Toke up!
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
One of the many things that I liek about Windows is that it downloads Gator and all of the other assorted scumware out there. YAY!
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Hmm I clicked on the link to see their FAQ and their attempt at redeeming any of their legitimacy.. and what do i get? the trademark of the scummiest sites on the internet.... a Gator install request.
Sorry, but they are scumbags through and through. anyone supporting the invasive popups and allowing gator anywhere near their servers are worse than telemarketers that scam old people.
Sorry, but their actions and how their site acts says contrary to someone interested in doing legitimage business and I will continue to warn people away from their company and anyone that uses their services.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yes, Opera FINALLY put the "block unrequested popups" option in version 7. V6 was very annoying with only its "accept all or deny all" options.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
There has been strong uproar amongst people in Panama about the blocking of the UPD's.
That's strange, I didn't hear a peep out of 'em!
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
There are solutions where the phone company actually does VoIP transparently
That's not voice-over-IP. That's voice-over-ATM. Voice-over-IP sucks without massive infrastructure at the router level to support it. Voice-over-ATM, though, works perfectly right out of the gate thanks to ATM's cell-switched "virtual circuit" nature.
I write in my journal
Here is a letter that I sent to Anti-Leech support...
/.
Greetings,
I am disappointed with your service. As stated in your FAQ, I am one of many that already pays to be online. I understand that webmasters need to make a living, however, Doubleclick and other advertising companies are getting more rich off webmasters because the webmaster only gets a pitence of the revenue generated from companies like Doubleclick.
The simple fact that you have taken it upon yourselves to provide this service is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing in that, it assists webmasters, who subscribe to your service, in attaining a paycheck. It is a curse in that, you have now removed that website from places I would like to visit. In essence, you are hindering rather than assisting the webmasters.
I block pop-ups and banners because I do not want to receive spam. I do not want my information stolen from me and sold to the highest bidder. I value my privacy and you should value your privacy as well. How much spam do you receive?
The reason I would visit a web page is because I found something interesting and what I felt was of value. Too many times have I visited web pages only to be bombarded and completely distracted by banners and pop-ups hawking services and products that I either have no interest in or don't use. What I wanted was to see the article or the product that I came to the web site for in the first place. By implementing your service, webmasters have now blocked and more than likely, irrevocably lost business due to the fact that we netizens value our privacy.
If we do not block pop-ups and banners, then our information is stolen by bots, processed, and sold. We, the viewer, receive no compensation for this injustice. Yes it costs the webmasters money to maintain a site. It costs us to even access the internet. Who do we block to receive just compensation for our time and bandwidth? It is a two way street. You cannot say that we are stealing when you are not compensating us. I reiterate, that we only visit a site because we found something in interest or of value. Are individuals sought out by law inforcement if they pass by a store front and don't stop to look at the ads in the window?
If we visit a brick and morter store and see something we might like to buy, but are then blasted with signs and sales-persons trying to sell us everything else that we are not interested in, including going to another store, are we to be fined, imprisoned, hunted down like rabbits? I don't think so. Myself, if I walk into a store and I am harrassed by a pushy salesperson, I am more than likely to walk out of that store never to return and I will tell all my frinends as well. Unintended consequences are a real pain.
Please remember. The Internet and the WWW were not intended to be a service for businesses and mass marketers. It was originally intended for research and to link people together. It was some rather savvy entrepreneurs who discovered that you could make a profit on the net.
I ask one final question. Your site is named Anti-Leech. You are in the business of providing blocks against those who would "Leech" or as you put it, "Steal" profits from a web site. We viewers, pay to access the net. We pay to conduct business on the net. We pay to be entertained on the net. Who exactely is the leech here? Thank you for your time. I look forward to your response.
Not sure if they will respond but if they do I will post immeadiately to
Your actions in life will determine your children's future.
This is on anti-leech's website as as "service":
;)
"Protection against spam
Anti-leech offers two ways to get rid of spam thanks to the Anti-Spam system. To collect new e-mail addresses many "spammers" use different kinds of "spiders" to search through your site for e-mail adresses. We offer one way to make it impossible for these "spiders" to collect your e-mail address + one way to prevent that the "spider" collects other addresses. If you use our Anti-HTML program, you will also be protected against these "spiders"."
Uh, if using a popup blocker is "theft", then isn't spam blocking "theft"?
I mean, some marginal website somewhere might have to SHUT DOWN because anti-leech's spam email address harvester blocker denied them revenue...
How much you wanna bet the people behind anti-leech use popup blockers?
Corporatism != Free Market
We don't live in an Orwellian time where you could be forced to watch the commercials.... I do think an ethical argument could be made that you should watch the ads, perhaps just occasionally as a compromise.
Double Plus Good, brother! The government of Air Strip One saw to it that every individual had onminpresnt security, entertainment and news. This service was provided free of charge! Also, the Earthly Pardise existed WITHOUT LAWS. None were needed because everyone just knew that they should be respectful! That's all Big Brother asks for, respect. He knows that we all need a break from improving ourselves occasionally and provided fine beer halls and gin bars to help you forget your troubles. INGSOC! values your opinion and ideas on how to make things better for everyone!
Agent 948-48-2008 drops post #4771927 in memory hole and sends memo to supervisor on MacAndrew crimethought.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The Anti-Leech FAQ page attempts to install Gator on your computer.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Grr, I botched the link to the statute. Well, actually /. botched it because it doesn't allow long strings even in an href. Here is a link to 18 U.S.C. 921. Search for "assault."
basically, they're saying: You're not as thief, but we're gonna call you a thief anyway. so I will call them rapists, even though it may not be true.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Alex apparently doesn't publish his email address, and for some reason there is no email address on his web site. Whois dead-ends at pannet.pa.
However, he has a telephone. +507.278.4500. Ask for, "Director Presidente."
I'm blown away.
It appears most people who replied read this:
Excuse me? The pound of dope was more of a threat (well, more newsworthy) than ASSAULT RIFLES?
and promptly went into Gun Defense mode.
A few people pointed out the legality of guns vs. the illegality of weed. That's not what he asked. He asked which was more of a threat.
A few other people pointed out the media's and authority's tendency to exaggerate the nature of weapons found during raids. "Assault rifles" could be, well, anything. However, a person firing a bullet from a rifle is more likely to threaten a person's life than a person lighting up a fatty, which is what RollingThunder was trying to get at.
If there weren't an insane War on (Some) Drugs that turns people who grow plants and brew chemicals to trade with others for personal use into criminals, this raid would never have happened.
I'm disappointed. A lot of people completely failed to answer his (possibly rhetorical) question regarding which is a greater threat to human life, instead falling back on the law or media/police exaggerations to dodge the issue at the root of this.
You can support a person's right to own weaponry and still acknowledge that the availability of weapons poses a greater threat to peace and life than the availability of a plant.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Have these people forgotten the age-old business tradition of the "loss-leader"? In my way of thinking, a website is in itself a promotional vehicle (whether you're hyping yourself, your company, or your product line), and doesn't particularly need to be freighted with (additional) advertisements. Heck, most of the websites I see in a day (job-related, anyway) are commercial sites trying to create interest in the product line.
From that point of view, a website is part of the marketing budget, and a classic example of a loss-leader: something a product maker puts out that has no intrinsic ROI, but that will, they hope, generate enough interest in the product(s) to pay for itself. Some websites also provide so-called "value added" services to sweeten the pot (as in all these industrial manufacturers' websites I go to that offer mostly PDF downloads of their products' Material Safety Data Sheets -- bless you all!) and probably make someone's life easier down the line (downloading a PDF is much easier than getting on the phone and waiting for a fax, f'rinstance!).
And the simple goodwill generated by a clean website that has the features you want, plus possibly a few sweeteners, can certainly help to bring in new customers, particularly if they're the type (as so many are these days) who do their preliminary sourcing via internet.
Anti-Leech's use of the word "theft" illustrates two things: they don't understand the above paradigm, and they're greedy scum trying to wrest the last possible cent out of an unsuitable area, likely at the expense of business draws. (Perhaps they just lack business acumen in general?)
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Are you using a long string and two foam cups to call Australia?
Just about: AT&T.
By the way, what's "Candada?" Is that the Great White North as envisioned by Gertrude Stein?
I write in my journal
I don't think we're actually in disagreement here.
Any "legal" (i.e. civilian law) re-definition of the term to include firearms incapable of full-auto operation is an adoption of the original hyperbole of the anti-gun crowd.
Which is exactly why I say the phrase is a "propaganda" term. It has been twisted in order to confuse one thing, previously regulated full-auto weapons, with another, semi-auto only weapons. When people hear the phrase they think full-auto but what the law says is semi-auto only. That confusion was introduced intentionally in order to get the ban passed. Had the Brady folks come out trumpeting a law to ban flash supressors (the real effect of the "assault weapons ban") it never would have gotten anywhere. Because who really cares?
Theoretically, the machine only has the vanilla software that it came with, plus a couple updates worth of AOL, but occasionally people send her email with tag lines about "upgrade your browser here" that she's unfortunately clicked on, installing Hotbar, which seems to be some sort of adware/spyware that makes sure to deliver tailored popup ads for whatever page you're looking at, as near as I can tell. Worse, there's some sort of "helpful" Compaq software running that keeps hosing things up instead of helping, and of course the documentation disappeared long ago...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks