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Does Adblock Violate A Social Contract?
almondjoy writes "Newsforge is currently running a story on Firefox extensions where the author states the following regarding use of the AdBlock extension: 'If you use this tool ... there are those who would assert you are not holding up your end of a 'social contract' between yourself and the Web site that you are browsing' Would you be volating a social contract hitting the 30sec skip button on Tivo? Or putting a strip of paper across the bottom of our TV screen to block out those super annoying scrolling banners? I have found that using the combination of AdBlock and FlashBlock extensions in Firefox has greatly enhanced my browsing experience. Has acceptance of web sites crammed with advertising content become part of my social contract with society?"
Doesn't SPAM violate the same contract.
The thing advertisers don't seem to get is that you don't sell products by annoying the hell out of people. Pop-ups, pop-unders, floating ads, the all singing all dancing flash ads, anything that blinks or wants you to answer a trivia question, ad infested web pages that have half a page of text and require you to hit the next button to continue to the next page. These are all ANNOYING, that is why people are blocking or otherwise avoiding them.
You don't see people going to extreme lengths to block Google text ads. Why? Because they are fairly unobtrusive, yet still visible enough for people to see them.
If advertisers don't want me using Adblock they should use small, unobtrusive, static images and I will happily turn it off. But until then, they can whine and complain all they want. Just my two cents...
Social contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on!
What gets me is that arguably, social cotract was first violated by offending websites and ad-server ppl in general, with things like popups, glaringly bad animation (ie, flashing colors, etc). Not to mention the EVIL doubleclick and their "we will track your ass... try and avoid us, punk" attitude. Which is what I believe the adblock authors were trying to control/avoid/defeat.
I won't adblock a server/ad that's generally nice or doesn't get in the way of my browsing... think google or other text-based adverts, or even non-animated, "non-epilepsy inducing" image ads. THATs a real social contract... because google/etc know that their revenue relies on their good behavior. I respect that.
Finally, on a dialup (like at my parents place), adblock SIGNIFICANTLY improves performance. I think removal of bloat is impressively important for non-broadband folks, and that's another case of advertisers "messing with social contract". I especially hated it when the page would load fast, but the ad at the top woudl sit there and hold up the entire page from rendering. WTF.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I also don't feel bad about not watching most commercials on TV or ripping the DVD's I buy and removing al the crap from them. I paid for the product, I don't want to see more ads. I pay about $140 a month to my cable company for Digital cable, Digital Broadband and a Digital phone. The least the cable company can do is get rid of ads for me, though I know that day will never come.
The only ad content I don't make an effort to block are text based ads like Google uses. I have no problem with those types of ads since they do not distract me. The day most/all web ads are text based and don't flash to "get your attention" is the day that I will stop using adblock and flashblock to block web ads. Oh, and adblock has two modes: "remove images" and "hide images". The "remove images" option doesn't download the images and the "hide images" option downloads but doesn't display them. So if you want to surf a site and still help out the web advertiser, just use "hide images", though I use "remove images" so I can get faster page load times.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
If a commercial website can't support itself via its audience, that website should die. If the users of the website are sufficiently motivated to pay for content, they will, and it will survive. Here's a hint: if you need to be paid, then be up-front and honest about it (eg: LWN). If your worth preserving, you'll be fine.
There is no such thing as an implied or "social" contract - by their very nature, contracts are not implications! The whole terminology is a marketing exercise designed to appeal to the "guilt" that just because someone is giving you something, you ought to pay for it.
Sheesh! Social contracts! What next ? Breathing contracts ?
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
could get you sued, then. I guess.
Well in such case I have a brilliant idea.
Why don't all the website owners that feel cheated by those who use Adblock put a clear, visible banner that says it's illegal to view this website with advertising stripped off?
As soon as I see one of those, I will put their hostname in the proxy's blacklist forever. Problem solved.
If the webmasters think they can force people to read their website in one particular way that's most benefitting to them, I'll be among the ones glad to remind the webmasters that I, too, have a choice of throwing their website into a blacklist and advise other people on not using it.
I don't care if it violates any social contract. I don't even agree that there is any contract. As long as the website is
publically available, I can do whatever the fuck I please to its contents on my own machine. The website owners should shut the fuck up and be grateful I spared a minute of my time to even pay attention to their little shitty website, and sure as hell I don't feel indebted to them for anything. Unless they're paying ME to have it their way, I'm going to strip their ads, block their cookies, apply my stylesheets to make their shit readable, and if they're uncomfortable with that, why don't they just let me know so that I can continue ignoring them some more and care even less?
If they feel deprived of revenue, perhaps they should reconsider the field of businness they're in, because I'm most certainly not here to pay their bills.
So here's how Internet works: when you put something into a place where everyone can have a copy, it's none of your business what people do with their copies. For those of you cretins who still have the brick-and-mortar mentality, I dont owe you anything at all and you should thank me for even considering your shitty website.
And what about a simple pop-up blocker, especially now that Microsoft includes one with IE? Does this violate a "social contract?" How is blocking any other type of ads different than blocking pop-up ads?
If it did, I'm sure they'd extend it to "You must buy what we advertise."
No one would claim you were breaking a social contract if you threw away ads in the newspaper. (Yes, you pay for it, but at a much reduced rate because of the ads.)
It's no more a violation of a social contract than having a popup blocker built into the browser...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Stated that websites weren't allowed to pop-up advertisements. When they started to do so, a renegotiation of the contract became necessary, and the new contract states that while web sites may attempt to pop up windows, I am free to disallow that on my system.
If web sites have a problem with this, they need to learn to read the fine print before they sign.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
It doesn't matter.
Until websites trying to enforce ad-views, it won't matter.
Any website who tries to aggressively force ad-views will be left alone in the dust, so I don't think it's much of a problem
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
If I could violate the social contracts of every advertiser out there, I would be a happy man. I just hope that someone somewhere is angry that I've blocked their crappy flash/gif advertisement.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
I currently have firefox blocking all the ads that are displayed on Slashdot. Does anyone here have an objection? Is that violating any sort of slashdot user code of ethics?
There can't be any social contract between people who haven't even communicated with each other.
Social contract or not it is really my choice whether or not I want something displayed on my screen. If the revenue generated from ads on a particular website is suffering to the point of not being profitable then perhaps it is time to look at new ways of making money. You can't try to enforce some form of draconian control over everyone's computers. This is my machine and I will decide what is downloaded, displayed, and run on it.
I would have to say that the social contract that's being broken are by the people advertising. I've been browsing the web since it's inception with HTML and the like. The things that's been invaded is my space, not the other way around with me blocking it.
Adblock, flash block, block images from this server will always win out with me.
There's an old saying that seems appropriate here:
Free speech is the right to say whatever you want; it's not the right to make people listen.
There are always bozos who actually buy things they get spammed about, which is why spammers continue doing what they do. It would be nice to fine the companies whose products are being pushed by spam as a way to combat this, but then of course companies would aim to have their competitors fined. Better, I think, to just shoot the spammers on recognition :)
In any case, using Adblock is a good way to deal with things until a more permanent and global solution to end internet advertising can be found.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
You're not blocking ads from slashdot are you???
Why should this be different on the internet?
This is my last post.
[6th Estate]
This "social contract" BS is something marketers dreamed up to make it "bad" to block their ads. The TV people say the same thing about how you're "breaking contract" by muting commercials, getting up off your duff for a drink, or skipping past them on a recording you made.
I didn't sign any contract. I didn't agree to any ToS. I don't want to see your commercials, so poo on you.
This is a simple case of market forces, like a fuzzbuster or other "arms race" involving technology and those who feel they are circumventing something they find annoying.
Evil sig is livE.
This is the land of all-free, all-the-time. People are supposed to product content for free, and give it away to all and sundry with no revenue stream to, say, pay their rent.
If you're looking for an useful discussion, you're in the wrong place.
Oh yeah thats right those are the things you see if you dont use ad Filters like proxomitron or privoxy. Either of these with Opera is browsing heaven.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Same thing can be said about.. Popup blockers and Spyware removers. Are they breaking a "social contract" by removing the spyware/blocking popups that some sites/apps use? I understand what the article is saying but but they could have worded it better.
The idea of a "social contract" is just a scam some people use to con other people into thinking they have obligations that they never actually agreed to. Any real contract is written down and signed by the parties agreeing to it.
There's the saying, "The customer is always right." Perhaps they need to consider alternatives.
Interesting story, some time ago I posted a /. poll asking if you used AdBlock or any other ad blocker to read SlashDot, I think it was rejected but I thought it would be interesting to see how many people blocks the ads, thinking that Free Software advocates should know it is the way /. uses to survive
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
And conversely, should we implictly pay for the bandwidth to receive content we neither requested nor wanted? I think not.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Now I use userContent.css found at here and flashblock. It doesn't block EVERY ad but damn near everything, and no updating the blacklist, though if you want even more you can use the userContent.css + adblock + flashblock + firefox popup blocker for the ultimate protection
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
maybe, but by blocking the ads the browser is saving you money and bandwidth, then?
I have the right to tune out, ignore, and block any fscking ad I want.
I hate ads with a passion. Annoying, useless, worthless, did i mention I find them annoying?
TV goes to mute and/or I switch to using my powerbook. at home I don't use a radio, but instead use my small 1600 song collection which gives me some 5 days of never listening to the same thing.
I adblock nearly everything online I come across.
Let's just say I have never bought anything from an ad, an i plan I keeping it that way.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
That is the real question..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Advertising exploits a coincidence. It is not an obligation on the viewer. I don't enter into any agreement, implied or otherwise, with /. when I come here looking for content. That I happen to look at the ad on the top of the page as a consequence is a side effect that slashdot and other web sites choose to capitalize on them. Good for them. If and when most or all users start blocking ads, they'll have to find another means to survive, or just close up shop.
It isn't your customers obligation to fund your business. It's your obligation to satisfy your customers sufficiently well that they fund your business. Not many companies seem to remember that.
"Has acceptance of web sites crammed with advertising content become part of my social contract with society?"
I don't think it's a matter of "acceptance."
I don't mind, for example, that slashdot has banner ads. I've read a bit about the infrastructure required to support the site, and I have *some* idea of how much it must cost to keep this thing up, and I feel that the least I can do is let someone push some relevant ad on me.
Ads are irritating, yes, but *somebody* has to pay for these sites.
We can wrap this argument in whatever fancy-shmancy terms we'd like, but whether we call it a "social contract" or something else, the fact is that a lot of the sites we all love are being floated by advertising revenue. You aren't required by any sort of "contract" (your conscience) to support these sites, but don't come whining when some of them shut down because, financially, it just wasn't worth it to keep pushing content out the door.
- Rory [Microsoft Employee] | Free dirt: neopoleon.com
Adverisers took the social contract, ripped it into fifty billion pieces, then get upset when we don't abide by our side of the contract?
Look, I am perfectly willing to see reasonable, well placed ads. I am seeing a Vonage banner ad above Slashdot write now. I am NOT forced to see intrusive, obnoxious crap that intereferes with the reason why I use the service. Anything that requires me to "click" on it to send it away qualifies as abusive intereference, and should be outlawed.
Morons think "If I can get them involved, they will pay more attention to my ad" Instead most consumers get ANGRY at both the site that is abusing them and the moron company that thinks "bad pr is better than no pr".
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
So take me to social court or quit whining.
Hey Editors,
These work too...
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Stupid
Score: -1 this article is really stupid.
I went to the College bookstore and saw a book on "Consumer Behavior."
It was filled with horrendous things. It was all about how to tap into vanity and make people desire things.
Then, there's "Public Relations." Which is basically all about how to manipulate people by manipulating the media. But, they also use advertising a lot.
I have no problem with most advertising. But, before I clip my browser, they're going to have to stop pulling PR shit, and stop writing those books. Guess when that's going to happen? Never.
"Yes, your honor, I was honoring my social contract by carefully reading all the roadside billboards and advertising when I accidentally drove my car into that Denny's."
The Social Contract cuts both ways, and I don't see advertisers holding up their end of the bargain with truthful ads. Are the boobs in True's advertising blitz actually using the service? Methinks not. Does clicking here actually get a free iPod? Methinks not. Does whatever those damn strobing ads ... nevermind, no.
When media sites start carrying advertising that's not disrespectful of their audience's intelligence, then I'll worry about bypassing it disturbing a social contract, but while its not adhering to the social contract itself then they can bite my shiney metal ass.
If you put advertisements on your web site, you are not holding up your end of a "social contract" between yourself and the people browsing the Internet. The Internet was originally intended to be a database of human knowledge, a research tool, and an educational resource, not a billboard.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Quite simply, sites that put ads on their page depend on the profit from those ads to support themselves. The page authors chose to put those ads there. If you don't want to see the ads, then you have no right to view the content. If you refuse to see the ads, you should find your content on another website.
Reading the content of a web page is not a right, it is a privilege afforded to you by the website's author and it comes with strings attached, like ads.
It is unfortunate that so many websites choose to use popups and horrible flashy ads that don't entice people to click anyway to make a profit. But you should take that up with the webmasters.
Just like downloading music on a p2p system is a violation of copyright law. You have no social right to listen to that music. You have no social right to see a webpage with its ads filtered out.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. --Ford Prefect
If your idea that somehow you should have to download ads or you violate a contract were true, then you would also be obligated to actually read and consider each of the ads on every page you see.
I doubt anyone does that, so clearly you are allowed to skim the ads without violation.
Blocking them entirely is just more aggressive skimming.
I never agreed to read all their crap.
Moreover, agreements must (by definition) be mutual and freely entered into.
Attempts to ram increasing quantities of junk down our throats fail on both points. They broadcast (by air or web) this stuff in hopes people will watch the ads, made more palatable by some amount of content desired by some of the viewers (& surfers). The hopes of others are not a binding contract on me.
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
I use a text-based browser most of the time, and a browser that doesn't support Javascript the rest of the time. So what?
If I want to view someone's web content in raw HTML form, printed out on paper, or stipped of ads, whose business is that but mine?
The social contract they (whoever they is) refer to is as good as the paper it was written on; no more, no less.
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If I buy a t-shirt with a swoosh on it, does Nike pay me advertising royalties? Does that not break a social contract?
Do sites that use technology designed to FORCE MY COMPUTER TO DO THINGS I HAVE TOLD IT NOT TO, like show pop-up windows - I'm talking to you firefox blocker evaders - not violate the "social contract"?
Clearly, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
You can check for the existence of other browser windows with javascript through the DOMs. A web site should be able to sense that a pop-up was blocked by testing for its existence or by having the pop-up set a value in the parent. If the web site admins really want to present these ads, why wouldn't they block access to people who don't view them?
Rule: "Allow our ad or you don't get access to the content."
Just a question...
_J_
Oh well, no point in steering now.
Is there a violation of a social contract? Oh yeah... definitely. But if it's not illegal, then I consider it perfectly okay.
Okay, I don't consider it to be perfectly okay but I tend to look at it this way: I'm a drop in the bucket of people who would otherwise go ahead and allow the ads through. But here's the thing that is being done right:
Ads should be hosted (or appear to be hosted) on the server serving the web pages. This makes blocking less likely.
Ads should be present with the content the user is looking for but the content should ALSO be available in a "printer friendly" format. Many sites do this and I am grateful. I am also not as likely to block ads from that site since a simple click will get me beyond the distractions and clutter.
Anything that pops up should be blocked immediately.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but two rights make a left... stupid and senseless statement. But with that said, the advertisers cannot and should not expect any more respect from the 'consumer' than the advertisers give. And I think that's the sentiment that most of us will hold to.
I block any ads that are annoying. That means:
popup, popunder: My popup blocker handles these. It's my broswer and desktop. You don't get to pick what's displayed, I do.
audio, animated, layer ads: These are distractions for me. I simply can't read a web page with an animated ad moving around off to the side, or wedged into the article, or some sliding ad box covering the text. I can usually tune my junkbuster file to get all of these.
IntelliTxt: This is not only annoying, it's almost criminally wasteful of bandwidth. I block this with junkbuster, so the requests to the IntelliTxt servers never happen.
Interstitals: Most sites are designed such that I get a JunkBuster display before moving to the main content. Sites that don't work that way, I simply ignore.
Basically, if I find something annoying enough, I block it. I won't spend more than a minute or so setting up my blocks, though. If it takes longer than that, I just won't go to that site anymore. There's too much content available from too many sources for any one site to command my attention.
So, using adblock rules.
:) feature out)
But, what if (conigurable of course) adblock would do:
1) hide/remove those annoying things
2) "click" on every one, as if I would click on it
3) throw away what those "clicks" would produce.
This would
a) fullfill this "social contract" (means : clicked on ads)
b) keep away the ads from my eyes
c) produce a bunch of bandwitdh (social contract to the provider)
point a) + c) has to step back if surfing via low bandwith (when configured the "click on everything" (uf
just my 2ç
Personally, I have no problems with sites showing adds, as long as it is withing certain limits. Those sites I'll not block.
Sites with annoying adverts, blinking and moving are blocked within seconds. A wise website targetting me would self regulate the maximum amount of advertisement.
Unfortunately, some sites can't show me advertisements as I blocked the add-server they are using somewhere else. Would be good if I could indicate in AddBlock that e.g. site X is excluded from the blocking or site Y is included in the blocking process. (Nope, I didn't file a wish yet)
I'm constantly breaking social contracts. When I see advertisements, I don't believe them.. I have a pre-disbelief of marketing hype and a strong BS meter. I also encourage others to think critically.
So by doing that I've violated a social contract by assuming untruths by the advertisers who care so much about my attention and gullibility.
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
Uh Oh.....I should probably stop using lynx
It doesn't work like that. You don't make an implicit agreement to see the ads. You don't agree to anything at all. They offer a website. You read it. They are perfectly entitled to try to sell you stuff, but you're not under any obligation to assist them.
Once they start trying to make money from you in any manner that isn't directly related, it changes the relationship entirely. They're trying to maximise their profits. that is their right. I'm not going to inconvenience myself or annoy myself for their benefit.
Has acceptance of web sites crammed with advertising content become part of my social contract with society?
The answer is yes. You get the content for free, the ads pay for the site.
Of course, "social contract" is just a PC euphamism for "not being a dick".
Blocking the ads makes you a dick, and does violate the "social contract". Lots of good sites are gone forever because of the attitude that "nobody has the right to show me advertisements".
However, when a site is "crammed with ads", or has popups or hijacks your browser, tries to mislead you, etc, then the webmaster has violated HIS side of the social contract (that is, he's being a dick).
There are worse atrocities in the world than a little advertising. I don't know why everyone has to be such a douchebag about it. I mean, having a speakeasy ad at the top of this page isn't going to be the end of my world.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
That is, there are some who would assert that a contract is defined by an offer, acceptance, and consideration - and that putting the word "social" in front of something that is not a contract, doesn't make it a contract. Period.
Unless I agree to terms that indicate that my screen being used to display advertisements is required as consideration in exchange for your delivery of content to me, there is no acceptance, and there is contract. Period.
I offer my left buttcheek to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and I assert that he's obliged to kiss it.
3 annoyingily stupid questions in one article.
Sorry, over the amount by 2. This post has been rejected for mass stupidity.
She doesn't "grok" it? Speak english.
I certainly accept that by blocking adverts you are not fulfilling your responsibilities as a user of a site.
But the contract thing takes it a little too far. Basically, I have no idea what a site is going to try and push on to me until I visit the site. I don't get a chance to agree to flash banners, pop-ups, etc.
So if someone wants to whine and moan about adverts being blocked, it's THEIR responsibility to warn you / give you a chance to accept or not. And if they don't - well, shouldn't I get to sue them for usurping my computer / browser / user experience without my prior agreement?
Isn't that part of the contract that I have with a website in allowing them to send data to my machine?
If I create an entry in my host file like so:
127.0.0.1 ads.osdn.com
127.0.0.1 clk.atdmt.com
I don't have to install any software to block ads and I don't have to waste CPU cycles animating their ads either. This saving of CPU cycles is expecially vital while playing those CPU munching JAVA games at sites like zylom.com and xgenstudios.com.
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is facing a great battle." - Philo of Alexandria -
I NEVER signed any agreement saying I would watch ads.
I have always maintained the opposite.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I don't think it's about a social contract, what it comes down to is that I will NEVER buy something simply because I saw it in an ad. I don't buy things based on ads, I buy things when someone cool says it's cool (Penny Arcade is a good example.) I can't remember ever buying something because of an advertisment. Even a TV commercial. (The exception, I think, is the Saturday/Sunday newspaper ads from CompUSA and Best Buy and Circuit City, but that's only because I'm already looking for something and they just happen to have it on sale) Since I'm NEVER going to buy something based on an online advertisment... aren't I saving the advertisers bandwidth from not downloading their ad? More to the point, aren't Adblock users as a whole saving advertisers a quantifiable amount of bandwidth (money) by not downloading ads for things they aren't going to buy?
The term "social contract" refers to the agreement between government and society. It is often also used in a more general sense to mean an agreement between a group and its members, for instance the Debian social contract.
A social contract isn't an organisation telling its visitors "this is what you will and will not do". A social contract is devised by the people it constrains for the good of the group.
Perhaps they meant unwritten contract, or implied contract, but they didn't mean social contract. The person who decided upon that term probably did so because it allows them to (unfairly) paint opponents as anti-social.
Is there an unwritten/implied contract to sit through advertisments when watching TV? I don't think so. Is there an unwritten/implied contract to look at adverts on a website? Again, I don't think so.
I think the point you are all missing is that if a site is annoying you with their advertisements you have 1 of 2 choices. One you can stop going there. No more ads no problem. Or two you can contact the site and work for change.
Either way you look at it the sites are not forcing anyone to see their advertisements. Users go to their content because they find it of value. If they find it of value they should be willing to pay the provider back in some way if the provider asks. If that means putting up with a banner or other form of advertising so be it. They are only trying to make a living. If they receive enough feedback that a certain advertising method is damaging their user base they will change. Some of the posters here need to understand that advertisements mean money. Not just for the product they are hawking but also for the site displaying that product. Thats the way it works. Hell why do you think Slashdot displays banners (many of which I have clicked on I might add).
That being said even I use adblock. When there is a particularily annoying ad on a site I block it. Then I send an email to the site admin telling them what ad I blocked and why. It is amazing the number of them that respond favorably.
What contract? I don't recall visiting a site that clearly stated "Use of this site requires that you look at these ads." I know that if I ever buy something from an online ad or a piece of junk mail, I'm just giving advertisers more reason to keep doing them. If I saw an online ad for a real working light saber for $29.99, I'd still go to a brick-and-mortar store and pay $20,000 just so they didn't count my click as a "hit" to promote more damned banners. Technically then, wouldn't looking at the ad at all be a form of fraud - making advertisers think I'm looking at or care about the ad, therefore making them pay more money for my "impression" or whatever the current marketing lingo calls it? Wouldn't that be like eating the free samples in a grocery store, with no intention of buying the product? OR going to look at some condo rental just for the free airline tickets they promise? If websites want to enforce this bullshit "contract", then I have an idea: Sites should state that ads are required to view the site. If the server detects a page request and no follup requests for the ad-content, which tells them that the ads are actually being viewed, then the site should stop working entirely for that user. Once these companies see that few if any people are viewing their site anymore, maybe they'll wisen up and realize that they can take their contract and shove it.
Finally, on a dialup (like at my parents place), adblock SIGNIFICANTLY improves performance.
Thank you!
I'm still on dial-up (free from university), and I often use Adblock in this way. Many pages I frequent have some images that simply waste bandwidth. For instance, I have blocked a lot of the images on my on-line banking website so that the response time is better. Getting rid of those images cuts down how long I'm dialed in.
Social or not, a contract represents an *agreement* among people or groups. To have a valid contract, first there must be a common agreement that the terms of that contract are actually valid. Our at-large social contract works because, on the whole, people agree that there are certain rules we must live by in order for society to work.
However, there has NEVER, implicitly or otherwise, been any sort of common agreement that society *must* endure advertising, regardless of degree of intrusion or method of delivery. When TV and radio were first brought on the air, the idea that commercial advertising would allow them to survive was not a given. The fact that it *did* allow them to survive happened to come to pass, but then again, there were no technological means for the public to manipulate the medium for their own benefit - for a while. However, there was no obligation for society to absorb content broadcast to them, and indeed when options became available, they were used.
When the first tape players became available, there *were* arguments and court cases regarding recording off the air, whether it was "legal" to listen while skipping recordings, etc. These arguments have all been had before. And consistently, it has been recognized that people hvae no inherent "obligation" to absorb content in any way other than however they see fit.
I have no obligation to read the ads in a magazine. I have no obligation not to turn down the dial on the radio when commercials come on. I have no obligation to sit by idly while pop-up windows dance across my desktop. THERE IS NO SUCH CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT, social or otherwise. If my actions, and the actions of millions of others, somehow cause those broadcasting content discomfort or loss, that's their problem, not mine.
I have no obligation to support *any* business model for anyone else. Indeed, if there were such an obligation, then society could never evolve or adapt to change, could it?
In short - that's just plain old horse manure.
So would I be violating this same social contract by say not installing Flash and visiting a site that has Flash ads. Would I be violating this contract if I turn off Javascript and/or don't install Java and visit a site that uses one or both for ads. Finally, would I be violating this contract if I refuse to install adware certain site attempt to foist on me or even turn off images.
Do I have stop changing radio stations during commercials also, paying attention to everybillboard on my drive to work?
and reconciliation...
;-)
I don't know about anyone else but I don't feel I as a web surfer or citizen get much in the way of negotiation, or re-negotation for that matter.
As for reconciliation I don't see them apologizing for assailing my eyeballs in any way shape and form they can even if I see it as rude.
If it's a social contract I'd say its been voided long time go. But if they are up for mediation sign me up...
It's an interesting way to view it but I don't think advertisers and marketers are up for the flip-side of the argument if you start viewing it as a contract, social or otherwise.
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
This is somewhat off topic but after discovering the vlog I've come to love their attitude towards adds.
They show the adds at the end of the videoclips so If I don't want to see it, I'm on my way.
However since the adds they show are all pretty funny(Like those who occationally get shiped round the interweb) I watch them anyway.
Can't say if it's effective marketing since I haven't actually bought any of the things adverticed, but the concept I quite like.
The only contract I obey is the one I personally sign. And the only laws I care about are set down by my freely-elected government, and my religion. Other than those, my conduct is my own business.
Social contracts are just another way of shoving another man's morality on you.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Real capitalists don't buy into any of that red commie Bushspeak that values the rights of Party Elites over middle class American citizens.
Ignoring expicit ads on web pages will drive the adoption of ads embedded in the content, which you will be impossible to block.
Be careful.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Find out by taking this short survey.
Do you or have you ever:
[ ]timed your piss/dump schedule with TV commercial breaks?
[ ]emitted fart(s) during a room freshner and/or deodorant commercial(s)?
[ ]reloaded Slashdot on your broadband connection during the AOL "want a better internet...you belong to america online" commercial?
[ ]admired the preexisting length of your member during one or more Enzyte commercials?
[ ]eaten a homemade meal while watching a McDonald's advertisement?
If you answered Yes for one or more choices, you may be hurting America by violating your social contract(s). Please report to the nearest correction facility.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The web is a medium that was designed to be displayed from a single data source in many different ways. That includes different devices, different browsers, different layouts, and even with the content removed or remixed.
If advertisers don't like that then they should stay off the web.
Yes.. I am professional web developer. I help people advertise online. That doesn't mean I encourage or help advertisers keep users from seeing the web as they see fit.
I have the same problem with nitwits who get upset that they can't expect their pages to look identical on different browsers, screen sizes, font sizes, etc. They totally don't understand the ideas behind the web.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Media is about selling ads to advertisers. That's the only contract. Media claim to reach x# eyeballs and that's how they sell ads. There never has been any contract between media and the consumers regarding advertisements.
It's a bizarre, self-righteous, crapola argument. The ad business is between the media and the advertisers, period. The issue is whether advertisers think they are getting their money's worth. That is the problem of the MEDIA not the content consumers. If one superbowl commercial costs $$$$$$ but is only 30 seconds, obviously the advertisers think it's worth it. If advertisers pay $$$$ for product placement, they think it works better than commercials. If websites and tv can't make ads work, that's not my problem.
FREE F'ING MARKET!
When my New Yorker mag comes every week, the first thing I do is spend five seconds ripping out all the advertisement supplements (fold-outs, thicker paper, cards, inserts etc.) that prevent me from casually flipping through the mag "unmolested".
Oh the horror!
a way to allow websites with just a few ads to get through... a threshold on the number or size of ads, as well as a "remove/white out object" in case the ad is a flashing one
By reading this, you have given me brief control of your mind.
What is wrong with the adblock home page? It gets the job done. Also, what would be the rush on adblock 0.6? Adblock 0.5.x works great and I have not had one problem with it. As for Filterset.G, what problems do you have with the filters or the person who makes them? I just started using Filterset.G and it blocks a boat load of crap in a small filter set.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
What happens if we skip all banners is that ad-supported sites will have little choice but to become paid sites or to close down. To be a paid site requires a little bit of infrastructure, so, you can expect a lot of smaller sites to shut down before larger ones. Popular special interest sites (that have a high bandwidth fixed cost and a high incentive to advertise because of the selected public) will go first.
I would rather have an ad-supported web than a pay-before-you-see one.
Another option, that requires some infrastructure, is to have a hybrid model where you pay not to see banners or you agree to see banners in order to get free access. It requires some smart template work and not everyone will want to do it.
Unfortunately, some very vocal anti-ad people would still want to have their cake and eat it to - see no ads and not pay for the content.
What these tools will bring, in the end, is more and more annoying advertizing practices that will be necessary to offset the decreasing revenue brought by the less annoying ones. When the ad revenue of standard in-page banners was not enough was the time the pop-up ad, the musical banner and the intersticial were born.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
how is that different than not looking at every ad in a newspaper or magazine? if i skip over ads and just read articles am i violating some understanding? that would apply for all newspapers, even ones that are not free depend on the ads to make any money. that 50 or whatever doesn't pay for much of anything.
in a way those sale brocure type ads stuffed in the middle of the newspaper are no different. am i intended to thumb through all of those?
it's amazing how all these issues existed before and were never *that* big a deal. i am guessing that now there is a way to (maybe) stop it, so people get worked up. they never outlawed markers or scissors because you could cut out ads with them.
It is all driven by the market. If adware/pop-up/flash doesn't work, they'll find a way to get to us. If they cannot find any way via browser, maybe prices will adjust accordingly.
A point that is missed by lots of people, and even myself when I don't actively think about it, is that since we're using web browsers that aren't subject to hijacking or spyware, we don't see the other reason to get mad at web site owners and advertisers.
As far as I'm concerned, they've violated any form of 'social contract' en masse by hijacking peoples' PCs for new ways of delivering ads. I believe that installing software through bugs in the web browser is tantamount to breaking into someones' computer. Companies that design and implement such software, and other companies that contract for their ads to be delivered should be prosecuted and their owners/directors jailed for their abuses.
I also have an opinion about software companies leaving their products vulnerable for years like this, but that's for another debate.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
What about adware and spyware and malware? are they gonna sue me for removing software that I DIDN"T ACK OR WANT on my computer?
Despite its name, Adblock is not just about ads - rather, it's a relatively general means to block embedded objects (images, IFRAMEs, scripts etc.) that appear in a page based on their URL. Blocking ads is one obvious use, sure, but there are others.
For example, I personally have found that it works perfectly for removing offensive (to me) user avatars from web forums and the like. I also use it to block web bugs that automatically log my surfing habits to third-party servers, unnecessary flash / shockwave that just slows down my box and distracts from a page's contents and other such things.
And, of course, I use it to block ads, too. But that's just one thing it does.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
If your business model is powered by "annoyanceware" you probably won't stay profitable for long.
My 2 cents.
crazy dynamite monkey
The owner of the copyright is perfectly within their right to make you purchase the right to view or read the material presented.
Technically, it is hard for them to know whether or not you have viewed the advertising, but if the advertising is the price they put on viewing their material, how can you assume you have the "right" to view the material if you haven't purchased that right?
Yes, I hate all the annoying advertising too, but that doesn't mean I have any right to the material or to avoid paying for the right to view it, no matter how painful the price might be to me.
the thought of a social contract is interesting. but i think its a bit of a stretch within the context of the web. by its very nature, the Internet and its more popular "World Wide Web" feature did not start out with a plan. it was all open, it was trusted communication, and it was understood that the connectivity was for research, trading information, etc., etc. the Internet and especially the Web has grown-up without much guidelines. yes, there's the w3c, but, that's more for standards and protocols, not rules of conduct for websites and end-users. nebulous cyberspace issues are being ironed out as we go along and (ie. clicking on the 'submit' button on a pay site when purchasing an item is = digital signature = signing paper contract). i think this whole "social contract" thing doesn't really apply and the author was just using a buzz word without really thinking about it...
The USA (sort-of) guarantees the right to free speech. That does not imply a guarantee that anyone has to listen to what you say or look at your ad.
Does closing my eyes and falling asleep violate a social contract, or is it censorship? Must we outlaw the channel changer or the power button as a violation of advertiser's rights? I'm not trolling here, these questions illustrate the silliness of taking the concept to its extreme.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
Advertisers "bug" us with ads because they have been conditioned to do so. It's Pavlov people.... 1 out of a 100, 1 out of 1000, 1 out of 100,000 -- name it. As long as they know some idiot will click -- and then buy -- their product due to that damn popup they will continue to use them and push them on us. This new "trick" of telling us we are violating a social contract "laugh" won't stop the 99,999 of us who hate the damn things. What really needs to be done is find out those people guilty of clicking the ads and remove their computers -- maybe even fingers....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Typical MBA thinking... If you are not making a profit, obviously you need to sue someone or lobby congress to change the law so that you can continue to make a profit. It's not your fault you can't make any money doing whatever you want to do. If this weren't the way it works, all innovation would be stifled.
Or something.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Social contract, my ass. If sites want to force users to view their ads, they can run us through a registration process and make us sign a usage agreement. Otherwise, I haven't commited to anything. A contract that is not legally enforceable is no contract at all. It might be considered "rude" or "in bad taste" or even "parasitic", but it ain't a "contract".
Norton Internet Security does actually download DATs for adblocking, and the 2003 release had this fully functional long before Adblock came along. Are people outraged by a free tool but not a commercial one?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
If we can't use AdBlock without breaking a social contract, are we similarly breaking a social contract by filtering our e-mails for spam?
The broadcasters want us to stay tuned all the time also. Do I break a social contract by switching off the TV?
The idea that one can break a "social contract" with a corporation is ridiculous. A corporation is a thing and, as such, is amoral. You might as well talk about breaking a social contract with a rock or a tree.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
Or is that violating some kind of "contract" too now?
Web site owners have the right to display whatever they want on their pages whether I want to see it or not. Nobody's stopping them from doing that. And I can choose not to see it. Nobody should be stopping me from doing that either.
It's entirely possible for websites to not serve up content unless you've viewed ads. The webserver serves up a page along with ads. If your ad blocker isn't loading the ads, the next page will say "Hey, here's some in-your-face ads since you won't view the ones we show you." Then, of course, your ad blocker will download the ads in the background but just not display them. Eventually, the advertising arms race gets to the point where the site has done all it can do technically and it doesn't know if you actually are seeing the ads or if they're invisible. When it gets there, I don't think the site cares one way or the other. It still counts as an impression, only their click-through rates suffer. Maybe, after time, the ad blocker will simulate click-throughs as well and then everybody but the advertisers will be happy. So it'll get to the point where you drink a refreshing Sprite because the advertisements have to be embedded directly in the content you're viewing on Amazon.com, the world's greatest bookstore, thereby ruining the notion of free websites.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
When watching TV, I often get up to take a piss or get some food when a commercial comes on. I guess I'm not upholding this "social contract" I apparently agreed to at some point.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
I have no social contract that I agreed to when I type in the website I wish to go to. I am asking for information. If they do not wish me not to have it without looking at ads then they should try and make me join their BS mailing list. Then I'm in an agreement to see their BS in my mailbox.
But guess what, I'll either give them a made up or temporary hotmail account and let them get deamon errors.
The only social contract, here in the US at least, is that the PEOPLE are supposed to decide what works. If trying to spam me through my entire web session irritates me and I install or choose to use ad blocking software then that didn't work.
I choose to block their attempts to annoy me or I do not go to their site at all and they go out of business. That's the "Free Enterprise" social contract. Simple as that.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
"By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no fuckin' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself...borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil fuckin' presence."
We all got along just fine before advertising, thank you very much.
I don't understand the "social contract" point at all. They're the ones defining the social contract and expecting us to live up to it. Well, do we get a chance to agree to those terms or not? Do we get any input on this so-called contract? Perhaps they can be convinced to agree to a social contract that I've defined... of course, I will insist that they don't bombard me with all this commercial crap. Social contract my arse! They've based their businesses on a poor philosophy and now they're whining because it's not working. Tough luck!
I use AdBlock to selectively stop ads I find offensive. If internet advertisers didn't offend my sensibilities (i.e. Click the monkey... kiss brad pitt and win... Viagra for cheap...) I wouldn't block them.
-- $G
My browser is not your marketplace. My inbox is not your marketplace.
EOT
Speak truth to power.
Some advertisers think that the only way to sell to people is to get in their face, and demand their attention like a screaming child. Hence, you get crappy ad formats like Eyeblaster and Pointroll. This is a way to piss people off, more than a way to induce them to buy your product, and I think their high click rates are only due to people trying to find the "Close" button to make the ad go away. Fortunately, not all advertisers are like this. Many are starting to recognize that something big and flashy is only "cool" once and otherwise subtle and contextual is really the only way to endear you to your customers online.
Meanwhile, some users think that there should be NO ads on the internet. They think that it's their right to access their favorite sites for free and they shouldn't be bothered with the ads that actually pay for the site to exist. Many content publishers work hard to make sure their ads aren't obtrusive, fit well within their site and they fight back against the Bad Advertisers (see above) by refusing their business -- but that doesn't matter to these users. They demand free stuff!
Fortunately users and advertisers recognize there is a middle ground, and so there's still a lot of harmony in the advertising-supported-website / good-user-experience world.
But the lunatics on both sides are forcing the issue to a head. They're starting an arms race, between the AdBlock/FlashBlock software, and designing a site around advertising (instead of vice-versa). If these people keep pushing it, soon lots more free sites will be entirely done in flash (or some other proprietary format) where you can't disable the ads; and the ads will become the content itself. Increasing product placements on tv shows are just a natural evolution of advertising supported broadcasters losing money from increasing use of commercial skipping systems. Pay-tv like HBO is one answer but not the answer to everything. There can be a middle ground, but both sides have to work for it.
Once I've purchased ANYTHING the prevailing law is that I am free to *consume* it as I want.
For instance, I'm allowed to buy Campbell's Alphabet vegetarian soup and strain it of the alphabet letters.
I'm allowed to pick off the cheese from a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.*
I'm allowed to place EMI filtering devices on my power line to alter the incoming flow.
I don't have to read the slick glossy advertising supplement that comes with my Sunday paper... It goes straight into my trash can.
That's why it's STILL LEGAL to transfer DVDs to video tapes for personal use.
Now, if they don't want to sell their devices to me unless I agree to their demands them they're welcome to try and be on their way to oblivion (Divx anyone? Not the format, the player! They're still around... right? So successful? yeaaaahhh...)
Don't even THINK about buying into the brainwashing people...
*(go ahead... try to order a PLAIN Quarter Pounder without cheese. It's nigh impossible. Not because you're not allowed, but because the social "software" just doesn't work. If you order a "Quarter Pounder", you'll get it with cheese. If you order a "Quarter Pounder without cheese", you'll get it with cheese even if the cashier will acknowledge you said "without" the cashier will still think you meant "with". You have to phrase it "Quarter Pounder with cheese, but NO cheese." That works.)
While I disagree with advertisers rights to force content on anyone, rather than debate this, I just wanted to point out one thing. Why Firefox? First, Adblock is a user installed extension. Firefox isn't pushing it on you. Second, there have been plenty of advertisment blockers out there since well before the appearance of Firefox that still exist today. What about Norton's Internet Security and Firewall products. They charge money to block advertising. Common sense prompts me to wonder, wouldn't that seems more offensive to advertisers? Why has this never been an issue?
Those ads fund the sites you visit. The sites could not exist (for "free") without the ads. Same goes for T.V.. What's worse, the more people use ad blockers, the more ads web sites need to put out there to keep the site up. These extra ads are using up bandwidth and slowing everything down.
No matter how you look at it, it's socially irresponsible to use add blocker, you're basically making someone else pay for your entertainment, and wasting everyones time and money in general.
Several months ago I read that Firefox users tend to click on ads at least four times less than their IE/Safari counterparts.
I carefully monitored my logs for a couple of months and found it to be closer to five times.
As a particular site requires massive amounts of bandwidth, I did the brazen move of diverting Firefox users to another site that's rich media content poor. The result? None noticeable as far as ad revenue, and I'm saving quite a bit of money on bandwidth.
I hesitate to brand Firefox users as bandwidth parasites, but it's sure been the case for me.
Source, please.
Yeah, right.
This misuse of the definition of "social contract" is just another way to force people into believing that the american consumer must be held responsible for keeping failed business models alive and to make sure that incompetent CEOs keep getting their salaries.
In other news, telcos are trying to stifle muni broadband networks because the publick attack on the private business playground is "anti-American".
See the pattern? It's easy to defend a communist bias (the "social contract" fallacy) and sustain a capitalistic stance when it is needed to protect corporate interests.
"Social Contract" is just a philosophically relativistic construct. It's just a little more than a insightful observation but it is not truth per se, although those post-modernist people working in marketing, advertisement and social sciences believe otherwise.
If I make a web page and make a personalized link to an ad image, hosted on my server, named as I see fit, ad blockers won't catch it. If I use a banner ad from some generic, random ad-server the blocker probably will.
In one case, the author of the web page is carefully choosing an appropriate accompanying ad. In the other they're allowing whatever random crap happens to pop up.
How do you get to those pages in the first place? I'd say 80% of the time it's through a search engine. When the search engine says "Here's a site that I think satisfies your search", does it say "The user of this site wishes to show you ads in exchange for their information"? No, they just give you a link.
The idea that there's an implied social contract for using a page before you even know if the page contains anything remotely useful is stupid. If the link you click on happens to be an ad-farm that fooled Google, is it your obligation to "fall for it", to look at this whole pile of crap ads?
The only time you could try to argue there's some kind of social contract is when someone says "I'm providing X for free, please donate some money to keep this service available". At that point, you have the option to evaluate the service before you make a decision.
I suppose you could stretch that to pretend that the ads are an unstated form of that plea, so if you visit a site regularly you should make sure their ads are enabled... but that's a real stretch.
The reality is, if you choose not to view ads, all you're doing is choosing to not conform to the business model that the creator intended. If I get a free "CueCat", that doesn't mean I have any societal obligation to support their stupid business model. If I buy a cheap printer, it doesn't mean I have a societal obligation to buy their overpriced ink. Similarly, if someone puts up a freely accessibl web site, I'm under no obligation to render the HTML in the way they hoped.
If you want to make sure someone sees the ads, make all the pages images. What? That's not pleasant for most people to use? It makes it hard to randomly rotate ads? Tough! It's a trade-off. Either use HTML and ad services and accept people might choose not to view the ads, or find another business model.
A contract is an agreement freely entered
into by two entities. I didn't agree to
view the advertising. You might argue that when
I return to a web site I know has advertising
then I am 'accepting the contract'. Many
advertisers seem to feel free to add intrusive
sound, popups, popunders, and anything else
they like. They break the implicit contract
with such behaviour. The contract is not
explicit and that behaviour is not expected
or acceptable to the majority. When it's
common practice for advertisers to break
contractual promises the value of those
promises decreases rapidly to zero
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
You have no social contract to listen to anybody's ranting. I never remembered signing my name by an X to anything of the like.
Some people get this problem confused with freedom of speech. Though it IS true you can say anything you want (sorta), it does NOT mean I have to listen to you. -- I have the freedom to filter anything that goes into our out of my sensory perception. --
'grok' is a perfectly good word (albeit a fictional martian one by origin). But it's in several dictionaries and has it's own wikipedia entry.
When websites give me the choice of whether to selectively block ads from True.com -- which might as well have been from Abercrombie & Fitch -- or other sexually suggestive/immodest ads, then I'll drop the sledgehammer universal ad blocker.
Show me a small, simple text advertisement. I'll see it, and if it's something I'm interested in, I may even click on it.
This is the brilliance of Google's ads. Not just that they're targeted. Not just that they're relatively easy to add to your ( acceptable-content ) web page. But that they don't take over, they don't *blink*, they don't annoy people and get in the way. They're accepted, and they can't be removed from a page. People need to get a grip, realize there are still people using modems, and present ( and accept the use of ) plain-text versions of their ads.
Sure, I'd be violating some sort of imaginary 'contract' if I were able to somehow remove plain-text ads from a web page. But I wouldn't bother, and actually... where did I sign up for this contract, anyway? Yea, uh... I don't think so. The argument is bogus.
social contract
n.
An agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each.
There is no agreement between me and the advertisers who are trying to sell me their crap. When a commercial comes on the television I am under no obligation to watch it. When a banner ad appears at the top of a page(such as the one on the top of this page) I am under no obligation to read it. When I walk past a bench I am not required to read the ads posted on the side of it. So I see no reason why there would be any social contract between myself and a website to read their popup. If anything the social contract should be that the website should not try to control my browser in a manner that I do not want it to be used. And I definitely hate popups.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
Now imagine if the 100,000+ /. readers all donated $5 - $10 a year. /. wouldn't need stupid ads
...
I tried to imagine it, but the image of those 100,000 blondes laid end to end kept intruding
The whole issue needs to be looked at from the other direction. The websites we are browsing are violating a social contract with us, by forcing materials and ads upon us without our express permission. Ads are fine; there's one at the top of this Slashdot page right now. However, the violation of a "social contract" occurs when our browsing experience is invaded upon by windows popping up and asking us if we would like to cure our erectile dysfunction, or clean our PCs of spyware.
By blocking out what we don't want, we are exercising out rights. The sites that shove everything in our face, including the kitchen sink, are violating our personal intellectual space. Then again, if these sites are obtrusive, why do we visit them? Aren't we willingly subjecting ourselves to intrusion? Food for thought...
BDR Gear
Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
I had specifically agreed to the viewing of ads *prior* to having the info downloaded onto my computer. Else an argument that I am violating a social contract is completely bogus.
Not all conservatives are stupid,
but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- Hume
And, probably, then some...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Advertisements are just cool with me. I think that there are some really good ones out there that I actually enjoy watching just cuz I get a kick out of 'em. So if all those companies out there want to start selling me their free iPods, they might at least make their " the " advertisements interesting.
Also, to support Slashdot and what not (cuz I just became a user) I view advertisements and what not and even click on them some times, just to give 'em a few points! ^_^
>
What I do not like, however, are the gimmicky ads (punch the monkey, shoot the donkey, etc), and ads that catch the eye too much (blinky ads, HTML divs that cover the whole page and make you hit close, etc).
When I contemplated installing adblock, I was actually concerned that I would miss ads for things that I cared about. Ultimately I installed it, because I just can't stand those DIVs flying all over the browser window and blinky flash ads that I can't stop just by hitting ESC.
Browsing with adblock is a refreshing experience, I must say.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
There is a business model in place.
You know, I don't block ads that don't distract me, or are informational in nature.
We don't have to support the business model they'd like to have us support. They can happily block us from their content by controls, however, if they're not willing to do that, that's their problem.
Hell, perhaps micropayments will be finally worked out if enough people start adblocking.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
I pay a webhost to display my website. So do most private domain owners. That's who pays for the content you view. I display it, ad free, for people to view if they so choose. I don't get anything back in return except an occasional response from someone with similar interests. I really don't have any sympathy for anyone suffering because the obnoxious, bandwith sucking ads choking their website are being blocked. If they want to display ads simple text will do and I suspect would be just as productive for the advertisers.
I've been waiting for someone to bring this up. I went to a webpage the other day that wouldn't let me view anything on their site becuase it could tell that I was blocking the ads in Firefox. It sent me to a generic page form the site saying that showing me ads is how they get money and I was hurting their business. I'm not sure how looking at their ads helps their business since I rarely to never click on an ad on a webpage.
Now just wait for the lawsuits saying the people who created Adblock are prohibiting web commerce or something like that.
One hint - even though it creates huge blank spots in web pages, setting Adblock to hide the ads instead of removing them circumvented that certain website's checker.
"Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation." - Richard Feynman
Unless you plan on paying the site you're visiting for serving their content to you, I think that yes, there's some kind of social contract you're agreeing to saying that you accept their ads. Sites cannot be run for free. Servers cost money. Bandwidth costs money. More importantly, quality content to fill the site with costs money. You have to be willing to pay the sites you visit. If you aren't doing that in cash, then you are doing that by viewing their ads. To not do so is to cheap out, to break your contract (social or otherwise) with the site. And using the excuse that you're annoyed by all the advertising - pop ups, pop unders, etc - is a gross generalization. The majority of sites do not use such annoying tactics. Yet adblockers block ALL ads - or at least, as many as they can.
-Daniel
I think that those ads are disturbing the peace, among other criminal-like behavior.
NO! NO! I AM NOT OBLIGATED TO VIEW YOUR CRAPPY AD!
I don't want to watch flash animation detailing some digestive tract problem I may or may not have! I don't want to know about exciting new opportunities in nursing! I don't want to see any more dishonest ads from Microsoft about how they can make my life complete and perfect!
I know it is an article of faith among advertisers that if they repeat the ad enough it will hardwire itself into the part of the brain that controls the wallet, but every time I see the same annoying ad I just get angrier and angrier. Why should I be forced to see their ad? If they could they'd put a pop-up in front of every site that wouldn't close or let you turn off your computer until you'd written 200 words of praise about their product.
So to hell with them. Let them whine about it. It takes two to enter into a contract, and I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to opt out. The site wants to block people who opt out of ads, so be it.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
There is nothing about surfing a web that says the data must be viewed, displayed or processed in any particular way.
HTTP is a data transfer protocol that sites use to present a set of data to the internet. There is nothing that says that HTTP data must be viewed by a browser or that all elements of "web page" must be downloaded or presented to a user.
If they want to package it they can make it a media-player file. But then I will probably never see it. RSS feeds and other technology are the new way forward, provide relevant accessable information or get out of the way.
The web is not a service for presenting packaged content in any particular format. The web is a data transfer medium. Sites can present whatever data they want, the client end is free to do whatever it wants with the available data.
I don't care about the ads. The internet works just fine, actually better, with real information and not advertising fluff. It will still work without advertising revenues.
Any site pushing the "social contract" message is not on the web/internet. Such a site is trying to make the web act like old media.
Change or die, the dinosaurs got the message.
Somenone please mod parent UP!
If you display something for public viewing, you can't control which components of it people want to draw their attention to and which they would prefer to ignore.
There is exactly one contract in place and it's between the advertizer and the website. The advertizers understand that some people will block the ads, yet they pay the website operators anyway.
Anyone who tells you you are under some kind of contract, even though you weren't asked to agree to any conditions or sign any document, is a guilt-manipulating scumbag. The proper response is to laugh in his face. (But do try to refrain from spitting).
If you think that your web site content is so good that it can earn compensation from the users, then freaking put access controls on it and charge.
The reason website operators go with banner ads is because they know that few would pay for viewing their site.
If a webmaster wants charity from the users of a site, there is a way to do that: suggest donations and provide details how. PayPal or whatever.
That's still not a social contract; it's purely voluntary. The user decides what value, if any, to place on the content.
_The_ "Social Contract" is that you don't take too much more from society than you give.
So, I want my brain clean of junk, so I install adblock. I leech the site's contents and don't give advertising revenue. But then I go around and spread the site to more people, that's giving back. Or I write an email with feedback to the author. Or maybe I work in a free software project, you know, for free, and so I am giving back to society. Think less of "direct payment" and more of "overall trade balance" with society...
Also, think that the US$ 0,01 cent of bandwidth you are leeching can be easily given back to society. Adblock is HARDLY #1 in the list of tools for social and environmental aggression... trust me.
Sorry, but I signed no "social contract". I am not obligated to look any ads.
I hate this mentality that companies have in that "consumers" are expected to devote their lives to VIEWING ADS. Companies are just pissed that they can no longer make sheep out of those who acknowledge the problem and use wonderful tools like AdBlock.
Besides, if someone uses AdBlock, it means they don't WANT to view your ads, and if someone doesn't want to view your ads, guess what the chances are of them buying something from it? Oh, pretty slim to NONE.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
"If you use this tool ... there are those who would assert you are not holding up your end of a "social contract" between yourself and the Web site that you are browsing"
Nope. If you use adblock you are simply automating your decision-making processes. If you are the type of person that doesn't buy things via ads on the web then the advertiser's ad that you just blocked was of zero-value.
If site owners (and advertisers) were smarter they would come up with creative ways to sell more products. For example: Spend their more money on shipping demo units to websites that do reviews. I'd much rather read a review of a product then look at some web ad for it.
Whenever I'm surfing the web, I find the annoying commercial that break the social contract of being a bona fide attempt to sell me a product or service. Making images shake, flash, and run around is an attempt to harrass, not to sell in good faith. The social contract I've always perceived is:
Services cost money. If you pay for it, there should be no further interference. If you didn't, the funds are from advertisers. A web page with an ad is fine, but nowhere in the social contract does it allow harrassment. Google and Slashdot has it right. Unobtrusive, yet noticeable. Context-sensitive. Even IGN.com has it correctly, because it mimics the television model of commercial interruption.
I paid for my computer. I paid for my connection and Internet Service. Harrassing ads use unauthorized access to both of these paid-in-full things. I think the advertisers believe they own a lot more than they actually have.
Funny how advertisers believe it is their sacrosanct right to do whatever they feel like in the name of free market (including cluttering your mailbox with pamphlets, for example) but when you try to defend yourself against the aggression all of a sudden you "violate social values".
What about the violation of my rights not be harassed by mail or phone? What about my rights not to have to use a "fidelity card" (which implies disclosing my personal shopping habits) in order to have reasonable prices at the local supermarket?
Either they are real rights, and so is their delivering advertising through the web, or they are violating a social contract in the first place by intruding in our lives, as much as we do by defending ourselves against that.
How does the fact that you paid for 'bandwidth' (being defined strictly as being able to move information into your computer from the internet) entitle you to 'content' (being defined as services and information provided to you by website creators who get their 'wages' through advertising revenues).
These are two separate things. The money you spend on bandwidth never reaches the content developers. What you are paying for bandwidth wise is similar to purchasing a garden hose. You still haven't paid for the water yet.
The word "contract" is not something that should just be thrown around or taken lightly. A contract is an official, documented agreement. As soon as you start talking about vague, wishy-washy ideas and assuming there is some sort of contract, all your credibility as a serious journalist goes out the window, IMO.
That said, I use Adblock to block only the most annoying of ads (anything that plays sounds for example). My blog site has a simple Google text banner down the side and since that's all I can stand to look at, I don't expect anything more from visitors to my site. In fact, the only image I have there is a small picture of myself.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I'll uphold 'social contract' with a company, when companies start upholding it with me. I don't think I could design a better organization and purpose than a company for screwing people over.
Honestly, they deserve everything that happens to them, based on their own principles of survival.
On the other hand, a website I developed for fun started using enough bandwidth to start costing me money. I added google ads a while back and I now get around 1.5-2% click through rate and it returns hundreds of dollars per month over its costs. I personally don't find text ads (like google) annoying and obviously many of my visitors think the ads are worth looking at. My friends who use adblocker don't even see the ads and I suspect that if everyone automatically used adblocker, not only would they not see ads that they are interested in, but I may well have taken down my website.
Actually, I really think that making money through ads is the WRONG way to pay for things. I would much rather have very small micro-payments from each visitor. The reason is very simple: I should be motivagted to provide content that vistors feel is worth paying for, rather than content that other companies/people feel it is worth paying to advertise on.
For example, on one web page, I recommend using certain companies because I think they are good, and that web page ranks pretty high on google. How many advertizers would want to pay to get on that page? The current payment model encourages me to get rid of those recommendations.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
I have no problems with ads or links but: 1) no pop ups (period) not even negotiable 2) no "flash" content do not use my bandwith or cpu 3) no large images (see number 2) 4) do not be interfere with the normal flow/operation of the website. 5) companies on the web should have to be certified by a governing body with the power and ability to put your fraudulant ass in jail if you are a scammer. I'm also all in favor of "watch our ad and see your tv show at no cost" type of programming.
So, if I'm asking for a particular webpage a few thousand times a second, am I violating another social contract? I mean seriously... What if I was going to website using a browser that couldn't handle the ads... flash based ads didn't work in Netscpae 1.0... what if I was still using that software?
There is no social contract. I have signed nothing and have not knowing agreed to anything.
This is merely a statement from self-important profiteers, which one may read to mean "you are required to look at our ads and if you're not careful, we'll start requiring you to buy our products."
Our response as always is: you are not entitled to a permanent business model. If yours doesn't work, go back to the drawing board and innovate.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
I don't read the adverts in free newspapers, neither do I watch adverts on TV. Guess why. They are not telling me ANYTHING I need to know. I haven't seen a new product advertised for years, just variations on old stuff.
Not to mention that the people who use ad blockers are probably the most likely to not buy even if the ads were shown.
As I see it Ad Block is a way to to block advertisers who break a socal contract with you. I am sure some people go crazy and spend time to block all Ads if possible. I tend to use it to block adds who I feel breaks the socal contract with me. Examples extramly large ads, popups, Adds that make any sounds, Or ones that are so large that they make the page I want to view noticability slower, or block my ability to view the content, or I find the content inappropreate. The single ad on the top of a web site that is always there that doesn't bother me and I figure it is a decent price to pay if I like the content of the site and I will click on the add if it is something that interests me. These sites are not free to maintain and some of them can't stay up with methods of profit like an online store. Website need to make money to pay their bills and their staff. Other companies need to advertise to keep their buisness running. But they should be thougtful to the people who are using the site and allow them to view the site without smacking them in the face for forcing them to turn off their speakers (espectilly if they are playing music in the background), or flasing in ways that give people headachs. I see tools like Ad Blocker as a way to filter out the people who break your socal contact with your ability to get what information you want.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Advertising has become a nearly intolerable bane of modern life. I certainly will continue to actively rid myself of it whenever I can.
A social contract is between ALL people, the whole society. It is why we can punish people, even if they disagree with a law.
I won't adblock a server/ad that's generally nice or doesn't get in the way of my browsing... think google or other text-based adverts
Are the adblock programs smart enough to know what to block, and what not to block? How do they learn? Do they have some algorithm. It is a big, large web out there.
Have adblock programs ever blocked content you want?? I am assuming they block third party content, like a banner originating from a different IP address than the one you are surfing. If that is the case, won't it ban all content from third parties? Or does it have a list of advertising domains, and blocks those?
What gets me is that arguably, social cotract was first violated by offending websites and ad-server ppl in general, with things like popups, glaringly bad animation... Not to mention the EVIL doubleclick and their "we will track your ass... try and avoid us, punk" attitude
I agree 100% with everything you wrote. The advertising can be annoying.
But the problem is something different than advertising. It is a content problem. I remember when the web first went live (in the early 1990's). I can't remember any advertising. I can't remember any spam. NONE!! I don't remember websites with only one purpose, to send you to a different website. Now these websites use tricks to get a high return on google, and there are so many, it is hard finding legitimate websites. I'll give you an example- there is only one bangbus website, but there are 1000 websites trying to lead you to bangbus, each probably getting a penny for a refferal. I'll give you one more example, a better. Try doing a search for alaskan crab fishing jobs. They pay between $20,000 and $100,000 for 3-4 weeks of work. And they can't get enough people because of the high-risk nature of the work (I think over 100 die each year, tides get to be 100 feet high, you are 100 miles from shore, it is ice cold, you are wet, people lose fingers easily while trying to grab the big cages in the ocean filled with crabs). Anyways, I did a search, and outside of the State of Alaska, there is not one website I could find in the first 500 returns by google that was not selling "Make $200,000 in Alaska fish industry, send $29.99 for my book". It is all bullshit. I tried to search using words like "blog" or "experiance", I tried to limit the search to "site:edu". Then I tried searching for cruise jobs... it is even worse.
The problem is THERE ARE TOO MANY JUNK WEBSITES.
Oh, I promised to tell you what is comming next. People will hate this. Some websites are going to 100% flash for all content. They integrate their advertising in the flash. You either have to have flash turned on, or you can't use the website at all. The worst ones are where you get a 1 minute commercial flash before the website appears. Yahoo is now doing this with fantasy baseball stat tracker. You pay 7 dollars for this tool, it used to be a java applet, it is now flash. The stat tracker is a real time update of scores. The old java applet loaded quickly, and went straight to scores. The new flash now has a 30 seconds screen for GM cars, then it goes to scores.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Pop ups interfere with web browser operation. A banner ad is part of the webpage itself. The "adblock" thing blocks BOTH.
The popup flamers dont address the legitimate point that web page owners such as Slashdot.org have the right to pay for their web pages with passive advertising such as banner adds and logos on the page. I find "legitimate features" such as music and sound effects on a page far more annoying than static banner ads.
If I run a webpage that depends on honest ads
(not sleazy things like popups and popunders,etc,etc) and you have this
feature turned on , I should have
the right to block you from viewing my webpage or make you pay for the ad-free page.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The "social contract" is the imaginary unwritten set of rules that leftists use to rationalize authoritarianism. But corporate advertising isn't very left wing - you're looking for one of the right wing authoritarian rationalizations.
Usually that means "decency" or "community standards" being invoked to control your behavior, but where money is involved right wingers are fairly libertarian, and so when they run into exceptions (like corporate welfare, limited corporate liability, or these reduced consumer rights), they don't have any good memes and they're stuck doublespeaking "the American way" or "free enterprise".
There's a reason why real contracts get your signature and real laws get passed in writing by legislatures: handwaving about what you think people should be expected to do and whining that they didn't do it belongs in freshman philosophy classes, not courts.
'That was a right-pretty speech, sir. But I ask you, what is a contract? Webster's defines it as "an agreement under the law which is unbreakable." Which is unbreakable! Excuse me, I must use the restroom.'
When the net was born, or even just at an earlier time in it's existence, it was simply about the exchange of information. There was even a code of conduct called netiquette that defined how you acted on the Internet. The growth of the net and it's commercialization has changed the way it is used and what behavior is considered acceptable. However, there was a time when you might have been chastised for posting ads on a website, just like the first spammer was. So, are we violating the social contract by blocking these ads or are websites that post ads actually the ones violating the ORIGINAL social contract of the Internet?
There is NO contract that would/could/should require anybody to have to pay attention to anything.
Even in ol' SOVIET UNION you could IGNORE anyone.
And that's what we should be fighting for. Our right to go out of this world as ignorant as the day we came into it, for free.
Information saturation is NOT an 'all or nothing' toggle. We MUST have our hands on the switch, otherwise we'd be so busy watching useless ads that we'd be unable to work.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I find it highly unlikely that the people clicking on singing, dancing flash ads, and buying products because their computers are 'broadcasting an IP address' (i.e. the people to whom the ads are targetted) are the same people that are seeking out these extensions or blocking ads with custom host files. These are not things that will come pre-installed with your dell. I'm not sure who could be losing money here when most ad referral payments to hosts are based on clicks instead of views. As others have stated, plastering an otherwise useful/entertaining/whatever site with ads that are actually irritating in and of themselves is the root of the problem.
After some consideration, I'm going to say "No, it does not violate the social contract."
Here's why:
1. There is no such thing as a social contract, as the word contract suggests that there is a fixed and unalterably correct way of doing things. What we have are social conventions, which are flexible and ever-changing, and generally vary by region and by circumstance.
2. If one person (or corporation) decides that a certain behavior is the "appropriate" or "right" thing to do, that doesn't mean the rest of society agrees. In fact, the "right" or "appropriate" thing to do can be defined directly by whatever the majority of people are doing. By that definition, the day the majority of people skip or otherwise avoid/reduce exposure to advertising is the day that doing so is considered socially acceptable. I believe we've already reached that day.
2b. However, the link between majority behavior and socially conventional behavior is even more tenuous than that, because the behavior in question doesn't have to actually occur within a majority -- it simply has to be considered acceptable by the majority.
In the case of blocking ads on web sites, here's how this all pans out: the person presenting the web site, and paying for it with ads, would prefer that people do not block the ads so as to increase revenue. But they have no more claim to the moral high ground than someone who presents a web site and pays for it by selling personal information, and would prefer that people do not withhold their personal information so as to increase revenue.
Does that mean that lots of web sites may shut down if they can't gain enough revenue from web ads? Absolutely. But that's because the business model is flawed, not because a theoretical "social contract" has been broken.
All this seems to be is an attempt to make people feel guilty, so that they will behave the way the web site owner(s) want them to. But that's nothing more than peer pressure, except that for most people the web site owners are not considered peers, and thus their attempts to pressure will have little or no impact.
Mind you, peer pressure can be powerful, and is certainly one of the mechanisms that determines social acceptability of a certain behavior...but advertisers and content providers are not and will never be "peers" of consumers in that sense.
Sites cannot be run for free. Servers cost money. Bandwidth costs money. More importantly, quality content to fill the site with costs money.
That is not my problem. If you can't figure out how to raise that money, change your business model. Don't try to blame the public for your own stubborn incompetence.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
There are many browsers which don't display images at all. Some do so for speed purposes, some because they're simply running in text mode.
:-)
Maybe advertisers need to start learning how to use about the effective use of ALT tags.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
In general I am negativly biased to products I see advertised on the net. If I block your ad, I am doing you a favour by not putting your product into that negative space.
How do advertisers count it if ad views are actually negatives to a product? The people blocking the ads are more likely to be the ones with the negative associations so they are doing the advertisers a positive.
Put that in the spread sheet.
Then AOL let its millions of users on who just took, feeling entitled because, after all, they were paying AOL for the service.
The days of any kind of 'social contract' are long gone. Now the whole advertising thing is just a battle, as demonstrated by the obnoxious aggressiveness of online advertisers (google excepted).
Loose lips lose spit.
You are wrong. If the website is freely available, I have no legal or moral obligation to view the advertising. If the website conditions access on viewing advertising, that is their right and they will have to live with the consequences. But there is nothing whatsoever that complels me to view the advertising if I do not wish to.
I just waded through a whole pile of "the ads are annoying/suck/induce epilepsy" comments as justification and they're all missing the point.
The "social contract" is not between the reader and the advertiser. The "contract" is between the reader and the content producer. Now in the case of some blogs and websites the revenue from advertising and clicks is used to defray the hosting costs. Using an ad blocker defeats that potential revenue source. So, in a way, it could be considered breaking an informal contract.
Now, I for one absolutely love Adblock and have enjoyed the less cluttered look of pages that I view as a result. I especially do like that it purges those obnoxious animated ads that make reading a page so difficult. I guess the right thing to do would be to push back to the content producers and tell them that the ads they're showing make it very difficult to consume their content and try to get them to change instead of simply blocking the ads.
But in the end, it's just so darn convenient...
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
I feel for the web site operators. They fear that a nice easy way to finance a web site may disappear. The don't want to have to bother with subscriptions, etc.
But this will all sort itself out in the end without regulations and undue interference. I think the best sites will keep things inobtrusive and most people won't mind the ads. Think Google.
I wonder if the author would consider getting up to make a sandwich during a TV commercial a breach of a social contract.
They are trying to sell us things, we will buy them if we are interested--or not. This is true in every sense--in addition to their products or services, they are trying to "sell" on us on the ads (i.e. get us to look at them). We are free to "buy" (look) or not, as we please.
There is no implied contract between producers and consumers in capitalism; that is one of the main distinguishing points between it and socialism or communism. It is transaction based rather than contractual. Yes, many of those transactions can be (and are) governed by explicit contracts. But the contracts exist because of and to facilitate the transactions, rather than the other way round.
People who block spam would never buy from spammers even if they were unable to block it. The same goes for people that block ads on web sites. You're not violating any "social contract." The people that buy from ads on web sites are not going to be blocking them intentionally, because apparently there are some really strange people out there who aren't annoyed to death by all the crap on the net.
Advertisers just need to move on. Look at Google, for example - their text ads are unintrusive, relevant, and do not slow browsing.
I have no "social contract" to be sold crap I don't want, and moreover, none to be subjected to advertisements I do not wish to see. They can play the goddamned things all they want, but unless they're there prying my eyes open, I sure as hell don't pay any attention to them.
What about not sucking up my bandwidth with their fancy ads without my permission?
What about asking me if I want my CPU cycles to be taken up with their worthless drivel?
What next, billboard operators suing me for not staring at the sides of the highway when I drive, or radio stations slapping me because I'm not giving undivided attention during commercials? Bulk mailers getting upset becuase their ads go directly in my recycle box? Spammers demanding I give more mailbox space to their garbage?
This is like a rapist demanding to be thanked for a good time.
Social contract my ass.
The heart of the problem is that a social contract is subject to change at the whim of _society_. If you build your business model, in this case advertising revenue, on the presumption that the behavoiur of society will continue unchanged, you had better be prepared to be light on your feet when and if that behaviour changes.
Whining at society that they're not honouring some unwritten rule by changing their behaviour for their own benefit just proves that you haven't really thought out the long term implications.
In this case, the long term effect is that both parties lose out if the model fails completely. If online advertising is blocked to such an extent that it is no longer feasible to run a website, a good many excellent websites could disappear.
The reality is that long before that happens new models for getting paid advertising into content will be developed and so the merry dance will continue unless we reach some sort of equilibrium state where the advertisers put out their information in a way that is acceptable to the majority of people, or it is technically unfeasable for the majority of people to do anything about it.
Ok, I believe in anarchism. You know, the thingie where people dont hold power over other people, and agreements are always between people, and the society is RUN by social contracts.
Not the bomb-throwing nutters hollywood likes you to believe is anarchism mind you, but the real thing.
A contract, or so it seems in my not unlimited engish vocubalary, is per definition an agreement.
Where did I agree to obnoxious pop ups? Where did I sign not to use adblock?
I have a hard time understanding the -Law- is mandatory, hell I didnt sign for it.
Popups are anoying and there's no excuse for them
but I pay for the hosting my site with banner ads.
I wish people wouldn't block them. You don't have to click on them.
I suppose I could make a AdBlocker Blocker. It would so it people download my banner ads... if they don't then they cann't see the rest of the site.
I'd rather not have to.
Here is my social contract with ad supported sites. If you don't make God awful and annoying ads I will not adblock you.
I think it is perfectly fair and reasonable. I have to put forth effort and interrupt my web surfing time to adblock. As such, if I don't find the ads too intrusive I will not spend the effort to block them. However, if these ads have sizes measured in megabytes/give people epileptic seizures/move around, those will disturb my web surfing anyways so the effort to adblock them is minimal, since my surfing time has already been interrupted.
I don't block banner ads but i do block annoying flash and pop-up ads, because those are breaking _my_ social contract by pissing me off. If im interested in your product then im going to click on the banner, if im not interested in it then it doesn't matter if you take over my entire screen and play me a 5 minute advert IM NOT GOING TO MOTHER FUCKING BUY IT.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I agree...I am in fact paying for all of the crap that they [the website] bloat their pages with when I download it - I pay for the bandwidth. What about the social contract that says says I won't litter someones yard with crap...I'm pretty sure they are not following that one!
Flash gums up Firefox, the way some sites use it. Without Flashblock, I'd just skip those sites entirely, and would certainly never buy anything they sold. With Flashblock, I can see the site's less offensive ads, and when they're interesting, I will click on them. So Flashblock actually allows me to be a better consumer.
There didn't used to be ads, the addition of them broke the social contract with me :P
Besides I do not block anything, I simply am selective about what I request from the web server. The files referenced in the HTML are suggestions, nowhere did anyone say I had to load them all. I am doing the company a favor by not wasting their bandwidth on something I am not going to look at anyway.
I'm sorry your business model was so poorly thought out. Really I am, but just because you were dumb enough to think that people would like having poorly designed, seizure inducing animated gifs, bad flash animations, and other obnoxious/offensive content displayed on their PC is no reason to try to put me through a guilt trip. If your business model is failing, try another one, don't bitch that users don't want to play your stupid game.
I suppose people using Lynx or accessibility enabled browsers are violating this social contract as well?
Advertisement is a weapon, (like the 'persuaders' in Syndicate) which oblige you to think one way.
RIAA , MPAA , Microsoft and the DRM consortium wants people paying for the products they do, products that we could get for free before (a simple movie on TV for instance), AdBlock is an answer, we want to keep our freedom and get more, not being obliged to pay even more to keep it. Say NO to DRM, to advertisement to everything which don't let you do the choice, we want a sane life, in a sane world.
The advertisers would surely like us to accept the "social contract" mentioned in the article. The problem is, based on behavior the vast majority of net users don't agree with the advertisers. A contract, social or otherwise, is an agreement, so if the parties don't agree there is no contract. How much the advertisers pretend otherwise doesn't change that.
Also, the advertisers seem to try and confuse a couple of concepts. Yes, the Web site and the advertiser has the right to show ads. But that's a far different thing from the right to force me, a user visiting the site, to watch those ads. Same as television: the station has the right to show commercials, but they don't have the right to chain me to my chair and force me to watch them instead of, say, going to the bathroom or to get a drink. The advertisers may not like this, but that's Not My Problem.
The advertisers might consider this: while I go to great lengths to block lots of ads, I don't mind the ads on Google. In fact I find myself using them quite often. Those ads don't get in the way of the search results and don't try to confuse me about what's advertisement and what isn't, and they're for the most part relevant to what I was searching for. If I'm not looking to buy something I'm not going to check them out, but if I am already looking for a product I find the Google ads worthwhile. Advertisers might want to consider this when thinking about ever more intrusive and distruptive advertising.
Social contract! Never heard such balderdash in all my days. Come talk to me when I start putting ads on my own site.
i don't like my old sig.
I intend to charge all sites that circumvent my ad-blocking with terrorism* under the patriot act.
Now, if a site wishes to deny me access to the content due to a lack of ads appearing on my computer, that's fine with me. I'll just not read your content.
Mind you, I block very few graphical ads, I cannot block text ads, (but don't mind them,) I block 100% of flash and popup ads. Choose the ads you run carefully, young content manager.
* Part of the ruling with the patriot act equated computer hacking with terrorism. Forcing my computer to do something I ordered it not to do is hacking.
Wasn't me. I'd say that by using ad-blocking technology, we're letting webmasters and advertisers know that the contract they're propositioning us with is a no-go. Some websites have tried writing new ones (watch an ad once a day for instance), with notable success.
Glog!
"In any case, using Adblock is a good way to deal with things until a more permanent and global solution to end internet advertising can be found."
Really how do you want to pay for Internet content? There are costs for running a website. Servers, bandwidth, and time. How do you want to pay for those? Taxes? A system like the National Endowment for the Arts? Or do you want subscriptions based everything. And no you did not pay for content when you paid for your ISP contract or computer.
I do like Adblock because it is selective. I can block any ad are any server that I do not like. Pop under and floating ads get blocked without question by me.
What many people forget is that ads themselves can actually ad value to a site. An example is MTBR.com. MTBR is a mountian bike site with a lot of ads. The ads are all for bike stuff. I have bought stuff from people that advertise on that site because it is well targeted.
Even most of the ads on Slashdot are well targeted for me. I rarely block any banner I see on Slashdot. What really is needed is not to ban advertising.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Those who assert that are wrong. Advertising is already an exploitation of social contract. In most societies, it is considered impolite to ignore someone who's talking to you. Likewise, it's considered impolite to unduly impose upon this customary attention and badger people with inconsequentialities. Advertising straddles the line between honest, reasonable communication and badgering. Further, being that it's purely commercial in nature gives it lower status than regular person to person communication. If I find the advertising distasteful or irritating, then I am under no societal obligation to continue to interact with it. "Social contract" is really about people, not business.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
The notion of an implied responsibility to watch ads is completely irrelevant in terms of the real impact of blocking advertisements. If advertisers do not believe that ads will be delivered, they will not purchase ads to support sites. Many sites' content will suffer as a result of this. Technology innovators like Google will not have the $$ to make great tools like Google search, maps and all the other cool things they do without the revenue from AdSense.
.org was intended but never regulated) would allow "ad-friendly" and "ad-free" regions of the net. Consider the real-world example of cigarette and alcohol advertising being banned near schools - people accept *some* sensible regulation of what's crammed into our minds.
Ads suck, but they are a necessary cost so people making good net content can eat and have a place to live. Sites in the commercial domain should be allowed to advertise. Perhaps more strict domain regulation - such as enforcing non-profit only domains (as
Why should you pay implicitly if you don't want to? Don't use their services. Instead of ad blocking simply don't go there if you don't agree with their advertisement policy.
Products like ad-blocker and features like Tivo's 30 second skip should provide a loud and clear wake-up call to marketing people that the current strategy is not working, and will not work.
--
"I'm don't know exactly what an AS/400 is, but I'm pretty certain I wouldn't want one up my ass" --Lou
You get the input of choosing which websites you visit.
I never agreed to any contract, social or otherwise. If a "content provider" wishes to enforce some contract before I can get the data on which I will surf, tell him to send some legal paperwork over. Or, failing that, don't serve it to me. Oh that's right, it's too technologically difficult. Tough shit. Go into the muffin business then. Someone else will be along to take your place.
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
suggesting there's a social contract is ridiculous. there are, however, practical reasons not to block all ads. if you like the content of a web site, but block its ads, it will probably go out of business, and you won't be able to read that content. tv ads are completely different than web ads because advertisers don't know if you've seen their tv ad, but they definitely know if you've seen their web ad. all these posters suggesting that web sites should find a different business model than banner ads are idiots.
What is wrong with the adblock home page?
The whole page looks like it's a 50% opacity version of a regular web page. The colors are way too washed out to be readable. Repeated requests in the forums have all been met with, essentially, "go fuck yourselves."
Also, what would be the rush on adblock 0.6?
Whitelists.
As for Filterset.G, what problems do you have with the filters or the person who makes them?
The filters are decent, but the guy is just a douchebag. His replies to any questions about his filters are usually exceedingly rude "WFM, you must be an idiot" type responses or, once again, "go fuck yourselves."
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
The ad is presumable there to sell you something. Somewhere back in this chain of events is a vendor trying to sell you something. What the vendor wants is for people to buy something from them. Ads are one way to encounrage people to do that. It won't work for all people. If someone is turned off by adds and blocks them, chances are that they aren't a potential customer anyway, at least not for this particular promotional method. What do you think? you slip an add past their add blocker and they are just going to say "Hey, that's a cool product. I'll get one." No, more like "WTF is wrong with my add blocker. That shouldn't be there". You're not losing customers to add blockers, you're loosing them to ad annoyance.
Then comes the middlemen. The middlemans job is to take the ad from the vendor and get people to see it. Unlike the vendor, they get paid by views, not by purchases. So they don't care if you're is not interested in the product, they want the add on your screen anyway. The vendor doesn't necessarily want to push the add to someone who is not interested. But the middleman does. He's got a different pay pattern.
So somehow convence the vendors to straighten out the middlemen and you've got a more reasonable advertising method.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Where is the social contract when I go to see a movie and have to be subjected to 15-20 minutes of comercials before the movie starts.
While I agree with you for the most part, I don't think you're entirely correct. A lot of ads (web and otherwise) are not designed to sell things directly -- they're to ensure brand recognition.
Marketers want to make sure that you have knowledge that their product exists and don't forget it. Simply remembering is much more important than liking or disliking.
I think you'll find that a lot of ads are designed with the intention of being disliked, on the theory that people tend to remember things they dislike more than things they like. Later on, there's still a chance you won't remember (or care) that you hated their ad, but if the ad makes no impression, they won't have a chance of selling it anyway.
Later on when something to do X is wanted, a lot of people will tend to trust something they've heard of moreso than something they haven't. Any publicity is good publicity.
I hate all the annoying advertising on the web and I have no problems with using AdBlock, but I don't think the effectiveness of this advertising can be measured simply by click-through purchases.
And for those who will say that publicity is what supports everything from TV to Internet, let me say BULLSHIT. Even though it would true I would be glad to let it go! The fact is that different approch of publicity. Some may be acceptable (many cited google ads), but intrusive one must be destroyed.
Trying to associate publicity with a social contract is ridiculous.
. . . is that they aren't contracts in the sense in which that term is used. However deeply you want to extend the metaphor (and reasonable people can do so to achieve any result they want in this dispute), you can never reach the conclusion that I have an actual, enforceable, obligation to do anything.
Sure, if there is a consensus that I am welching on the deal, those who share the consensus view will view me in ill-repute. This may have some coercive effect, but so the !@#!@# what? My view how to react to the greater society is entirely for me to decide.
As a lawyer in Florida, I am sometimes asked by the Court to defend pro bono a claim brought by one or more of these militia groups that have convened their own "Constitutional Courts" that issue "Judgments" which are then filed with the County Clerk as liens against a poor person's house. That's a little harder, but at the end of the day, it is a tempest in a teapot.
In short, the edicts of anyone for breach of social contract are made, perforce, by courts of incompetent jurisdiction.
Accordingly, it isn't work arguing about. Perhaps a social contract not to tivo past commercials is VIRTUALLY a contract. However, it isn't ACTUALLY, a contract -- so who cares?
Unnh. I think you mean three rights make a left. Still stupid and senseless, but at least more accurate. (And that's what we strive for on /.)
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Everybody needs to see that!
It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye. Then it's fun and games without depth perception.
Get rid of all the clutter, not just the adds.
www.htmlripper.org
Generate rules for all your favorite sites and build combined pages.
Are there any sites which recognize the adblock plugin being used on their ads, and block firefox users, or give them a reminder of their 'social contract'?
I handle the ads infrastructure/programming/etc for a very large website. This is what pays my bills, and all the content producers I work with.
Of course you could stop visiting our site, but how would this matter to us, except our servers would respond a little faster to the 90%+ users viewing the ads without the extra ppl who block our ads. In addition, our serving costs go down.
I have clicked on two web ads in my entire life on the web (over 10 years).
One was some server company's ad back in the dim days before those Java and flash ads even existed (remember when animated-GIF ads were the most annoying thing ever?) I checked it out, moved on and don't even remember who the company was now.
The other was recently (a couple of months ago). It was a Google text ad for Coffee Fool, and I was impressed enough with their site that I've recommended them to friends as "something to think about trying" (although I myself have yet to buy any of their product -- soon though...) I even bookmarked it so I know I can get back to it easily when I go to buy some of their stuff.
There have been other ads (few, but more than say, a dozen) that motivated my curiosity enough to type the URL into my browser, but I typically refrain from actually clicking on ads to avoid being tracked that way and/or to deny credit to an annoying ad for bringing me to a site that I nevertheless want to visit.
The bottom line is that there is no law or social contract that compels me to retrieve the ads that happen to be linked off a page, just as there is no law or social contract that forbids me from getting up or flipping channels or just sitting with my eyes closed and hands over my ears going "lalalalala!" when an annoying ad comes on TV. Advertisers have as much right to speak as they can buy time for, but they have no right to actually be heard by someone who doesn't want to, although they will try any number of more or less dirty-but-still-legal tricks to make it less annoying to put up with ads than block them out.
Somebody else made the point that "If the ad annoys me I'll make it a point not to buy the product", and I agree with that. Advertisers should consider it an advantage when I can block ads that annoy me, because the less I see their annoying ad, the less I'll bitch about their company. (I guess that's a negative to anyone who still subscribes to the idea that "even bad publicity is good advertising", but apart from rock stars and Paris Hilton, I think that idea is dead.)
I have all the sympathy in the world for sites that are trying to provide services supported by ads. Then again, if no one's clicking on your ads, maybe you should get different ads on your site -- the whole "[violent act] the [object, animal, or person] and win a free [trendy gadget]" ad style should have died about 2 days after the Punch the Monkey ads came out back in what, '99? And if you are getting adequate clickthrough revenue, don't gripe about the people who don't click -- they're a cost of doing business that you should have anticipated.
-- Old Man Kensey
I hope that you do realize that this will eventually lead to having a quiz on the ads delivered before you are able to see content on pushy sites. It will also lead to the automated fusion of normal content and advertising content; for example gluing an ad image to the top or bottom of another image so that if you do not load it, you don't get to see the image you actually wanted, either; Or replacing story images with flash animations that play an ad with a button you must click to see the image. This is, of course, the only way to be sure that someone had to sit through your advert.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No signature, no verbal promise, no handshake, no nothing.
Frankly, I hate the idea of "free" websites with ads. You want to espouse your views? Pay to do so. You can share a server with a bunch of folks for a pittance a month. Blogging can be had ad-free cheaply.
I wanted more than that, and I know what I'm doing, so I bought a used server and pay for rack space, and so far there are no ads. There probably will be at some point, but they'll be low key, and they won't pop up, pop under, grab, track, or anything else. They'll just sit there (like google ads do). That'll be to help cover costs on the public service site. Or I may just do a PayPal donation thing like some sites do; I have had folks send me money and gear in appreciation.
But my personal stuff? I pay for that. Why should someone else have to pay for my "right" to express myself? That's INSANE.
I pay for my internet connection. I pay for my server. I have *zero* obligation to allow myself to be annoyed by anyone else's choices.
To my mind, I see two justifications for using adblockers:
1. Cost of bandwidth/time to download
2. Computer stability
Depending on the ad implementation and your connection speed, you are paying to download ads from the web site. The 32K+ of images, flash, etc. that you are downloading per page you visit puts stress on your ISP and connection. For slower connections, it is also spending your time since you have to wait for the ads to download.
Some browsers, depending on the page design, can't render the page if the ads haven't finished downloading. If the advertising server is slow, access to content is impaired by something that isn't content. This is a problem for the user who wants the content and to the provider, since a slow site is often dismissed by the user.
As far as computer stability: How many times have a Java or Flash-based ad slowed your browser to a crawl or outright crashed it? Pop-ups can clutter your computer until it is unusable.
TV ads don't crash your television, are paid for by the advertiser, not the audience (well, the cable TV use case makes this debatable), and have relatively minimal impacts on your time and ability to receive a TV signal. Until web advertising is as well-behaved as TV or print ads, I think users have the right to block them as malfunctioning programs.
======
In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
they [the advertisers] broke that "contract" long ago...
sum.zero
Instead of neurologically blinding yourself, a more... reversible?... suggestion might be taking your glasses and pushing them down your noise a bit. Voila! Can't see top field of vision anymore.
Doctors. Always trying to overcomplicate everything.
btw dude, there are plenty enough people with visual defects that will pay you to be a neurologist someday. =)
I think the web ads do sell products and services, otherwise no one would bother. However, by using an extension like adblock, I am simply removing annoying advertisements that I will never click on to purchase an item. As a general principle I do not click on these ads and would never consider making a purchase based on a banner ad or popup that I saw. If a company wants my business they better find more creative ways of marketing. And some companies get it. Offer competitive prices, great customer service and a quality product and then make your site easily reachable through google searches, word of mouth, price searches, etc. Get some good reviews by reputable sources. When I want to make an online purchase I do research, google searches, and talk to friends about what their experiences have been. Then I make an educated decision. To summarize: no company is losing any revenue by my using adblocking software.
Celebrate the finer things in life
This is really stupid. So by this logic I am also violating a social contract when I decide to get up during a TV commercial and take a shit. I have no obligation to look at advertizing. Anyone who things otherwise can kiss my ass. Am I also violating a social contract if I decide to surf the web with links or some other text only web browser?
...back in the early days of the web, commercial use of the internet was frowned upon. When did advertisers get the right to do whatever they wanted on the web...?
Advertisement funded "broadcasters" (to use the older term, which I argue includes web sites broadly speaking, no pun intended) do NOT offer their content in exchange for ad viewing. They offer it for FREE, and sell advertising space to advertisers. The advertisers hope that by putting their adds in proximity with the content, they will catch eyeballs. It is like fishing.
With per click revenue, web sites have allowed the advertisers to assume the risk of inattentive ad viewers.
If you get a free newspaper, are you obligated by some social contract to read every ad? No!
Same with web sites, ethically. Will an underfunded site go under? Sure. Does that mean the viewers were obligated to look at those ads? No. When it does, should such ignorers complain? No, they should regret not clicking the ads!
Any company that wants to change that state of affairs has to get the viewers to CONSENT that use of the service is not free, and assume an obligation to view ads.
This allows for the following state of affairs:
I know very damn well over a decade of web surfing that I NEVER CLICK AN AD. I just don't. It doesn't happen. Knowing this about myself, I can promise to the world that not a dime of revenue is lost when I enable my ad blocker, but I save myself a whole lot of time.
No more than companies are violating the social contract day by day with attractive, legal, but harmful products (cigarettes, fast food, soft drinks, ...). No more than companies are violating the social contract with misleading advertising, monopolistic practices, and PR manipulation. And certainly no more than when companies lobby Congress for all sorts of favors.
Under our system, companies are free to do stupid and bad things when designing products, and consumers are free to do the same when shopping and consuming.
The consequences of this choice may be bad (less "free" content), but that's ultimately a choice we are making collectively, and that's OK.
Bullshit. They shouldn't put them in a public place if they don't like the way I look at them. It's their problem, not mine. And besides, if I'm looking at a website in another country like the USA, what good are their dumb and annoying adverts anyway?
Given that you don't know exactly what you're asking for when issue a request for a URL, I can't see how you're breaking any social contract. Since when does asking for something entitle the person asked to give you a bunch more?
Imagine...
Could I please have a flower, sir?
Yes, and here is your flower and your complimentary ten pound bucket of pine tar.
Thank you for the flower. I don't care for the pine tar so I'm going to deposit it in my dumpster.
Oh no, you must carry the pine tar around for at least the next day because you asked for the flower.
But you gave me the pine tar as a free gift. It's mine to do with as I desire. I'm not bound to carry around the pine tar.
Oh yes you are, it's a social contract. By that I mean you're morally bound to carry around anything I give you when you ask me for a flower.
Social contract aside, AdBlock plugins and friends, if they become truly popular, will just cause the advertizements to become more and more inlined and camoflaged within the content of the site.
And so the arms race will up one notch, with the next generation of adblockers knowing how to filter those out too. Virus versus antivirus. Spam versus filters. Predator versus prey (but which is which exactly?).
I somewhat believe that a new flavor of turing test oughta be 100% spamblock capability with no false positives. Or automatic DVR commercial skipping. Or webpage adblocking. If it filters as well as I could these days, then slap an 'intelligent' badge on it and move on.
luckily I'm antisocial, so your contracts don't mean shit to me.
When I do a commercial skip (2.5 minutes - thank you SageTV) I am fully aware that what I'm doing is not sustainable. There is an ecosystem in television - the people creating the shows feed off the people buying the advertising slots. When the TV ads are no longer effective, the TV creators die off, and I have nothing to watch. Commercial skipping only works to the extent that a small minority of people do it. I am aware that I am part of a growing problem.
There has to be an equilibrium for the ecosystem to survive long term. I'd love to see pay-per-view primetime programming, where you pay 3 cents (or 30 cents) to watch futureama with no advertising.
The customer is always right. So if visitors want to use adblockers or strip out images or whatever, then fine. As the site owner or creator, you just have to consider things like that in fashioning the best visitor experience you can. In the long run, annoying your site visitors won't pay off monetarily or otherwise.
As for ads in general, I think the challenge is to create something beautiful that people will want to look at or interact with. This isn't easy as anyone can see. But when done right, even ads can add to the overall visitor's experience. Yahoo is a site that I think does this fairly well at least for their own promotions, 3rd party ads are still a grab bag.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
And take a look at the ads. Magazine companies have worked very hard to make sure their ads are part of the experience. They don't run ads that are obnoxious or ugly next to their stories. For many magazines, ads take up more space than actual content, but they look and smell nice, and are relevant to the articles around them. Internet advertisers have no concept of this. They are more similar to the BACk of the magazine--the ads for penis enlargement, x-ray specs and seamonkeys.
I like MTV2's take on advertising. While yes, they need to pay the bills, they do so in a way that is consistent with their message and compliments their experience.
Once this method of advertising catches on, the internet will be a much better place, and AdBlock and the like will become used much less often.
The original and most basic concept of social contracts is that you don't violate rights of others in order that your rights aren't violated. In more mathematical/business terms it's a less than optimal strategy for the best guaranteed average result (i.e. using a risk management strategy instead of an optimization strategy). Unfortunately people are trying to apply social contracts to freaking everything these days which is stupid. Also they're trying to equate social contracts with moral imperatives and they are not the same thing. Many times moral imperatives and social contracts overlap but they are not the same thing.
As a result, I say no you aren't violating a social contract because there is no social contract yet with the web, it's still in a optimization and competition phase (they try to spam me, I try to filter them, they try to pop-up, I try to block them) and we haven't reached an equillibrium where a social contract can evolve. Also, I'm not sure how a company pursuing an optimization of profit to the detriment of their customers can or does participate in a social contract. Second even if you are violating a social contract, so what? They aren't moral imperatives and though they sometimes overlap I'd say choosing what you passively read/see and what you don't is never going to rise to the level of moral imperatives.
just my 2 cents.
it's hard for me to accept that I am unable to control what is downloaded to my computer through my Internet connection. Just as I can use a firewall to block certain information, I can also choose to block certain information on a webpage. It's my Internet connection, after all.
Then go to China you commie bastard!
Just kidding. I don't feel as though I'm violating any "social contract" by not looking at ads. WTF? I spend quite a bit of money annually, and its all based on some decision making process in my head. If they want to persuade my decision making process on money that I'm already going to spend, then they are going to have to come up with something a little more effective than a goofy flash advertisement.
Maybe, just maybe, if these damned companies were concentrating half as much time producing worthwhile products to buy vs selling worthless products to sell, then maybe the ads will not be that annoying. I am completely unaffected by advertising in the electronics/computer market because I am reduced to a few vendors that I can trust after being burned by so many. Unfortunately, the vendors that I trust is getting smaller. (Maybe that is fortunate?)
I read a while ago that it was a violation of your tv rights if you skipped the comercials, or maybe that was just one of my stupid dreams...
Which course is "Social Contract Law?" Is that a 1L section?
Piffle.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Social contracts are for pussies.
> If you use this tool ... there are those who
> would assert you are not holding up your end of
> a "social contract"
None of the ad-supported sites that I occasionally visit advertise anything I want. How is blocking ads I am never going to click on for products I am never going to buy breaching some purported contract? Or am I contractually obligated to buy crap I don't want?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I'm using a browser which is deliberitly not able to display image and flash ads. Am I violating this so called 'social contract' also? Not likely.
You bought something you didn't really need. By doing so, you prop up your corporate masters. That makes you both suckers.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
And yes, Firefox is a threat to my site with the combination of Adblock. But still, I encourage my users to opt to use Firefox instead of IE, because it's a better browser. I will at some point, just put a little section on the site that asks visitors not to disable ads, as this is how my site would produce revenue, especially since the ads I would introduce would be non-intrusive. I don't turn them off on sites I visit if they are not obtrusive.
To those that liken the act of blocking ads to 'Oh, do you get up and walk away to use the bathroom during commercials?' well... that arguement is pointless. Whether you are sitting in front of the TV or not isn't the importance in ad recognition, it's that your TV set is on. When you are tuned to a channel, watching it or not, you are showing say, ABC's advertisers that the show Lost has 20 million viewers. Advertisers look at that as signs of potential market penetration, and do the age/sex/lifestyle demographics to target their products appropriately. That's what you tuning to that channel will do for that station, increase their ad revenue because of PERCIEVED ad benefit to ad companies.
If you turn off the TV every time an ad comes up, that might be a fair comparison, but I highly doubt anybody does that. And since internet sites are integrated with ads and do not generally have a 'commercial' in between them, you can't fast forward and the other alternative -- blocking the ads -- only hurts a site that may give you some information you crave. For example, Anandtech, a site I have grown fond of over the years I've read it, has lots of ads on it. I even click some of them when I find them to picque my interest even slightly, knowing that by doing so, I am helping out the site, and helping to keep information from that site flowing. Granted, Anandtech is probably a bad example because he is flourishing compared to other sites like his in terms of ad revenue, but the point I'm trying to make is still valid.
Moral of the story is, that if you enjoy the site, you want it to stick around, don't disable the ads on it. Hell, even click on them once in a while if they are even remotely interesting to you. Your actions can make or break a good source of information and entertainment, so use your web surfing skills wisely, and use Adblock to properly remove annoyances so that the annoying websites do not garner any more cash by resorting to obtrusive and offensive advertising.
Admittedly, I do think that advertising as a whole is going to be coming down, and coming down hard because of the emergence of 'blogs' and expert reviews on damn near anything you want to buy. When the emergence of blogging meets the Joe Schmo who doesn't know diddly about computers and the internet, prepare to see all advertising start having a null effect.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
There is no social contract between a website and the client. Sorry. I will filter and treat data on MY MACHINEs how I LIKE. No one is going to stop me.
I do not concent to the implied contract. You have no signature from me saying that I do so, and any that might be implied are hereby revoked.
If you continue to give me content despite this, I take no responsibility. I suggest that you refuse to offer the content if the ad is not pulled down in a reasonable period of time (say, 5 or 6 seconds)
If you dont like ads, dont view the content. You are not being forced to look at any ads, you are choosing to look at a website which contains both ads and content.
If the ads are visible to you, I have no problem with your deciding you have no interest in the product.
I'm not trying to bait any flames here, even though whenever I say this, I get flamed for it. I think it's revelent, I think it needs to be said.
If you strip ads when viewing a website, you are stealing. It is theft.
Theft is taking something from someone else which does not belong to you.
If you strip ads, you are stealing my bandwidth, proccessing time, etc. You are gaining the benifits of it and not giving me anything in return.
Please note that I did not mention law at all. I am not saying anything about it being illegal. It is NOT illegal. It should not be illegal. There should never be anything attempting to make anything like it illegal. It is still theft.
I dont care if you agree or not. But if you disagree, stay off my sites.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Does anyone doubt that this is the *real* reason Microsoft is pushing "Trusted Computing"?
Imagine a world where websites could *easily* refuse to serve you any content unless you are using an "approved" browser that doesn't block ads?
$30 rebate at Fry's for a really cool computer tower box. 5 minutes, enbelope and stamp. Two weeks later a check for 30 buck-o-roonies. You must really make a lot of money per hour to top $30/5 minutes! In that case I wish I had your pay scale! You must be a lawyer or something. ;-)
First of all, adblocking will be (if it isn't already) factored into the equation for advertiser. That is, if they used to pay 10c a hit before adblocking, but new statistics reveal that 20% of viewer use adblock they will simply lower the payout to 8c (pulling these numbers of out thin air, btw.) Surely TV advertisers take this into acount already. The know that just because they showed an ad during a show with 30mil viewers doesn't mean 30mil saw the ad. Prices are adjusted accordingly: people go to the washroom, get food, flip channels, etc. It's not as we are all clever geniuses in defying the advertisers - it's just that these factors are taken into account in the grad scheme of things.
I think the more important point is what is the long term effect of everybody blocking ads? Well either the site owner will decided to maintain the site for free (ie. out of their own pocket) or they'll charge you for the site or the site will simply close down. I guess it's a personal preference deciding if those alternatives are better or worse than seeing ads; and it's those inevitable consequences which should define if adlbocking is 'right' or 'wrong' (whatever that may mean.)
+ Mel
'...the idea of hereditary legislators is as absurd as a hereditary mathematician -- as absurd as a hereditary poet laureate.'
The notion that there is an implied social contract with advertizers is bogus. The entire notion of a social contract is, in fact dubious. It seems to be an idea promulgated by the "powers that be" to stifle a debate that they don't want to have. It seems to be binding on the powerless, but escapable by the powerful. The current Social Security 'debate' would be a case where the wealthy have decided to reneg on the 'social contract'. There are many other cases.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
My free speech rights also include what I want to listen to, what I'm capable of listening to, and how I'm unable to listen to. Consider this: for people with poor vision, if I install a screen reader to zap the ads and read the text, is that considered violating "social contract"? Not everyone can/will/should read whatever is sent down the pipe without being badgered with social contract BS.
There are successful models of advertising, go hire a good advertiser to maximize your exposure and customer goodwill rather than raising BS arguments.
Speaking of blocking obnoxious ads, I'd like to see a new feature in Firefox. I surf with JavaScript disabled, which breaks Google's AdSense. So far, so good. But lots of sites require JavaScript for things other than ads. How about a per-page disabler for JavaScript?
A user could designate a string which, if it appears anywhere in the text or source of a page, disables JavaScript for that page. Then we could nail only the AdSense garbage if we choose, without going back and forth and toggling the global JavaScript enable button.
I would be more than willing to cut back my use of adblockers if these advertisers would be willing to petition the FCC, Qwest, etc(choose your favorite telco) to upgrade my lowly landline connection for highspeed DSL, CABLE, Wifi whatever. But as it is now living in the middle of the dessert where the best connection on a good day is about 44k I need to disable ads to save my bandwith. So advertisers there you are, there is your Social Contract to me.
I don't read the advertising in the papers, don't watch it on tv unless there's a reason (wife wanting me to do something, nearly naked women in commercial, etc.) and ignore ads elsewhere. Am I really breaking some kind of contract I haven't agreed to? (Isn't that rather counter to the point of a contract - an agreement between two parties - as I recall from my business law class.)
What peaves me is adverts in the movie theatre - they are charging me to go and watch their commercials. (That might be more of a "social contract" issue than adblock or web filtering.)
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Web ads are completely different from normal television advertising. A Web ad has to be specially downloaded as per the instructions in the html file which for some may cost more money to download. There is no obligation on my part to protect the site's advertising revenue by taking an extra step to download their ads for viewing especially when I have not signed any such contract and any ads that i kindly download to help their revenue misbehave and annoy the crap out of me. This is equivalent to saying that I HAVE to sit and watch pbs donation marathons. For profit TV and radio ads are included inline as part of the show. Online advertisers should feel free to include text ads within the body of the article text or buy the reviewer into producing fluff pieces for the company's products.
Of course as the integrity of a sites content diminishes the number of page views may decrease and advertising may become unprofitable, and both users and advertisers may have to quickly move to sell their wares through yet another site.
The advertisers are upset because such decentralization adversely affects their bottom line.
In the absence of a usage contract such bellyaching is childish and should be ignored.
I can't believe the RIAA/MPAA powerblock are crying foul over downloading their movies while adservers are crying foul over NOT downloading their ads. What a world!
The answer is no! I'm sorry but I call bullshit on any of this social contract crap. First off, if we are going to have any social contracts, how about the requirement of such thing to better mankind? If so, How exactly does a flashing bozai buddy do that?
If anything I think the ADs have violated a social contract. What was the internet like 5 or 10 years ago? What's up with these ADs and data mining? spyware? malware? All of these came from those ADs.
I do not believe that I am obligated to put myself, my computer or my data in harms way simply because someone can't develop a better business model. NO ONE LIKES ADS and we all wished they'd go away. The only way that is ever going to happen is to cut them off with blocking software. Sure someone is going to have trouble making money for a while... AIN'T MY PROBLEM. and in the end those left over will be left to develop a business model that is more pallatable to everyone. -SO BE IT.
What business does an AD from any unannounced THIRD PARTY have putting any cookie on my computer? Sounds more like ADs are ABUSING the public as it is.... SOICIAL CONTRACT? MY ARSE!
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
In any case, the default rules it comes with seem to work quite well, only rarley have I found them too restrictive.
It does mean running another server daemon process on your machine, but by default it only allows localhost connections and on the upside, you can use it with any browser.
Welcome to a free country. I simply refuse to pay for the bandwidth necessary, or provide you the attention necessary, for you to feed your advertripe to me. Get used to it.
Amen. Does it mean that I am violating a social contract if I run a website and don't put advertising on it?
Advertisers made their own bed. I remember a few years ago, there was a website up that hosted clips of funny TV commercials. They had a rating system in place, and it was really cool. Then they were shut down, for rights infringement of some kind.
So let me get this straight - advertisers create commercials for their products, and they do so in such a way to get people to watch them. But then they shut down a website that was giving them FREE advertising of their products. It makes absolutely no sense to me, and speaks to the general lunacy of advertising in general.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Invent a product for penis enlargement. Only thing is the product is extremely dangerous to use and ends up killing its user 9 times out of 10. Advertise it on the internet, and the people most responsible for advertising will end up removing themselves from the gene pool! It's PERFECT!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Social contracts are highly dependant on reasonable behavior from both sides. If I bump into a stranger on the street on accident, I will be generally cordial and apologetic. However, if this bump triggers a murderous rage in him and he attempts to kill me, I am under no obligation to cordially accept the beating.
Likewise, if sites put up reasonable ads, I don't block them. When I start getting flash shit yelling in my ear and hogging my system to produce its shitty 200 pixel video, or spyware that destroys the functionality of my computer, that is when the advertisers have broken the social contract and I pull out the ad blockers. More reasonable advertisers should blame the sociopathic ones for the reduced effectiveness of ads.
I think most folks out there browsing web sites are willing to put up with some degree of ads. And I've even clicked one or two.
But a few ads spread here and there is quite a bit different then big javascript or flash popups, animated flashing GIFs, intermission pages, and other obnoxious adversisements (like keyword highlighting, OMFG I hate it. I will not visit Toms Hardware anymore because every mention of "Server" or "Network" or "connection" is highlighted with some popup ad.)
People will only accept so much before seeking alternatives, and when they do, sometimes it's too late to go back.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
This is so freaking obvious I don't even know where to begin.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I sure wish I had a browser with adblock on my iPaq. If you think ad-full pages waste a lot of your bandwidth on dialup, try GPRS..
If you don't like a site's ad policies, then don't use the site.
The terminology gets people fouled up, I think, using words like "contract," which has a specific legal definition. This leads to all sorts of hair-splitting legalese by people trying to argue their way out of their own moral discomfort.
Bottom line, if you use something of value that costs somebody else something to create and maintain, you ought to pay for it. Payment can be by subscription, for sites that offer that, but subscription-based sites generally haven't done well on the web. If not by subscription, there are two other main ways that sites earn money to keep the lights on, namely advertising or shopping clicks on price-comparison pages. (The latter just another form of advertising, but the business model is different enough to warrant a separate category.) If sites aren't supported by one of these three sources of income, they stop existing. (And yes, of course, people can always publish information for free, but that places significant limits on what can be accomplished, and would result in a whole lot less information being available on the web.)
No, there's no contract, but if someone sets up a site with revenue based at least in part on advertising, and you use the site while disabling the ads, there's no question that you're not supporting them in exchange for your usage. If you don't like their ads, the solution is easy - Don't visit their site. If you're feeling magnanimous, drop the site publisher a line saying you were turned off by the ads and so won't be visiting again. Believe me, it wouldn't take very many emails like that for any halfway intelligent site publisher to wake up. If you use a site's content without accepting their ads though, you're just freeloading off the other readers who aren't blocking.
People seem to think that because something is electronically based, it's subject to a different moral code. What do you do when you come across a hotel that you think charges too much for its rooms? Stay there anyway, and then write them a bad check? I suspect not. The same principle applies for any other product or service you avail yourself of, the web included. The only thing that's different about the web is that there's not an explicit contract, and nobody will come knocking on your door if you disable ads.
As you might guess from my comments, all this hits pretty close to home for me. - I run a site about digital cameras, and advertising is a pretty important part of how I keep my family fed and the people who work for me paid. The site is a huge amount of work, my typical work week is 70+ hours (try it yourself sometime, for say, 7 years or so), and the people who work on the site with me all work hard in exchange for their pay as well. I'd naturally love for every last digital camera buyer on the planet to pass through our portals, but if they don't want to, that's fine too. But people who think they're somehow entitled to spend hours browsing the site without supporting us in any way, shape, or form really raise my hackles.
The big problem in all this of course, is that a relative minority of sites are spoiling things for the rest of us. Popunders are a case in point. Used appropriately, they can be a very good thing, as they can communicate much more information than a simple tower or banner ad can. Ad content that's related to the topic of a site is very likely going to be of interest to a reader, so more information in a more concentrated package (a well-designed popunder) would be a good thing. Popunders also work extremely well for the advertiser and site publisher, as the response rates from them are often literally 10x that of conventional baners or towers. The problem comes when sites throw up dozens of these things, advertising products or services of virtually zero interest to their readers. People have very rightly gotten tired of this sort of thing.
On our site, we set a cookie, so
Ads used to be links with an eye catching phrase (such as "Click here for a chance to win a new laptop computer!"). After a while, the advertiser decided there weren't enough clicks being generated, so along came banner ads. Next came moving banners. Still not enough clicks so next are ads on the sides of the page (as well as the top). Then (probably) the invention of the pop-up ad, then pop-under ad. Next jiggly ads (initially unnerving if you lived in California, I'm sure). Then came ads that follow your mouse pointer. Next delayed pop-up ads (they pop up after 30 seconds on the page). Next, "impossible to back arrow, lock the user to a full page ad for 30 seconds" ad. Then came scroll down from the menu bar ads. Pop up a new widow when you leave the site ads. Full screen movie ads. Screeching sound and obnoxious movie ads. "You must click through three full screen ads before you can get to the real web page" ads. Damn it, the user STILL didn't click on my ad, what is he, BLIND?!?!?!?!?!? Oh, don't forget to squeeze in a little content on the little bit of unused space left on the page while we're at it...after all, we are a content provider...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Is it in writing? Did I agree to this before browsing the site? NO. so FUCK OFF.
Since no site will warn me about ad content prior to visiting their site, no 'social contract exists', and I can freely block them as I please.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
I think you stated my opinion (and probably most people on Slashdot opinion) better than I could have myself. You are so right.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
BTW, is that blinking ad illegal in some countries and harming people with eye sight disability?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
The answer should be obvious.
No.
The implied social contract of the internet is simple:
1 - Browsers seek information.
2 - Websites have information.
3 - The purpose of the internet is to allow the website to provide its information to the browser.
Full Stop. End of Contract.
That's right, people, the whole point of the internet is to connect the guy who wants the info with the guy that has it so that the guy who wants it gets it.
Of course, accomplishing that end costs money, and so there are different schemes set up to allow both the browser and website to pay their share; some websites use ads, others use subscriptions, others ask for donations, and others are "pre-paid for out of the goodness of the heart" of the person hosting it.
How the browser pays for access (from dialup to T1) is his problem, not the website's.
How the website pays for access (from ads to simply chalking it up to the expense of doing business online, just like paying for a phone line) is ITS problem, not the browser. If the website chooses a method of payment that is not effective (ads), that is not the fault of the browser.
It comes to this... many people think a website is supposed to make money. It's not. It's the CONTENT of a website that makes you money. The website itself is kind of a "necessary expense" to communicate with those sending you money IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS YOUR TELEPHONE.
Businesses don't sell phone calls to clients; they use the phone to sell products or services (including "racy phone conversations" but not the call itself) to their clients. As soon as businesses see the internet in the same way as they see the phone call, they'll start getting it right.
Choicepoint gets to collect and sell all kinds of information without your knowledge or approval, and there is no punishment when they sell it to criminals.
By the way, Microsoft owes me $4.27 rent today for having their software on my disk drive. Hey! They didn't sell it to me, it is just a license.
.. it's with the people who own and run the site the ad's are on.
...of the social contract is: you do not talk about the social contract!
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Go back to making money and stop posting here u dick.. grazzy@quake.swe.net grazzy@quake.swe.net grazzy@quake.swe.net grazzy@quake.swe.net grazzy@quake.swe.net
1) i should get my full service (Internet) When i go to a site, if I'm on 56k i DON'T wanna have to wait 3x as long for the pictures (ads) to load than for the actual meat of the page to load. 2) I don't want your stuff slowing my computer down Pop-ups are notorious for causing computers to slow down, even on newer (1.4 ghz, 256 mb ram) computers. Really. THink what this is doing to the poor kid who has a pentium in his computer.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Yes if I go to a website I should have to pay some kind of price - if it is an ad then fine. But when these adds are persistant pop-ups/under that create an infinite amount of screens that have a tendency to crash computers that is a problem. When these pop-ups link to sites that install malware on your computer that is a problem. When these pop-ups take you to less savory sites, and trying to close them (sometimes an ordeal in and of itself) does nothing but open up more ads, that is a problem.
I have no problem with a pop-up here or there - but websites have abused their privelages - and as such if they want me to honor their "social contract" they better honor my side of it. Put a pop-up/under (one maybe two), use skyscrapers - but do not invade my computer - using malware to track me, put spyware, tracking cooking (to track me accross the net), etc.
When all websites can conform to a set of decency standards - then they can complain about ad blockers. Until then, the legitimate sites can blame their fellow website owners.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
No it doesn't, this is the most stupid thing I've heard in a while.
Oh golly jee, maybe I'm violating my 'social contract' (what a load) when I change the channel when commercials come on.
Did someone come up with this at a coke party full of online advertisers or what
"Freedom and Justice for All" is a registered trademark of The United States Govt Inc. Not available in all areas.
Targeted doesn't always equal intrusive. Targeting can simply mean ads appropriate for their placement. An ad for feminine products wouldn't make as much sense in Playboy as it would on the Oxygen Channel, for instance.
I'd say that reading a book review from a trusted source while having an ad linking to the book on Amazon (via Google Ads or whatever) would be well targeted, unintrusive, and perhaps even helpful to most reasonable people. This is why Google's advertising model works so well as compared to companies that just annoy the heck out of people to catch their eyes or trick them into following a link.
Well, you didn't read the 6,000 page EULA, you agreed to install Gator on your system, don't violate a contract by removing it.
are you sure you know what adblock is? it's not typically used as a spyware-blocking tool, as your comment seems to suggest you believe. it blocks banner ads.
but i sorta agree with your sentiment anyway- even if an advertiser isn't installing software through holes in the browser or anything overtly malicious, they have hijacked the internet, which was designed as an information-sharing tool, by converting it into another advertising channel/revenue stream.
do they have the right to publish HTML docs and put ads in them? you bet. do i have a right to download the HTML and then decide what parts of it I want to see? you bet.
If adblock or similar tools become widespread, you'll probably see a move by corporate websites to put all their "actual content" images in the same directories with the ads, and remove any sort of ad-indication from the filenames so that they will be difficult to block without rendering the site (at least an ordinary graphical one) somewhat ugly.
This is kinda offtopic, but I've found bfilter to be a more effective ad-blocking solution. Since it's a proxy server, it works with any browser.
Disclaimer: I'm not associated with bfilter's development in any way, I'm just a happy user.
Petru
I put up with online ads as long as they follow these rules:
--No flash. This is because flash ads are usually really sparkly and annoying as hell. Some advertisers have also started putting text ads in flash because it allows them to spawn popups, bypassing blockers.
--No cookies. If your ad agency thinks they need to track me, both your cookies and images will be blocked.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
I've found the strip of paper to be very effective, but I've also found that I can download cleaner versions of the same program from the internet. Foreign broadcasts of US television programs usually do not contain those scrolling banners or those irritating network and local station icons that appear in the corner of the screen.
I guess that foreign stations have greater respect for the artistic content of the programs that they broadcast, whereas the US stations only show this respect for their commercials (which never contain banners or icons).
Is there a social contract, then, which says that I should have installed Flash on my PC? Hey, a lot of ads are delivered up in flash. Am I stealing from these websites which use flash ads because I've resisted the self-destructive urge to load this pile of steaming crapware on my PC?
The "social contract" concept is bogus.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
I like the Penny per Page (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/penny-per-page2 .htm/) internet economy model, and think it could work. It would fix the ad problems and can generate much more revenue for content providers. It only costs obsessive web surfers more than they already pay for internet. The most casual surfers will pay less for internet access than they do now, if these numbers are to be trusted.
Of course the link I provided is to a site that would stand to make millions more than they already do if everyone switched to this model.
~Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
I will stop removing web advertising the day I am being paid for watching adds while driving.
Help fight continental drift.
Social contract... you can't be serious!
Listen I visit website to get information for work, play or whatever... but when I have to plow through a BLIZZARD of popups and flying and scrolling flash banners and what not it signifcantly lowers the value of the information.
Ever try reading an online article with a few flash banners whizzing their content to and fro!
Please... banner ads do not have to be annouying and they certainly should NOT interrupt the users experience.
Social contract... WTF are you smoking!
You are sucker too. You dont buy, dont help economy. Those chinese are buying everything nowadays in china.
It sucks, i know.
The gross-out commercials disappeared from the dinner hour. So I probably wasn't alone.
So far most donation systems or "tip jars" haven't proved a viable business model, and setting up a subscription-based system isn't easy for a small site with a webmaster who only knows HTML. And there are a number of large, hugely popular and hugely *useful* sites that have cash channels (extra services people pay for), but would still die without ad revenue. If I had to pay a monthly fee for each and every site I visit regularly, I'd probably stop using the net altogether and sign up for AOL or some other big content aggregator service.
If you don't like the way I pay my bills, don't use my stuff. But if you use it, pay for it. The simplest way for this transaction to occur is for me to show you an ad. Come up with a better way that is easy to implement, and maybe I'll change my model. But a number of sites do not have the resources to innovate the transaction AND create compelling, useful content, even some of the big boys.
I have no problem with having a blocker on by default to protect you from really pernicious crap on a site you just found by clicking on a link. If I'm lured to some site, particularly by spamdexing or trying to game a search engine, I'm not going to tolerate 5 pop-ups and an attempt to install Gator just for hitting their homepage.
But if I find the site valuable and give it extended use, then the site's owner/creator is doing me a service. One good turn deserves another, and I'll trade a few blinks of an annoying ad for the value I'm deriving from the content. If the ads get too annoying, I'll stop using the site.
If there is a site I visit regularly, I either allow their ads, or if the ads are that annoying, I stop visiting the site and find a competitor. Period. If the site is going to die, let it die of loneliness, not the costs of serving up content to freeloaders.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
I use several different combinations of home-grown and state-of-the-art spam filtering to clean my mail.
I Tivo the hell out of television and 30-second-skip like a madman.
I use an iPod in the car, and my news is NPR.
In short, I've gone to a lot of trouble to actively eliminate as much advertising from my life as possible - and I am here to tell you it is BLOODY WONDERFUL.
The internet is like a different place - a calm, placid place of unfiltered, unfettered content. TV is clearly seen as the merely mediocre entertainment it is.
The downside is that I now find advertising nigh-on intolerable. If a TV in the background is running a commercial, it grates on me. If an advertisement somehow sneaks past my filter, it's usually jarring enough that I leave the site, never to return.
And I am never, ever going back. The day this all stops working for whatever reason is the day I fucking walk away from it all.
I'm 37 years old and I have had enough. Screw all advertising everywhere, forever. I've gotten pretty good at finding the goods and services I need, and the rest can go pound sand up their collective asses. Enough of the consumer culture. I'm out.
Selah!
I think the point you are all missing is that if a site is annoying you with their advertisements you have 1 of 2 choices. One you can stop going there. No more ads no problem. Or two you can contact the site and work for change.
Either way you look at it the sites are not forcing anyone to see their advertisements. Users go to their content because they find it of value. If they find it of value they should be willing to pay the provider back in some way if the provider asks. If that means putting up with a banner or other form of advertising so be it. They are only trying to make a living. If they receive enough feedback that a certain advertising method is damaging their user base they will change. Some of the posters here need to understand that advertisements mean money. Not just for the product they are hawking but also for the site displaying that product. Thats the way it works. Hell why do you think Slashdot displays banners (many of which I have clicked on I might add).
That being said even I use adblock. When there is a particularily annoying ad on a site I block it. Then I send an email to the site admin telling them what ad I blocked and why. It is amazing the number of them that respond favorably.
Another annoyance is all ads that plays some kind of sound to irritate the reader. OK, which one of the 17 ads I see right now was doing that noise? Especially if the noise occurs at irregular intervals...
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
is to make the consumer want something. An ad should make its audience want the product/service, but a great ad also causes the audience want the ad itself.
Some ads only succeed at one or the other. If a company's advertisements are being blocked, their advertisements are not succeeding at being wanted. If they are complaining, they are complaining about their own shortcomings.
Just this morning, I noticed that my previously favorite travel website now has a pop-up ad that circumvents the standard pop-up blocking in Firefox (not AdBlock or whatever the extension is). I sent them feedback letting them know that as long as they were not respecting the clear wish of their customer not to be bothered with a pop-up, I would no longer be using their services. I could (and may) install the AdBlock, but I won't return to their site until they fix the real problem which is disregard for their customers wishes. If they decide they'd rather have the ads than uptight customers like me, then I'll use other services.
Much as I can opt out of using their service if I am unwilling to put up with ads, the service provider should be able to opt out of providing me with a service if I am unwilling to accept their terms. It's no different than a a fancy restaurant with a dress code that requires a jacket and tie. If you want to wear a t-shirt and sandals while you eat, go somewhere else.
However, unless they notify me of these terms, there is and should be no rule that says I must view every bit of data they throw at my web browser. If they do notify me, then I should respect their wishes. I don't see it as a "social contract" so much as common sense and courtesy.
Its interesting to note that some guys have written an Adblock detection script (test page here). Haven't seen one of these being used on a web site though.
Hmmmm, those advertisers could ask me - why I have no need to block Google small and stylish text ads? Why I really like some of well thought ads?
Because they overload market with mostly bad made, blinking nonsense who actually does nothing but annoy their potential customers.
Gosh, they still don't get it...
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
My computer is MY computer. I assert the right to retain control over it. Your server is YOUR server, you have the right to assert control over it. The problem is, there is no way for me to know ahead of time, often times, if a website will have annoying popups or popunders. Or flash adds that do annoying things and can't be 'paused' in their animation, or easily muted without muting my whole computer.
This is where Adblock type technologies fulfill the other end of the "Social Contract" - letting me control my computer. If you don't want me viewing your content unless I view the ad also, fine, then give me a way to decline both. Come up with a way to deny the content if I don't view the advert, and instead just return a generic page stating, "This site uses {insert ad-type here}. In order to view the content, you must allow this type of advertising."
Then I can choose whether to accept the popup, or browse on to someone else.
The problem with this "social contract" theory is, I never *agreed* to this social contract. One can argue that by viewing the content, I am implicitly agreeing to it. But the problem is, until I actually go to a site, and either get a popup, or block it, I don't know what the 'terms' of this social contract are.
It's like saying you have to accept the terms of any contract, without even knowing those terms ahead of time.
I REFUSE to give up control over my computer to any site on the internet just because I followed a link to them.
Adblock works with regular expressions. So, it's pretty trivial to "whitelist" sites. However, a more user friendly interface would be nice.
Lets lump all companies together, from some hobbyest web forum owner who uses ads to pay for his bandwidth to multibillion corporations. They are all the same. /sarcasm
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
As far as I'm concerned, being entertained has become a war between me and advertisers. Advertisers have polluted every medium I can think of with their filth in incredibly obtrusive manners. What's next? I'm violating my social contract if I get up to take a piss during a commercial break?
When cable first came out, they heralded it as the new golden age of TV because, since people paid for it, there'd be no need for commercials! Well guess how well that worked out? The businessmen at the cable companies said, "Hey, we can make even more money by letting people advertise while gouging our customers!" Watch as Sirius and XM go down the exact same path. I pay my cable fee, and I pay for my Internet access. That's over $100/month. As far as I'm concerned, I can skip any fucking ads I want.
In the defense of web site admins, I'd like to note that they often don't have control over the particular ads that they display. The company they contract with to deliver the ads decides that. And even they aren't totally responsible. Sometimes the individual advertisers slip the nasty stuff by the advertising broker.
That said, web site admins do have a responsibility to choose a respectable ad broker. One which does not tolerate malware and such at all. I know they exist.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
What I do click on are those text ads that Google places on the side of its page. This is actually a convenience for web browsing. First of all, it stays out of the way, doesn't take any time to download, provides useful information, and leads folks to products and services that might actually be useful.
Therefore, I am saying that I have no problem with web site owners making money off their creation, but please do it in a way that is comfortable for the readers, too.
Should users not be allowed to read and view what they want?
How is adblock any different than your eyelids? They both block out the things you don't want to see. I should not feel as though I am committing a crime whenever I ignore an ad, whether it be by blocking it software or with my eyelids.
If I don't buy anything from that ad, how is it any different from me not ever viewing it? No money will leave my pocket for theirs.
Live forever, or die trying.
I don't think that will be true much longer. Every ISP under the sun is touting its new "popup blocking technology" including the likes of AOL, and IE is now blocking popups. Ad blocking is starting to become quite mainstream, and a selling point for the average Joe.
If these people keep pushing it, soon lots more free sites will be entirely done in flash (or some other proprietary format) where you can't disable the ads; and the ads will become the content itself
GOOD then I'll just quit going to those sites. There are tons of sites out there that are published by people who aren't out to make money. I have a website (shameless plug, and yes, ironically, it's all done in flash) and I don't expect to make money off of it. I just made it to share with my friends/the world.
People expressing themselves, their thoughts, experiences, and ideas is what the internet should be all about. I don't want to wade through tons of shitty content that was put out for the sole purpose of pushing ads to find something REAL.
I ask for the page they give it to me.
I don't think there is any agreement what I do with that copy of the page.
They might expect me to translate and view what they sent me, but I'm under no obligation to do so.
If they don't like what I do with the data they send me, they could simply not send it.
Violating someones copyright is a different arguement then what you do with a legitimate copy from the copyright holder.
The Internet is a content distribution system. It was designed from the very beginning so that users could request information and that information would be delivered. Quite obviously, the user is always free to not request information.
What gives advertisers the chutzpah to first further their profits by using the Internet, and then turn around and blame users when they don't request data they don't want? The Internet was not designed for advertisers. They are free to use it, but they must accept what it does and what it doesn't do.
An analogy would be going to a high-class restaurant and accusing the waiter of not serving Big Macs. Sure, Big Macs (compulsory advertisement) may be nice, but the restaurant (Internet) simply won't make them.
This sort of thing cuts both ways. Blog spammers are breaking aren't playing fair, and those that use ad blockers aren't playing fair.
The bottom line is that none of this is going to go away by appealing to peoples good nature. We either have to accept these sorts of things or deal with them technically.
If you enter my rectangle of fellatio without kneeling before me and pleasuring my member with your mouth, then you are violating your social contract to do so!
If you are a pretty woman come up to my apartment and don't let me put it in your #%@#%, then you are not holding up your end of the bargain! Don't cry rape, I'll scream fraudster first!
There is no need for advertising revenue.
I don't mind advertising on the Web. It's part and parcel of having decent content on a lot of sites. However, what I mind is the advertising being thrust into my face in the form of those annoying flash ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, and all sorts of annoyances that prevent enjoyment of the original site.
Banner ads, sure. I'll even click on them from time to time to keep my favourite sites going. But the rest get the Adblock treatment.
Your ludicrous claims about the "rights" of web authors have been adequately shot to pieces in the other responses, but no-one else has yet pointed out that:
downloading music on a p2p system is a violation of copyright law. You have no social right to listen to that music.
But you claim to live in Calgary. A city in a country where sharing music on a non-commercial basis is explicitly *not* a copyright violation. Not only do I have a "social right" (whatever that is) to listen to that music, I have an actual *real* *legal* right to do this, with a judgement from the courts to back it up. The quid pro quo is that I pay levies on recordable media (and for the record, I'm annoyed that I have to pay *anything* to enjoy this right).
You must have known this (or you're even more ignorant than it appears), so it's hard to believe that your post was anything other than a deliberate troll.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
I started using Adblock a few weeks ago out of necessity. Firefox in Linux was frequently using over 200 megs and would crash at least once each day. This is partially my fault for keeping 10 tabs open that are mostly blogs. They frequently had flash ads. After blocking these ads, I'm now around 80-120mb with crashing rare. now I only block flash ads or animated gifs.
News flash to advertisers: If your ads suck and annoy me, count on them not getting read. Make your ad noticable, but not an annoyance and if it's for something I have an interest in, I may read it.
It just helps you take away the ads that you DON'T like.
If I block the ad saying "trip to vegas!" (usually the ads at Yahoo! mail have descriptive-enough url's), that saves the sponsors from wasting their bandwidth on uninterested public.
The same goes to "shoot the monkey!", "find an online partner" and such.
Of course it'd be better if Yahoo allowed LOCALIZED ADS so that the users say in... Timbuktu would receive Timbuktu ads. Much more effective. Of course, the "checkboxes" to determine what ads do I want aren't bad, either.
So, no, adblock doesn't violate any contract. Furthermore, those ads also use MY bandwidth. If they want to keep my attention, they should focus more on my tastes. In this I'm in favor of using cookies for ad preferences.
(Come to think about it, there are web standards for everything, even e-business. Why not targetted marketing?)
I pay R90/$15 a month for my Internet subscription, if makers of ads subsidised my Internet connection they would have a right to force me to view their ads, but they don't subsidise me. Also the chances I will spend money internationally is very,very small, the exchange rate is too high and bank costs are insane. I'm not part of the market the producers target, so why should I be subjected to ads? On my 5k/s dailup images take ages to load, so I've installed bannerfilter on squid and adblock on firefox. Images with names like arrow,line,spacer,logo ect are blocked. /. loads with no images by default. Text ads are acceptable, but not 200k sized images.
Consumers have become jaded, I buy products become they are expensive, I reason that it represents quality, I don't buy goods become the huge jpg impresses me.
This is my sig.
What a load of crap.
So what if I skip through the commercials with my TIVO? Who is going to know? What is the difference between that and walking away from the TV to get a beer during a commercial?
So I don't watch all of the commercials. The advertisers know that. They want to grab your attention quickly to sell you their wares. If the commercial does that (grab your attention) good for it. But I sure don't want to watch that same commercial again and again and again.
What about the TV channels we are not currently tuned to? Is there some sort of 'social contract' for those commercials too?
I am sure that some advertising lobbyists would like to get legislation passed dictating we watch all of the commercials, all of the time. Of course, then we would have to read all of the spam messages that come our way too.
A social contract. Duh.
You didn't sign any contract, so you aren't violating any contract. A few sites like UserFriendly make it a specific condition of use that you not block ads. Those should be respected. Otherwise, you're under no obligation to anything other than whatever you see fit.
What a broad generalization. Ever tried getting some legal tunes from indie artists?
How does even the artist know whether or not the song is legal? It could have been subconsciously copied.
Or being in a country that allows downloading music?
How much does the immigration process cost again?
Be it enacted by the people of Slashdot, it is unlawful to skip or block commercials, advertisements, web banners, web popups, and all spam. Violation of this section will result in fines of up to $1,000,000.
--
AC
Then I'll just find some other website.
What if the web site with embedded advertisements is that of the only bank that has a branch in town, or some other monopoly with which you must do business?
quality content to fill the site with costs money
please point me to the quality content on:
http://www.fmvperformance.com/
I'm working for Skyblog, a popular french blog service.
The service is totally "free", as users don't need to pay anything in order to create their blogs.
But our web site is crippled with ads. Popup, pop-unders, megabanners, skyscrappers, Overture contextual ads, flash ads (with sound) and other annoyances...
To be fair, the user experience without an ad blocker is horrible. Maybe not for Internet Exploder users that never saw recent web pages without ads. But when you are using alternative browsers and ad blockers for ages, you really get a shock if you see the site without any shield.
However, these ads is what is paying my salary, my colleagues' salaries, the hardware and the bandwidth. Nothing else. Only these ads. The business model fully depends on ads. Without these ads, we would have to charge for every blog.
I think the best thing to do is to go the Slashdot way. You want to use the service free of charge? You get the ads.
You don't want any ad? Pay a tiny fee. This fee is enough to keep the service up and running, you don't see ads any more, and you don't violate any contract.
The Slashdot subscribtion mechanism is really a clever idea.
Ad blocking is not fair. Because some people don't know how to install software, they have to watch more ads to balance other people who know how to install ad blockers.
On the other hand, I can't imagine going to web site without Adblock any more. Ads are really too intrusive nowadays.
But if every web site could accept cheap subscriptions in order to remove ads, I would definitely subscribe.
{{.sig}}
These people are inventing a right for themselves (the right to force upon you their 'content') and taking a right away from you.
If you nerdy little crybabies don't stand up and fight for yourselves, you'll lose the precious few freedoms you have left (for example, the freedom to block whatever you _feel like_ blocking; this imagined 'social contract' is a fantasy of your oppressors), these people will own your bony asses (and the bony asses of your children) in ways you spoiled brats never thought possible.
Are you enjoying your sneak preview? It will be the future soon, you fucking crybabies. Brace yourselves...
If you're having to pay people to make content for your personal site, then why do you have a site?
It costs money to license the underlying works that make up a larger work. Example: Music is so thoroughly explored that it seems impossible to create a new musical work that one is sure hasn't already been created; therefore one must license it from an incumbent publisher that can afford to pay forensic musicologists.
Increasing product placements on tv shows are just a natural evolution of advertising supported broadcasters losing money from increasing use of commercial skipping systems.
And yet, product placement on tv shows is unobtrusive, whereas commercial breaks are quite obtrusive. Contrast this with the ad-based website where the ads are highly obtrusive compared to the older less-annoying static image ads.
Will this same contract allow me to bill companies for the ad space they rent on the car, clothes, etc. that I've purchased?
Just yesterday I was commenting about this in someone's blog, although the blog was about greasemonkey (another Moz plugin that can block ads). It was interesting to note that one of the Greasemonkey developers posted a comment in that blog, distancing himself from the whole adblocking issue.
My personal feeling is twofold. First, some ads (especially popups) are so disrespectful of a site's visitors that they deserve killing. And, if that means the site dies from lack of revenue, so be it. However, my second thought is that there are many good sites (maybe Slashdot qualifies, lack of editorial responsibility notwithstanding) that do not blare ads at me, and deserve my support. These sites have no popups, and no shimmering, shaking, animated Flash monstrosities. I have never blocked a Slashdot ad. In fact, I have deliberately clicked a few Thinkgeek banners.
If a large enough group started to block out every kind of ad possible, sites would go under. And not just a single, inconsequential site. You can't say "there will always be free alternatives" if you starve even the alternatives of a way to cover costs.
Personally, I don't want the Web to go the way of the Wall Street Journal. I don't want to pay for access or be forced to sit and watch an ad so I can get my access code. I like free roaming, and if that means I need to tolerate a quiet ad banner or two, I'm OK with that. It's only the loud annoying crap that grates on my nerves.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
You can't just say I have a social contract with someone, and make it so. There has to be an agreement by both parties to the terms of the contract. Liberals love the term social contract. They use it to justify "progressive" tax systems to deprive you of what you earn when someone else claims they need it more. In short, unless the govt. tells me I have a social contract with someone, then I don't, unless I actually agreed to the terms.
Vote for Pedro
The only people on the face of this earth, or possibly any other earth, that might think there is any sort of implied social contract between ad viewers and the grinning marketing idiots, pushing their dreck, is the grinning marketing idiots.
The advertisers pay the information brokers to "sponsor" the information. In return, the information broker includes information about the sponsor with the message. In the last few years, the sponsor's message has begun drowned out the original information. What started out as a little tag in the corner of the screen during the show, has grown to cover the bottom third of the screen with animations and advertising from sponsors. When is the last time you watch a 30 minute show commercial TV that didn't break for commercials every five minutes, so they could inform you they could fix your runny nose, you need a new car and Cindy Crawford looks better than you in tight jeans. The more blatant and intrusive the advertising, the more likely I am to take action against it. I have mail rules, firewall policies and a DNS configuration specifically setup to reject this type of intrusion. For my television viewing, I have a 30 second skip button and fast forward. For my radio pleasure, I have K-MYCDPlayer. Maybe some day I'll by an iPod (see an unobtrusive product plug).
If the owners and operators of these web sites, television and radio stations don't like it, tough. Nobody can force me to watch advertising content. I did not agree to any such contract. I reject entirely the concept and if required willingly pay for advertising free access. I watch very little commercial television for this exact reason.
Information is not free, like everything in this planet, and possibly others, there is a cost. It is a case of supply and demand. The only question is who will pay the cost. For my part, I will not pay the cost, if it is having to be overrun my loud Shockwave animations, tampon ads and pop-ups that bury the desktop.
Fact is, unless I enter into a legally binding contract that states that I will not block their ads, they don't get to say jack about squat.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I'm sorry, by clicking or typing in a URL of a web page, you requested that entire page. How does the web site operator know what content you want? Seems a bit silly to me.
Myself, I have no problem with advertisers putting irritating ads on web sites. If you want to put a big noisy add on your site, and I choose to visit your site, it's your right to put whatever you want on it.
However, it's my computer, and it's just as much my right to tell it to download/render whatever I tell it to, as long as I have legal access to it.
Using the web is very much like a Darwinian environment, where one's rights extend no further than one's own equiptment. If your web site can't make it because the users are blocking ads, too bad. You should've made it more interesting, or at least figured out a way to get past the ad blocking tools.
But, you have no moral high ground to stand upon if you don't stay on top of the game. Conversely, users have little right to complain if they're getting blasted by ads on web sites that they choose to go to. It's easy to fix, with firefox and a few extensions, and if that doesn't fix it, simply don't visit that site.
My favorite part of living overseas was not being able to understand the advertisements. Did I violate the social contract by seeing the ads without getting out a dictionary to translate them? Using an ad blocker could be compared to purposely forgetting a language.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
If advertisers and their agents (agents in this case is the website operator placing the ads) want to enforce a 'right' to have their ad displayed, it is because they want to communicate their message to the audience.
I am completely fine with that concept, on one condition: the advertisers and their agents provide a means for me to use the same medium (the web or email) to provide my all-important insight and comments related to their message.
But many large advertisers no longer provide a feedback page or contact email addresses on their websites.
If they are not interested in the feedback from their messages, we should not be interested in their messages. In fact, if they are going to ignore us, we should ignore them.
Signed, A _VERY_ satisfied AdBlock user.
eskwayrd = m^2c^4
What a pathetic bunch of whining little entitlement babies.
If a site has ads you don't want to see? DON'T GO TO IT. The social contract being talked about is simple, "Here is my content for free, in exchange for receiving my content for free, I have to present these ads because I can't afford to pay to give my content out for free to a bunch of whiney freeloaders who would whine even MORE if my content were commercial and had to be paid for, before the whiney freeloaders PIRATED it."
My gods people, you say you want open/free/buzzword of the day software and content, but you don't even want to do as much as -seeing an AD- to help defray the costs to the providers? No wonder RIAA isn't interested in working with you lot!
Are you so pathetic that you think this life, this world OWES you something?
If you people can act like this, and attack someone's right to attempt to defray their costs for providing FREE web content by showing ads, and insist on LEECHING their content without even letting those ads display, then you have NO RIGHT to complain when sites block non IE browsers, when sites require registration, when those sites require using proprietary plugins, or when those sites just block content from anyone who hasn't sat through an advertisement and proven it by signing a captcha or something.
Want to know why the web is going down hill? BECAUSE OF YOU, _NOT_ because of them.
Pop-up ads are because people blocked banner ads. Pop-under ads are because people blocked pop-up ads. Are you seeing a pattern? At this rate, how long before it gets even worse?
Get off your high horses, you leeches, and contribute something BACK.
It makes a really interesting thought experiment to consider what would have happened without government involvement.
For example, I would have started doing computer-based banking much earlier because my bank would have provided phone-lines for me to call into so 1. I could use my modem as cheaply as making a phone call instead of paying high rates for internet access and 2. I wouldn't have to worry about who was eavesdropping.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
"Social contract"... bullshit! I haven't agreed to jack-shit!
br>
I can't understand people who justify (for example) TV advertising as an "OK way of sponsoring it all". Advertising is just plain annoying, or offensive, or both. AARGH!
I have no problem with ads.
I have plenty of problems with animated gifs that never stops animating and animated flash that never stop animating.
I configure Firefox to not have infinitely animating GIFs (it's not in Tools -> options, but typing in about:config in the location toolbar and changing "image.animation_mode" to "once" makes it so an animated GIF animates once then stops), and I have the click-to-flash extension so that Flash ads don't start animating unless I click on the Flash to activate it (I would not have to practically disable Flash, except for the fact that Macromedia gives control of the Flash to the flash devloper instead of the user)
This resolves the kinds of annoying ads I don't want to put up with, while still letting me see the ads that a web site has, allowing me to, on some level, help the webmaster put supper on his table.
"If a commercial website can't support itself via its audience, that website should die."
Problem is that people want the benefits without all the consequences. Your statement would be a more honest one if people actually just left the content alone, and walked away. Then there would be a direct relationship between actions of the site, and it's failure. Rather than an indirect measure of the deviousness of it's viewers in gaining benefits without direct consequences.
"If the users of the website are sufficiently motivated to pay for content, they will, and it will survive."
Problem is that "sufficiently motivated" is not a an easy metric to measure. Some will want things for free, and nothing else will do. While others will accept a higher threshold.
"There is no such thing as an implied or "social" contract - by their very nature, contracts are not implications! "
The above is why I NEVER take legal advice from this site.
Not only have I signed NOTHING, I've not even discussed anything with anyone that would be contrived as a contract. So wtf is this all about?
For some of us, blocking flashing ads is more of an ergonomic issue than anything else. Excessive movement on a web page give me a headache fast.
I don't install flash on my computers so I can avoid flashing ads. I edit firefox to play animated gif's once only instead of looping. I run the ad-blocking plugin and have a bunch on 127.0.0.1 entries in my hosts file to block ads.
The problem with this is that some site are flash-only. Sometimes I use the flash-click-to-play plugin.
If their method of advertising causes me pain, I'm going to do my best to thwart it.
A failed business model does not equate to a breach of an implied "social contract."
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
What contract? I'm pretty sure I didn't sign anything.
You requested it by going to their site, idiot. If you don't want the content, here's a neat trick... DON'T GO TO THEIR SITE. Bloody leeches....
No one said anyone was in breach of social contract, which is normally a weasle word for some anti-social behavior.
The only interesting thing here is the First Amendment, they have a right to publish their adds and that is _NOT_ being infringed.
Do I have an obligation to read it, __NO__
Having unsubscribed from cable some years ago, I not cannot stand ads. When I went with a friend to watch the finale of "The Ultimate Fighter" (if you've never seen mixed martial arts, I highly recommend it), I was shocked, I say, shocked and appalled to have all that crap thrown at me. And even more shocked to think that when I was younger, I used to let those advertisers pour their disgusting pap directly into my brain.
Dirty is precisely the right word.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I have never, not once, felt the slightest guilt about blocking every graphical ad on which I can get my hands. If nothing else, when I was on dial-up, it was practically a necessity to load popular sites some time that day. As many people have mentioned, I find text ads inoffensive and, though I know there are ways to do so, I won't take the time to try to block them. What worries me, though, is that we'll eventually find pop-up- and ad-blockers falling into the same category as penicillin -- miracle cures that, through overuse, become ineffective. What virulent new method of delivery will the advertisers find next? (We've already seen the introduction of PIE to get around cookie-deleting.)
I block whatever I can... Flash, animated gif, text, etc. I use Adblock, UserContent.css, Greasemonkey, DNS, whatever. I know it's not exactly the most moral thing to do in many cases, but I do it anyway. I don't like looking at advertisments and that's that. I know there's many ad-supported sites out there, but my blocking of ads isn't going to put a page out of business. Advertisements are going to get more and more intrusive as time goes on and Ad blocking will get better and better. It's going to happen that way whether I block ads or not. Sure, it would be great if everyone stopped blocking ads or advertisers stopped being so annoying, but life just doesn't work that way..
Really, advertisement isn't just there to encourage you to buy their product, not directly. It's to put the brand into your head. If you see an ad a day for Poop Cola, for a whole year, and you go to the supermarket to pick up cola---with no real notion of which cola you'd prefer to any other---you will see Poop Cola and feel a strange sense of familiarity. And you will then choose Poop Cola, and the advertisers will be vindicated, even though you won't realize it.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Yes, it violates a social contract. And that's a VERY GOOD THING (TM).
Contracts get re-negotiated all the time. Publishers ask for higher CPMs, CPCs, etc- advertisers want more and more annoying ads at lower prices. Some consumers stop reading some sites, or install things like Adblock, pop-up blockers, etc. They start ignoring things that look like ads and don't click on them anymore.
Google and Overture/Yahoo are winning against the tired pop-ups and similarly annoying push marketing because they realigned their business model to be win-win. I installed Adblock, but I regularly click on text ads (even on sites).
Readers have said loud and clear they don't want annoying ads getting in the way of their information gathering. Companies have offered more money for text-only contextual advertising. So why on earth are publishers whining about us blocking offensive ads?
A new social contract has been proposed that could work for everyone. Publishers are proposing an alternative where they increase the amount of ads and their annoyance factor. Call me a free-loader or a parasite if you will- I know what alternative I want, and I won't cooperate in making the web a commercial advertising wasteland.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
If what you say is true, then it's another reason contributing to the success of AdWords. The service seems designed so that your lunatic product managers can't force bad ads down throats against the advice of their agency.. they have to take targetted advertising, and like it. And just maybe, to their surprise, it will work.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
"Social contract or not it is really my choice whether or not I want something displayed on my screen."
Are you willing to live with the consequences of that decision?
"If the revenue generated from ads on a particular website is suffering to the point of not being profitable then perhaps it is time to look at new ways of making money."
The ultimate in draconian is simply not offering anything to begin with. If NYT never offered any content? Then all issues disappear.
"You can't try to enforce some form of draconian control over everyone's computers. "
There's nothing draconian about you simply not benefiting from what's being offered by walking away. The "draconian" that people complain about is when they want the content, without the consequences.
"This is my machine and I will decide what is downloaded, displayed, and run on it."
No content renders this issue moot. Question is, who ultimately ends up happy in the end? You with nothing to download, or the content providers with a nonexistant business.
There is no social contract, it is a numbers game. People put ads on billboards, if I choose to keep my eyes on the road instead of looking at their ads, that violates some sort of social contract? (Let's assume I am on a paid roadway and the billboards are owned by the same company that owns the road.)
Do you read all of the ads in the newspaper? Do you think everyone does? No social contract violated if you don't even though the ads keep the cost of the paper down.
The advertisers put out ads and get a certain bump in sales (at least that is what they shoot for). If the profit on the extra sales exceeds the cost of the ads, they keep going.
They pay their money for the opportunity to reach us and sell to us, not for the guaranty to do so.
Let them take down their content, let them go paid subscription, let them have people sign agreements to watch the ads.
I will continue to go to the bathroom during commercials, go to the kitchen, talk to friends, channel surf where the button gets pressed when the commercial starts. No contracts made and none broken despite what they wish. I will continue to do the equivalent with all forms of media and advertising as it suits me.
Again, businessmen have an opportunity to make a profit, not a guaranty of a profit. We don't owe them a profit, they must earn it.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
When did I sign a contract asking for more ads than information on most websites?
The monster.com flash ad that ran on tripod.lycos.com a while back is a prime example. It would cause the browser and OS to hang on my computer. I know it was this ad because if I waited long enough I would see a popup message saying "A Flash applet is causing the computer to run slowly". Blocking the ad made the site useable.
Who do I sue for eating up my cycles with this ad? Is it even worth it? They should be thankful I'm not making them buy me a new computer. See how by using AdBlock I'm actually doing them a favor?
The web (http) is a request-response protocol.
You must first request it in order to get it. Http servers do not connect to clients to deliver content, it is the otherway round.
ANYONE that expects you to request something which you have no interested in (even though they do) is a nut. They make as much sense as talking to a wall.
If they want anykind of enforibility, or any kind of claim, reverse it. Let them send it to you, then they can claim at least that you thew it out.
Incedentally, I use the "gorilla hosts file" (google that) that maps an incredible amount of image-ad servers to localhost.
I've also written some replacement scripts that will handle redirection (sites like slickdeals.net run you through a 3rd tracking party, my scripts run you back through yourself.)
Now brooadcast TV is just that broadcast. At least they can send it to you. However in any broacast scheme, you do not know who is receiving it. You have no claim or control once it leaves the tower. Content coming from the tower may be copyright, but that only covers reproduction.
There is nothing wrong with not requesting, or just skipping, marketing materials.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Quite simply: a social contract is a 'contract' that people are assumed to be bound by even if they didn't actually 'sign'. They are bound merely because of where they happen to live. It's a truly evil concept. Without having signed a document anyone is at liberty to claim that I am party to any number of imaginary contract. "You enter into a contract to read ads when you go to a web site" or "by publishing your web page you enter into a contract allowing viewers to choose how much of it they wish to read". The whole notion of a social contract is merely a way of saying what you think people should do, dressed up as a 'contract' because in the liberal democratic world contracts are a popular concept. In what way does talking about 'contracts' help us to differentiate between the above web page examples? I don't think the concept adds anything useful to the discussion. And the only theory I've read about how we should choose the form of our social contracts depends on trying to figure out what imaginary (and impossible to exist) people would decide (ie. the Rawlsian social contract).
Contracts are things we assent to through a symbolic act such as signing our name or pressing an 'accept' button. A 'social contract' is something other people use to bully you into doing what they want regardless of what you want.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
"No, the contract has been violated by the marketers and the webmasters who use them. I'm now just defending myself with a squid proxy and adzap. Collateral damage like Slashdot's ads getting blocked is the result."
I'm sorry. Slashdot was already damaged before you got here. The ads didn't feel a thing.
If these people keep pushing it, soon lots more free sites will be entirely done in flash (or some other proprietary format) where you can't disable the ads;
Simple. If the format is too proprietary, then it will require 3rd party software, same as flash. So you don't install that software, no ads.
Or, you just keep using adblock (it does block flash)
Will you be happier paying for all your content when it comes to the time when the majority of web users use ad-blocking applications?
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
Leela: "Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?"
Fry: "Well sure, but not in our dreams! Only on tv and radio...and in magazines...and movies. And at ball games, on buses, and milk cartons, and t-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky. But not in dreams! No sirree."
Do not touch -Willie
it's with the people who own and run the site the ad's are on.
There is no contract, implied or otherwise. If the person running the site doesn't want the ads blocked, they're free to move to a subscription model. No one's stopping them.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
...instead of relying on a dubious "social contract".
If they wanna make sure you get the ads, I'm sure somebody could write an Apache module that refuses to serve the requested content until after other prerequisite pages are requested and served...
I'm surprised that this hasn't been done yet (or has it?)
Maybe I should STFU...
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
The Internet was not designed to be an advertising medium, just as our streets weren't. So people advertise where drivers can see their billboards -- am I obligated to view the billboards? No, of course not. Same with the Internet. If anything, the advertisers are "violating" the social agreement that the Internet was simply meant to be an open communication medium, by attempting to impose their restrictions on its use.
"People expressing themselves, their thoughts, experiences, and ideas is what the internet should be all about. I don't want to wade through tons of shitty content that was put out for the sole purpose of pushing ads to find something REAL."
Your statement still doesn't answer the basic question, "who will pay for the content*?" We already know that just because someone isn't charging you for reading their blog, doesn't mean that they have no costs involved in bringing that site to you.
*I'm using a loose definition of "content". Content is anything people go to a website for.
...are just wonderful.
Look at the bandwidth efficiency they deliver and not the ads they fritz.
I wuv you open source geeks with your neat tricks.
I am appalled that nearly everyone here buys into the necessity for advertising. For millennia the human race managed perfectly well without it. Mass advertising is a recent phenomenon, and hopefully a short lived one. Block everything and hopefully the advertisers will all starve. Hundreds of thousands of people could be starting new, productive lives as telephone sanitizers. Things got done before advertising - they will after it stops.
I LOVE Adblock, it's the best thing for the web since... I don't know when, and I've been on the web daily since 1994.
The website however sucks dead dingo's kidneys. WTF is with that grey font?
Is it dying? Don't know, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it. (i.e. Fix the website, it be broke...)
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
And when you learn more about how they target children, and aim tobacco and alcohol ads at them, and push for brand and trademark awareness by age four, well, I just can't feel sorry for them. As a human being with some shred of dignity left I have the perfect right to shut out any of the crap that they try to inject into my horizon, I just wish that I could do it offline.
I want to block */banners/*, but not foo.bar/banners/
This is not possible without a whitelist.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Using adblock does violate a social contract. See you are browsing someone else's site. The poepl pay for bandwidth costs through advertising. You visit the site, you are entering into a social contract with the site owner to look at the ads. Don't want to look at the ads? Dont visit the site.
I'm not saying that ads are good. I hate a lot of ads, especially the animated ones. But I do not have to visit sites with animated ads.
Let me spell it out for the slow witted: when you visit a site with ads you are entering into a social contract which states: I hereby aggree to allow this website to show me ads in exchange for the content it is providing me. By browsing this site you aggree to these terms. If you do not agree to these terms then stop browsing this site.
See there is no fine print that says that if you don't like ads you can block them and leech content off the site requiring the site operator to pay for the bandwidth you use. Therefore your choices are: 1) display the page with ads or 2) don't display the page at all.
The website operator is saying look, I have bandwidth costs, could you please look at these ads to help me pay for my bandwidth costs please? The trade is bandwidth for ad views.
If you display the page without the adds you are breaking this agreement between you and the website owner. You are using bandwidth but not giving the adviews in exchange. You are Breaking the Social Contract.
I'm not saying you should stop using adblock or anything, I could care less. Personally I just use the flash click to view plugin and disable animated gifs (this allows ads to show but keeps the page readable). But admit that you are indeed breaking the social contract between you and the wesite owner. Leeching bandwidth from big corporations isn't the biggest sin you could commit, but you are still doing something that is somewhat dishonest.
Maybe next week you will bring yourself to admit that copyright infringement isn't moral just because the RIAA and the MPAA are a bunch of assholes. But we'll take this one step at a time.
There is nothing trivial about regular expressions unless you use them daily.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
From the FA -
Well in such case I have a brilliant idea.
Why don't all the website owners that feel cheated by those who use Adblock put a clear, visible banner that says it's illegal to view this website with advertising stripped off?
As soon as I see one of those, I will put their hostname in the proxy's blacklist forever. Problem solved.
I just tried to access a site today (on Mozilla with Adblock, sever filtering...), and got this -
"Your web browser, software on your computer or some other event (like you have image loading turned off) is preventing some or all of our banner ads from being displayed on our pages correctly. In order to access our content, you must either allow us to display ads on our pages (by turning on image loading and/or disabling ad-blocking) or purchasing a paid ad-free subscription to this site."
An interesting developement... wonder how soon mainline sites will start doing this...
Subject says it all. I'm sure its a redundant comment, but its worth repeating.
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
You could save yourself the inconvenience and embarrassment of permanent brain damage simply by using these instead.
Social contracts are not contracts, but critters that act similarly. They have some of the properties of a contract (an exchange) but do lack the enforcement aspect.
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
I don't mind basic, unobtrusive ads, but when they get bloated, flash annoyingly, or hold up the web page from loading, then they get on my nerve and I block them.
Table-ized A.I.
Before we filter internet ads into oblivion, I suggest you consider the consequences of an ad-free web.
How many of your favorite open source projects would wither away if the ad revenue dried up, not to mention your favorite web sites or TV programs?
I work full-time on a popular open source project, and I can say from personal experience that ad revenue from the website is often my primary source of income -- visitors are much more likely to click on an ad than leave a donation, by a factor of hundreds to one. I literally eat based on the income from that monthly AdSense check.
Consider the bigger picture -- much of the creative output of human beings today: actors, musicicans, web designers, search engine hackers, GPL programmers, etc., is funded by advertising. It's a terrible generalization to conclude that advertising is all about lining the pockets of spammers and evil media corporations. Yeah, pop-ups suck and will probably be relegated to the dustbin of history by the sheer power of the negative emotions they elicit, but there's a lot of reasonable, targeted, non-intrusive ads out there, and many of them are supporting your favorite web sites, TV shows, and GPL-based projects.
Advertising, as much as it is often reviled by slashdot posters and other intellectuals, is actually a rather innovative form of funding for the creative arts. It allows many of things we love to be free while still providing an income for the creators of those things.
If I uphold my end of the contract, I hope that entitles me to drag the webmaster out onto the streets and execute him publicly.
Maybe with that policy, someone will think the best way of making money is not to mutilate their web pages and fuck over the viewers. I've heard Nazis give better justifications than this. Really.
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
"I have no obligation to support *any* business model for anyone else. Indeed, if there were such an obligation, then society could never evolve or adapt to change, could it?"
That's all fine and good as far as it goes.
However were the problems start is that people want all the benifits without the consequences.
If people could (and had)...just walked away. Then we wouldn't be having this discussion, for it wouldn't have gotten this bad.
Instead of trying to break the DRM, and gaining the benefit without the compensation. People should have...just walked away.
Instead of trying to avoid the registration, and gain the benefits. People should have...just walked away.
Instead of blocking all the ads, and gaining the benefits. People should have...just walked away.
Never has a strong society ever been built on a weak willed people. And we are weak-willed, for us "Just say No" is a slogan, not a way of life, applied consistently.
I would submit for public review a list of all organization I do not wish to be considered a member of, and a list of all contracts to which I deny being a party, if only I knew of their names!
Adblock has two options 'hide ads' and 'remove ads', with 'hide ads' as far as the server knows you've seen it.
What about the social contract that I should be able to enjoy public spaces without the audio/visual clutter from advertisements on walls, billboards, signs, the sidewalk, park benches, buildings, megaphones, ice-cream trucks, blaring radios, speaker cars, wrapped over buses, on turnstiles, inside of subway tunnels, public-paid TV channels, sporting events... "and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky"?
Funny how no one ever deigned to talk about any "social contract" regarding advertising until we got the power to start blocking it?
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
The Mozilla Foundation rewrote the social contract. You may now feel free to not purchase anything from your content's sponsors.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
i don't buy things from web ads, so it's just saving them money to spend on sending the ads to someone who cares.
When I'm tyring to read, I don't mind ads as long as they don't move. Ads that keep blinking and flashing and moving are now most happily disabled.
I used to just rename the Flash plugin when I wanted to view some Flash content. This is infinitely preferable.
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
When you watch TV, the social contract is that you accept that Ads will interrupt the show, in exchange for the ads paying for the show. But those ads exist ONLY within the confines of the television set. It would be overstepping their bounds if the advertisement hampered your ability to turn off the TV, or started getting in the way of your other appliances like your toaster and refrigerator. The understanding is that the Ad is limited in scope to that one television, and that one television station.
Contrast that with website ads, that steal keyboard focus, pop on top, maximize themselves without asking, and abuse useful user interface features in browsers to step outside the bounds of the context of the ad. My computer is not just a web browser, thank you. When a website insists on maximizing the window, and staying always on top, then it is overstepping it's bounds because it is now interferring with things that aren't web browsing, like my text editor, my programming environment, my e-mail, and so on. Those are outside the social contract of advertising, and the advertisers don't care.
So, yes social contract is breeched. But by the advertisers.
If I could trust that all ads would stay nicely inside their own windows where they belong, and not do anything more than use up space on the web page they are sponsoring, then I wouldn't block them. I actually like seeing ads. They just need to stay inside the borders I assigned to them, though.
That's why I don't block ads per se, but I do tell firefox to disallow popups I didn't cause with a click, and to disable Flash by default until I click on it to start it. If the advertizers would play nice, I wouldn't have to do that to retain control over my OWN computer.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Exactly which revenue collection source enables me to collect the $0.002 that the current advertising market has indicated that my content is worth (a price that is viable and workable under the current system)?
e-gold
Able to spend & receive microspends (less than US$0.01). The spend fee at that level is 5%.
Complete automation readily available - shopping cart, secure payment reciept & confirmation, automated spends. All spends are irrepudiable; as in, cannot be chargebacked or bounced.
How about I accept that I have a 'social contract' with business, when business acknowledges one with consumers?
Here's my reasoning:
Business basically will do anything to make money. Spamvertising, web-bugs, compile huge amounts of data on us, etc, etc, ad infinitum
They will gather as much information on me as legally allowed (and at this point, there is not much that is NOT allowed).
So, if business has the freedom to do whatever it likes, without ethics coming into play, how come all of a sudden I have play by a 'social contract'?
Basically what is happening here is that a business is trying to lay a guilt-trip on us, and try to make us play 'fair'. When really, they just want us to play by their rules.
They of course want to define what is 'fair', and what the 'rules' should be. Just looking out for their own interests.
If you are saying 'sure, that's what they do, look out for their own interests', well, why do we not get the same priveleges?
ubiquitous ac, because I never bothered to get an account
On my work computer, a SunBlade 150, I basically have to block ads, especially the flash ones or else my computer is rendered unusable. The amount of processing power wasted on the ads brings my workstation to a halt. Now, don't get me started on how much Sun hardware and X server suck.
Ad blocking is a godsend. I run Privoxy for using Konqueror and use Adblock in Firefox.
I do not mind ads that are static, i.e. not constantly blinking or animated. It's the animated or pop-up ads that drive me crazy. Since they're so pervasive, I just block all ads, including Slashdot's. Only Google's ads get through, and I do click on them periodically.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
There is no obligation by web-browsers to view the ads of those websites they visit. Even if the ads show up, they certainly have no obligation to pay any attention to them.
"Social contract" theory is bullshit. The only contract is one you actually agree to, either through obvious implicity or explicitly. Signing a contract, or clicking "I agree" on a license you read counts. Walking into Regal, you agree to obey the rules of the theatre, and not make a commotion. However, there is no such implication for viewing a website that says you have to download every image and piece of text on that website and look at it.
The only obligations you may incur would be to note deface the website or do something simlar.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
What is this, bastardizing the great thoughts of Rousseau? What once was a guide for running an ideal society is now your "moral obligation" to the corporate machine? Fucking suits...
As others have said, it's my connection, so I have full legal and moral right to impose arbitrary restrictions on any material which gets through, including blocking ads. Now the counter-argument is that the website owner also pays for his connection and/or hosting, and has to cover these costs - well, fine, he can install a ad-removing software blocker, and block me out of his site if I use AdBlock or anything similar (he would have troubles doing that on a purely technical side - but it's his problems, not mine). Fine with me.
Not on my watch.
My firewall hosts file has all of the major offenders names pointed to 127.0.0.3, a local loopback just for that purpose.
It's just one of many lines of defense, but it keeps me happy.
F X=0:1:9999 F D=2:1 Q:((X>2)&(X#D=0)!((D>X/2)&(X'=1))) I D>(X/2) W:$X>75 ! W X,?$X+5-$l(X) Q
I don't know exactlyw hat the author's intepretation of "social contract" is, but here's my interpretation: Any social contract that may have existed between the general web browsing population and web advertizers was broken long ago.
My take on the social contract is this: Because of our mutual respect for each other as human beings, we voluntarily act in a way such that we can build and maintain a fair and orderly society. How much respect have the DoubleClicks of the world shown us? How many times have they said, "Hey, most people probably won't like this, so maybe we shouldn't do it?"
The vast majority of the advertisers are for-profit corporations who operate with the goal of maximizing shareholder profits. It is simply not possible to have a social contract with an entity driven purely by profit.
I believe that using Adblock, Flashblock, or any other extention/enhancement does not violate any social contract. I have just as much of a right to fast-forward through a commercial, change channels, and prevent advertisements from appearing in my browser. I'm running on a dial-up connection (and a crappy one at that). Any advertising just adds to the total time needed to fully load a page.
I don't need offers for free samples of Viagra every 5 minutes I spend online, thanks.
INACTIVE ACCOUNT
If I'm reading a magazine/newspaper etc., am I obligated to look at all the ads? Am I breaking a social contract if I choose to completely ignore them? I don't see how this would be any different, other than it being automated. Besides, I could always pay the neighbor kid to cut all the ads out of the paper for me for a small fee. Then I don't ever see them at all. I think I'm well within my rights (and not breaking any social contracts either).
I think the only reason people think there is a social contract to view advertising in exchange for services is because previously we had no choice. You couldn't fast forward through tv commercials before VCRs and Tivo. Now those who have been spoiled by the fact they could force you to view the advertising, are crying foul when it no longer works that way. Had there always been a way to skip advertising, it would never have developed as a viable revenue stream, and wouldn't be an issue.
IANAL, but it seems only fair (to all parties) that any private form of so-called "social contract" is nonsense.
I signed no contract saying that I would be bound to watch advertising in my browser or on TV. It's "just there", and until the advent of AdBlock and TiVo, I didn't have a say in the matter on most channels or most websites -- the advertising was rammed down my throat, and my only option was to flip the channel or find another, ad-free website.
But the fact is, TANSTAAFL. If you want "free" content, you'll have to *pay* for it somehow. PBS and NPR used to be basically ad-free, but now both have the occasional corporate sponsor, because people don't donate in quite sufficient-enough amounts to keep them afloat. Yet, they are still *mostly* ad-free. But if we wanted them totally ad-free, we have to pony up.
Same will go for our currently ad-supported websites. That's why I personally don't block the ads on sites I like, like Slashdot (though not The Economist, because they use ad.doubleclick.net, which shows up everywhere and it's far-easier to just block http://*.doubleclick.net/* than to make exceptions for each site). Sites I don't care about or which have craploads of ads (*looks at IGN*) -- sorry, you're gonna hit AdBlock.
Sooner or later, we'll have to find some other way to fund websites. Whether it'll be via advertisers' cleverness in getting around AdBlock (somehow) or via a system of micropayments or subscriptions (like with The Economist, Wall Street Journal, and other high-end newspapers and magazines), remains to be seen.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
If somehow copyright infringment is OK, then why would using someone else's service w/o generating any hits on their ads be wrong?
(hint: they both are)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
This is absolutely ridiculous! There is no contract that should force one to see what he doesn't want to see. I am not interested in banners more than I'm interested in looking to that. Sure you may be blocking a site from getting revenue, but if you're wise, you won't do it if you believe it doesn't deseve it.
As for myself, I block what I wish to block and give credit to who merits it. And since I'm not a consumer, there's no reason I should endure all the ads there is to see.
When I see a 120 minute movie playing on network TV and taking 3 hours from start to finish, I will not watch it. Stuffing 20 minutes of ads into each hour of broadcast shows major contempt for the viewer, especially when the same boring ads get repeated, within the same adbreak and sometimes even in sequence. Until I get a MythTV box built, I'll simply not watch TV. How long building that box is taking me really says something about how bad the 40 minutes of content per hour really are.
The same holds true for radio. I don't listen to radio (except for NPR) because it seems it has more ads than content.
And to add insult to injury, when I go to the movies I have to watch ads, and not just ads for upcoming movies either. Newsflash: There were already too many ads (trailers) before movies, we needed less, not more.
It all boils down to marketers putting too little value on our time. Instead of having 20 minutes of ads per hour and running each ad 8 times each hour, they should have 10 minutes of ads and run each one 4 times. How would they make up the loss you ask? Simple, charge twice as much. Less supply, more demand, higher price. I would actually see more ads, because TV would become wathable again.
I don't object to the model of watching ads to get free content, I object to the blatant disregard for my time that's evident by the amount of ads, especially duplicate ads. When I'm paying for the time, think DVDs, movie theatres and premium cable channels, I expect to see no ads.
As for the web, I resisted installing adblockers at first. Then I installed them to block out doubleclick and annoying ads. Eventually, chasing after the annoying ads one by one became too time consuming, so I added filters that block most ads (not Google text ads). I don't feel it's my duty to see the ads, but if they aren't annoying I'd like to help support the site. Problem is, 95% of them are annoying and it's too hard to tune the filters to allow the remaining 5%. I don't feel like a bad person for doing this. If there was an easy way to see only non-annoying ads (think no movement, no sound and certainly no Flash) I would use it. Unfortunately there isn't an easy way to do this, so I block them all.
A furore Normanorum libera nos, O Domine! [From the fury of the norsemen deliver us, O Lord!] -- Medieval prayer
Good point. And even if you never see the menu, we all know that's how the system works; it developed over time and became a part of everyday life. The closest I can see with the web is a server. If I go park a server in your rack and start using your space, electricity, bandwidth, A/C and so on, I can jolly well expect to pay for it. Random, public content off the web is hardly the same thing.
/. are a great example. (It helps that I sometimes find /. useful. 8^) The first time I saw a Barracuda ad, I checked out their site. Within a couple of days, I had contacted them. Within a week, my free demo unit was on the way, and within a month we had bought that unit. We love it; it works as promised, they have great support, it makes our sysadmin lives easier, and our users are despammed, devirused, d dewormed, etc.
/. has real value, so I come here every day.
There are also laws regarding restaurants, precisely because people came up with reasons they didn't think they should have to pay. In at least some states in the USA, these are a subset of "defrauding an innkeeper" laws which go well back into English history, and tend to still be very harsh. There are no such laws governing the reading of public content on the net. There are laws to deal with content that requires payment or contract to pay.
The only extant contract here is between whoever is providing the content and whoever is storing and/or serving it. It's up to the content provider to come up with a viable system that gets their content viewing paid for. It's one thing if you can convince me to agree to watch the ads on your site; if I agree to that, I should be bound to do it. But my entering a URL and hitting return, or clicking on a URL someone sent me, of I found on google, or whatever, doesn't obligate me to anything.
Some sites (please note correct spelling 8^) have a reminder like "If you found this site useful, please support my sponsors". In such cases I'm fairly likely to at least look around and see if their sponsors hold any interest at all. In fact, I tend to do that anyway, if I find the site useful. If not, I'm unlikely to pay attention to their sponsors unless the sponsor has done something worthy of my attention.
Barracuda's ads on
HOW did this happen?
1)
2) Barracuda had a good ad, which wasn't intrusive (I will no more buy from annoying advertisres than from spammers).
3) Barracuda followed up.
4) Barracuda provides something I needed at a price I was willing to pay.
If all advertisers followed this model, which has worked very well for Barracuda, I suspect we wouldn't be having this discussion!
The only problem is, as Spurgeon noted, that 90% of everything is crap. This includes web content, products being marketed, and the advertisements themselves.
Let's get the prerequisites out of the way first:
Would you be volating a social contract hitting the 30sec skip button on Tivo? Yes.
Or putting a strip of paper across the bottom of our TV screen to block out those super annoying scrolling banners? For broadcast TV, yes. For cable, possibly.
I have found that using the combination of AdBlock and FlashBlock extensions in Firefox has greatly enhanced my browsing experience. That is, until the sites shut down because they don't have enough advertising content.
Has acceptance of web sites crammed with advertising content become part of my social contract with society?
No.
By hosting ads so annoying that you concentrate on them more than the page itself, the site designer isn't holding up his end of the social contract...that he will provide you with an informative page.
In other words...the social contract is that he will add reasonable ads which you are to view so that the advertiser can give him enough money to subsidize his site. If he doesn't give ads that are likely to make you patronize the advertiser, you're not responsible for viewing them.
Back in '03 (I think) Rick Fox of the LA Lakers (Pro Basketball) endorsed Ford cars. So in this one add, Rick says "Here's the deal, I make this basket, and you buy yourself a new Ford!"
He proceeds to turn and sink a long basket.
For some reason, I didn't feel compelled by "Social Contract" to buy a Ford. Just like I didn't feel compelled by "Social Contract" to spend two months salary on a wedding ring for my wife.
I'm no more obligated to watch an ad than I am to buy the advertised product. The other side doesn't have to make the web page available, broadcast the movie, what have you. If they do, they have to take their chances that it will increase revenue. If it doesn't, it's not the fault of consumers for not watching.
OK, so you host a website. A popular website. So your host sends you a big bandwidth bill every month. How do you pay for that?
Interestingly enough, all your viewers have flat-rate broadband, and, individually, don't expend a whole lot of bandwidth on your site. They could use four or five times the bandwidth on it, and wouldn't notice the difference.
I have an idea - how about, instead of annoying us, you let us help you host your website and take some of that burden off of you?
The solutions are still taking shape (things like Dijjer), but soon there won't be much excuse for ads anymore as a way to pay the bandwidth bill.
But do you really think websites will take the ads down once distributed tech thins down your bandwidth bill?
How about we make a deal - you take off the ads, and we'll host your content. Now THERE's a real social contract.
I blame all the people who think they should get everything for free. I blame the goobers who think they should let everyone publish everything for free. I blame the morons who think anything someone else says is as trustworthy, informed, clever, sensible or whatever as anything someone else says.
I also blame hidebound management at companies who refuse to accept the reality that things are changing, and insist on trying to map their old business model directly onto the network media. I know that change isn't always easy. But if you wear blinders, you deserve what you get. Sadly, all your customers get punished, too.
No one has agreed to the trade-off between content and ads, not even implicitly. It's a gamble on the part of the business owners, like many other things. Many stores and restaurants give out free samples, in the _hopes_ that people who were lured in will buy their product. If you don't buy anything, you're not breaking a "contract", it's just that their gamble didn't pay off.
If a business decides that they can lower the price of their product by including ads, that's a business decision that carries some risk. It's not a requirement that consumers must follow. If a business came up with the idea that they'd give a free car to everyone who came into their ice-cream store, they'd go broke. That's not "breaking a social contract", that's bad planning.
"Your failed business model is NOT MY PROBLEM."
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
Now then. Luddite terms. When I visit a page, my computer copies that page from the server, then it displays it. When I make that copy, the data becomes mine, in the same way that owning a book makes it yours, and I am free to edit it as I see fit. Ad-blocking software is merely an automated means of editing my data.
So, there's no violation here.
...but is it art?
Why block ads with regexes? I block all of those advertising domain at the DNS level - DNS poison server. It works like a charm.
:-)
Example:
nslookup doubleclick.com
Server: 192.168.1.1
Address: 192.168.1.1#53
** server can't find doubleclick.com: NXDOMAIN
Isn't it beautiful?
By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers, Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself. Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations. I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart." Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! "Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags!
Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!
"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that." God, I'm just caught in a fucking web! "Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..." How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?
I personally run KDE's filemanager/browser Konqueror. Some of these ads that display as floating divs are written to display correctly only in IE, as evident in their usage of IE specific DOM functions to remove the intrusive ad in question. Combine this with it hovering over content, and an inability to "close" then by rendering then non-visible, and it's less of a social contract, and more of a censorship of users not participating in the let's make Bill Gates more rich fund. I don't mind ads, even the annoying animated banners (as long as they don't use that whole blue/red flash that induces seizures) and flash ads, but by removing access to content with advertisements for people that don't use IE it's a breach of social contract by those that use the ads. -- Kurt
The idea of the "social contract" is way older than the twentieth century, as is its refutation. See here Lysander Spooner talking about the US Constitution in 1870:
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/notreason.htm
The constitution not only binds nobody now, but it never did bind anybody. It never bound anybody, because it was never agreed to by anybody in such a manner as to make it, on general principles of law and reason, binding upon him.
It is a general principle of law and reason, that a written instrument binds no one until he has signed it. This principle is so inflexible a one, that even though a man is unable to write his name, he must still "make his mark," before he is bound by a written contract. This custom was established ages ago, when few men could write their names; when a clerk --- that is, a man who could write --- was so rare and valuable a person, that even if he were guilty of high crimes, he was entitled to pardon, on the ground that the public could not afford to lose his services. Even at that time, a written contract must be signed; and men who could not write, either "made their mark," or signed their contracts by stamping their seals upon wax affixed to the parchment on which their contracts were written. Hence the custom of affixing seals, that has continued to this time.
The laws holds, and reason declares, that if a written instrument is not signed, the presumption must be that the party to be bound by it, did not choose to sign it, or to bind himself by it. And law and reason both give him until the last moment, in which to decide whether he will sign it, or not. Neither law nor reason requires or expects a man to agree to an instrument, until it is written; for until it is written, he cannot know its precise legal meaning. And when it is written, and he has had the opportunity to satisfy himself of its precise legal meaning, he is then expected to decide, and not before, whether he will agree to it or not. And if he do not then sign it, his reason is supposed to be, that he does not choose to enter into such a contract. The fact that the instrument was written for him to sign, or with the hope that he would sign it, goes for nothing. [*19]
Where would be the end of fraud and litigation, if one party could bring into court a written instrument, without any signature, and claim to have it enforced, upon the ground that it was written for another man to sign? that this other man had promised to sign it? that he ought to have signed it? that he had had the opportunity to sign it, if he would? but that he had refused or neglected to do so? Yet that is the most that could ever be said of the Constitution. The very judges, who profess to derive all their authority from the Constitution --- from an instrument that nobody ever signed --- would spurn any other instrument, not signed, that should be brought before them for adjudication.
Moreover, a written instrument must, in law and reason, not only be signed, but must also be delivered to the party (or to some one for him), in whose favor it is made, before it can bind the party making it. The signing is of no effect, unless the instrument be also delivered. And a party is at perfect liberty to refuse to deliver a written instrument, after he has signed it. The Constitution was not only never signed by anybody, but it was never delivered by anybody, or to anybody's agent or attorney. It can therefore be of no more validity as a contract, then can any other instrument that was never signed or delivered.
When they want me to pay for access to the content by viewing the ads, webmasters could simply put that content (together with the ads) in a popup window.
That way, I get all or nothing.
If you're old enough to get screwed, you should be old enough to get hammered.
Google is doing it right. I sometimes read their ads and have no motivation to try and block them.
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
There is no social contract on the web for me to view ads. Firstly, the web is too young for such a beast to be true -- secondly, if your ads aren't being viewed then blame the sites that host them or yourself for your poor marketing skills.
There are ads I leave unblocked; like the banners on Slashdot; but I definately block the big obtuse ones under stories.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
So your agurement is "Because someone else does it, it's ok for me to do it" ?
/rant
Bullshit, the internet is a chance we have to make things different. Look at maddox he nevers put ads up, and he gets tens of thousands of hits, or what about Wikipedia. They are doing what everyone should be doing, I provide you this content for free, in return you provide your content for free.
When adbanners first came out, people were fine with them. Then more and more came out, pop-ups, pop-unders, spyware, everything. Had it just stayed at adbanners everything would have been fine. Now we are left with no choice but to block them. Most people don't block text ads. So use them if you must. But first think about what you are providing, is it a "I want money" or a for the public good website?
The internet is one medimum that corp's haven't yet taken control of. Do you want them to?
Or would you prefer the people to remain in control, and live by our rules, not the rule of the almighty dollar?
I didn't enter into any contract.
Some advertisers up and pushed this stuff onto me. I never agreed to download these things. I was never asked if I would like to do so. I agree to banner ads like I agree with a brick wrapped in a note thrown through my window.
Just because you up and suggest there's a contract involved doesn't make it so. You gotta pay for bandwidth? Well, guess what: so do I. How about you have to look at banner ads when I download your site? Why is it ok for me to subsidize your connection when you don't subsidize mine?
Social contract my ass. I pay full price to watch AND I have to watch ads? If that was a TV channel idea the investors would laugh you out of the room and you'd be stuck on that french fryer for another year.
I call shenanigans. You don't get to double-dip. You want me to stop blocking ads, pay for my connection. Otherwise shut up and deal with reality.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
There is no contract, implied or otherwise. If the person running the site doesn't want the ads blocked, they're free to move to a subscription model. No one's stopping them.
I am. I'm not going to pay for their site. It's too much of a hassle. I'd rather they just have a banner ad, because I can ignore that really easily.
I think it's more than a little heavy handed to call ad blocking a social contract when ad size has jumped from a few kilobytes (15-30kb is perhaps reasonable) up near the megabyte range. I see MANY ads without filtering that are in excess of 750KB, few which are less than 200K. On dialup, this takes a very substantial amount of time to download, and prevents doing anything else network-wise than having to wait for an ad for a product which you're not interested in. Even worse, most of the bigger ads tend to give instructions to the web browser or proxy to never even try to cache them, so you have to wait even when just moving between pages on a website. Ads on TV are frustrating, but you're not even exclusively locked into it there, either. You can change the channel. You can turn the TV off or mute it for a few minutes. That's not violating a social contract, either The fact is that businesses online who slather the public with ads are getting an easy break. They can effectively try to get near-permanent, near-exclusive advertising all over a website. Particularly if you have little bandwidth, that can mean you have no choice but to either stop viewing the website completely, or filter out the ad before it can be downloaded. It's a sorry state to things, but going on about how people who block ads are jerks, or irresponsible is complete BS in an atmosphere like this. I'd cheerily view ads if they weren't so annoying or so large. I used to often click on ads, several years ago, to see more about something that was half-way interesting. Even when I don't run with adblocking enabled (mostly with Opera), I never find anything anymore that's even half-way interesting, and usually it's Flash, or tries to grab input, or has obnoxious sound, or fills up the entire web browser and occasionally brings my 600Mhz processor to a crawl.
The bottom line is: If they want more people to view ads, they should make them less annoying, smaller in size, and more useful.
"A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
The advertisers are just pissed that people hate having to endure their lame advertisements.
I love AdBlock and FlashBlock! =)
I hope you stray, by no fault of your own, into my neighbourhood. In your own words I have the right to demand of you to wash my car, mown my lawn, put my garbage out, or any other thing I can think of (before telling you I do not have what you are seeking)
....
No, it does not matter that you would not have stepped upon my turf if you would have known the above, nor do I have to post any warnings to tell you of your fate if you do.
Our "social agreement" is that you endure whatever I say, for as long as I say, as it was *obviously your choice* to visit me (as my turf cannot move. That the road-sign to my "place of hell" does not descern itself from any other sign is not my problem either). After all : It was *your* choice to stray. Complaining that I'm abusive does therefore not hold ground.
Or does it
And when it does, why do you think you can hold anyone who strayed onto your website hostage, forcing them to go look at whatever you want (to lift your ego or wallet's contents, pick your choice), only after that showing him/her that you have nothing to offer/are not the sought person/do not have the sought-for information.
The easy *and honest* way to go is to put up a warning (create a portal) to what can be expected when continuing. Funnily, most (if not all) complaining website-operators do not wish to do so, but complain bitterly when the visitor takes precautions themselves (so they won't be *ambushed* by unwanted material).
Social contracts ? Ofcourse. But only with parties that wish to obey *their* side of it.
And "social contracts" which someone tries to *force* upon me are not "social" at all, but merely guises, one-sided "agreements" without (real) benefits.
It's MY computer, it's MY bandwdith, I can CHOOSE what will go on my browser window!!!
The only social contract there is is that I don't do anything illegal.
That was one of the more thought provoking, insightful posts on this subject that I have seen in a while (and I use adblock).
Thanks for your two cents.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
My computer -- my rules.
I haven't actually used AdBlock until I saw some of the asinine crap in these topics. Now I'm going to be blocking every ad I come across. My computer, my property, my rules, my terms.
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
This is really quite simple. When I send an HTTP request, I expect to receive the file requested, or some message stating why it was not returned (ie, 404, etc.). When your browser requests a page, all of it's content is returned by the webserver. Images, or other embedded media, are just hyperlinks to another file. In order to get any of that data, another HTTP request must be sent.
Why should I be obligated to send another request to retrieve information that I might not want? I sent the original request for the web page, and I got the web page. If I want more, I'll ask for it.
Being required to follow hyperlinks to other media is crazy. Where would the line be drawn? Would I be required to follow all of the <a href=... tags, too? After all, they're hyperlinks, just like images are. Following that logic, I would have to download the entire internet in order to read one page...
The social contract is not a real contract. The whole idea of this post is ridiculous at best.
Then either somebody else will start up a competitor that will fare well by not following that inane strategy
How can you get enough capital to start a bank? From the other bank?
What a pussy
By visiting my website you agree to accept and view commercial content on the site and to not block, remove or otherwise make inaccessible said material, bla, bla, bla...
By transmitting your website to my browser you agree to not transmit or attempt to transmit any commercial material to my system, bla, bla, bla...
I didn't choose to browse to their linked ad site, and it wasnt intended for my browser to go scooting off to it. Its as simple as that.
a dserver_attack/
They are a security threat.
Case in point, for which there is many: The Register.
Their ad served website got compromised, and users that were running IE got compromised if they werent patched. Trojans and keyloggers were installed.
Check out http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/21/register_
I fully support the use of AdBlock, and I surely run it in my security courses that I have been lecturing for years.
I've no problem if people block the ads (I only use Google ads, as they're pretty inobstructive, and easy to block).
I put the info there because I want it to be available. In doing so, I get a lot of emails asking me questions (the page which gets the most hits is http://steve-parker.org/sh/sh.shtml) which also take up a lot of my time - it also hits the http://steve-parker.org/forum/ page, which I have to keep up with.
That's all use of my time, which is valuable to me. I don't mind creating the content and putting it on the web - it costs me the time it takes to write it - but dealing with everyone who replies back also takes up a lot of my time.
Of course, I've got a day job, and that pays my real costs... Running the site is effectively a volunteer job I do out of choice - there's no financial gain for me.
To try to make it work, I offer the pages for purchase (via PayPal - crude but easy) but let's not pretend that I'm sitting here raking in bath-fulls of cash.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Two words: Product placement.
There are more ways to cram the advertising into their shows, product placement is just one of the better-known ways. If they lose one avenue, they find three new ways to cram their audiovisual industrial waste down our throats.
The 30-sec ad spots just make it technically easier for the advertising market, as any ad can be used in any spot, as the Market requires. There is already enough computer power available to change billboards or labels on boxes or cans in movies, in real time or almost-real time.
Advertising is like mold or politicians. It's pretty difficult to stamp out entirely.
Perhaps I can help in doing my part with respect to this issue. One ruleset that I found not very long ago seems to work very well:
http://www.geocities.com/pierceive/adblock/
-Anonymous
Am I still "violating" the social contract?
Blocking Flash ads is no different than not having Flash installed. If they don't block non-Flash users from viewing their site without the ads then there's no reason why we can't block them.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
I just adblock ads that are really annoying or that I don't feel like looking at when I'm viewing the site. This block most ads automatically, at least it did when I was using it a while ago.
I don't object to ads - I object to animated ads. I just can't read news when there's stuff flashing all around the article. It drives me nuts.
Any psychologist could tell you that peripheral-vision distractions, like animated ads, lower our concentration, lower comprehension, and worsen the reading experience. That's why they're used, after all, to distract us. And it works.
Ironically, there's an animated ad at the top of Slashdot as I type this. I blocked it. Now I can focus on what I'm trying to type.
I'm not violating a "social contract". I'm simply making the web pages readable again. I had dropped Yahoo! news in favor of myway.news.com, but with ad blocking, I can now use Yahoo! again. So ironically, my ad blocking gained Yahoo a customer they'd lost.
In fact, I like their service so much that I decided to add the Google ad code to the code that I include on all the pages on my personal website. Suddenly, like magic, relevant and related links appear attached to all of my web pages. Wow!
And if that wasn't enough, I've already earned $20 this year from advertising on a personal site with zero real content. That's free money to cover hosting, and I didn't even have to try. I know users appreciate them, because they actually (and regularly) click on the adds to find out more.
This interweb thing really is the wave of the future!
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
Why would anyone object to having extra content shoved at them? It's not like you have to pay extra to get the ads, right?
Gimme all the free content ya got!
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
So, people did not go to extreme lengths to block the ads that were normal, so the advertisers started making more agressive ads.
Makes sense... not.
If people didn't click on some of the ads, my guess would be that they weren't interested... which in turn means the initial ad was crap, or was advertising crap. The more people make use of software or ad blocks or whatever new pop technology for getting Gen-X'rs more of what they want totally without reciprocation creates a new demand for software or advertising designs that thwart the attempts to block them. So, when we block the ads that impair our surfing the web because they don't let us see the content of the page, we make them invent more agressive methods of advertising because by blocking the ads we've clearly shown that we don't give a damn as to what they're advertising.
I've stopped watching some of the (not very numerous) TV stations here in Croatia because about 40% of their programme is a combination of commercials and home shopping. Count in reality shows, and what is left is very little that would make me even contemplate watching their programme.
I turn of the radio when I hear the same commercial twice in less than 20 minutes; I heard and understood the first 28 times, thank you oh so very much! Advertisers have products that need to be marketed. We have web content that we want to view. Professional web publishers have a need to earn an income. The harder people fight to bypass these things, the harder the marketeers are going to fight to get around the method of evasion. You remember the 'equal and opposite reaction' thinggy....right? Here's some equal and opposite reaction: we block the ads.
Ads are the action; our blocking the ads is the reaction.
More agressive advertising will cause new methods of ad blocking to be invented; finally, too agressive advertising will deter people.
So when people stop visiting pages that advertise too much, they'll invent even more agressive methods of advertising so as to make the remaining two people that actually view the page - i.e. the author and the advertiser - buy *everything*.
It's just too horrible.
Ignore this signature. By order.
The "social contract" approach is a nice way of speaking very philosophically about this, but the real issue is: when everybody blocks ads, most of the web-sites (like Slashdot) will lose income, and most of them will simply stop publishing or start asking money to their readers.
So, if you block ads, you have to ask yourself if you would like to do that.
For the philosophically inclined: look up Kant's ethics, or for the religiously inclined: think of Jesus' "Do not do onto others..." (if that's the correct wording).
Come on, you go to the effort of a computer and software designed to send a copy of your file to anyone who asks for it and you connect it to a publich network then you can't say but they are cheating by doing so and not downloading all the files you hoped they would.
That's the whole point of the internet. So you have spotted that when a few people are using the trendy "web browser", by the that englishman george bernard lee or whatever his name is, that people useing that they will also coincentally get any adverts you put with the page. Well done you, but thats just lucky for you not a right just because it has sometimes has worked in the past.
Oh and don't forget blind people, skipping all the graphic adds, they probably should pay an extra "Internet freeloader" tax to cover their cheating ways.
I'd much rather pay for content and have it presented to me in a more decent fashion. I do, in fact, pay for access to some websites. Traditional newspaper sales here in Norway are declining. If they are going to make the money back in advertising it is going to be hard to identify the actual content among all the visual (and aural) clutter on the page. Sooner or later they will have to consider premium services, and when they do, they will need to get their act together.
"But the fact is, TANSTAAFL. If you want "free" content, you'll have to *pay* for it somehow."
All the sites I've run since 1994 have been ad-free, and always will be. Many other people do this as well--Maddox is a well-known example. I'm pretty sure Jason Scott is ad-free as well, and that fucker registers sites like I drink water. "TANSTAAFL" applies here only in that end-users pay for their own bandwidth (or someone pays it for them), but it seems like you're implying the end-users must see ads and that's that.
It is the advertisers who are breaking the social contract.
The internet was free, open and not filled with junk (sorry, ads). This was how people wanted it and how people expected it to be.
Then along came Big Business and put adverts all over it.
MY bandwidth was taken up downloading thier ads. My connection slowed down because of all the unsolicited high-memory adverts bundled with the content I requested.
So, where is my compensation (to cover higher bandwidth needed, extra software/plugins, spam-blocking, ad-blocking etc) ?
If anyone broke a not-actually-agreed-to-by-anyone contract, then it was the advertisers.
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf
Instead, consider it a 'dictatorial contract', imposed from without upon those who [a] have not asked for it, and [b] are now criticized for wanting to control such unsolicited imposition.
Consider:
Richard (aka Merwyck, aka QuaDZeRo) I blog at http://richardharlos.com
If i request to view a website by sending my browser to a URL, the webserver will send me code. My browser will then interpret that code and produce a display.
Who has control over that final display?
The webmaster designs his code so that it can display as he wants it to look.
I can set my browser to render it how I want it to look. (CSS can do wonderful things these days. Also consider hard-of-sight, hard-of-hearing).
If I choose to render the code in a different manner than the webmaster intended, am I breaking some sort of social contract?
If i view a page in a text-only browser, I can;t see your flash-ads, or banners etc. Is this wrong of me?
The webmaster is free to serve pretty much any code ( so long as it's not pushing trojans, phishing etc - but lets not go there today).
I am free to render that code in any fashion I please. I may not even view it at all, but save the code for later, or just take a look at the META tags and headers.
In All - stop telling me what I can do at my end of the line. Your right to serve ads stops at the entrance to my property.
--------
By reading this, you have agreed to send me $1.
By your computer parsing this, you agree to sned me $10
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf
Any website that claims as part of its "terms of service" that one is required to view ads in order to use the site is, in my opinion as a non-lawyer, making a requirement not supported by law and not enforceable as well as quite possibly being an unconsionable requirement which is illegal to begin with.
Since the terms of service are an adhesion contract (one imposed unilaterally by one side), one could impose an adhesion contract in response of one's own and reject such terms, and perhaps send them notice to the effect. Further it's questionable whether a TOS would be enforceable if you can simply access a site without agreeing to it.
Might be interesting to have, say, 7,000 visitors send notice (by snail mail) informing the website owner of the rejection of their terms and stating that if they do not agree to the change in terms, to mail them notice specifically rejecting their change of terms and requesting them not to use their site. Unless they send specific notice back the last form wins, which is the one sent to them.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Come on. Surely you are missing out on the point of advertising here. Advertising isn't some sort of compulsary penance you pay for illicit pleasures - advertising's role is to sell product. If someone uses Adblock, then the probability of that person responding to your advertising by buying a product is already nil.
In one way, if a website owner forces advertising onto an unwilling audience, he is doing a triple disfavour. First, he is pissing off the reader for no reason at all. Second, he is ripping off the producers that he's providing advertising for, by charging for a service that is useless to them, and possibly actually biasing people towards their product. Third, he is using up expensive bandwidth with useless data.
Adblock is advertising personalisation without the breach of personal privacy - it benefits everyone, except the webmasters who themselves are selfishly breaching their contracts to their users and to their sponsors.
Not being a good consumer and having your privacy and personal freedom raped away from you does not violate a social contract.
I also hate those stupid punch the monkey games. If you purposely miss over and over again, the monkey or whatever jumps under your pointer. I also hate the "You're our winner" ones. I block porn ads to, if they show up on non porn sites.
I want to support websites that put up advertising by allowing their ads to load. In a way, I feel there IS a kind of social contract, in that they need the revenue for their site. If I don't think they do, then I shouldn't go to their site, it's their terms. But when they violate that contract by being jackasses as I've described above, I don't allow it. I'm not sure, but I think that the adservers can tell if you don't load their ad, so the underlying website doesn't get credit for it. That's why I only block it if it violates my trust or senses as above.
Ads seem like a good and viable way to support a website. I'd much rather ads than being charged a flat fee to visit a website. I'm sure there isn't anything illegal about not viewing the ads, but on the other hand, how is a webmaster going to support himself other than by the ads? I understand that there are some websites that are loaded down with ads. And those sites need to get their advertising techniques under control. But a large percentage of websites do use reasonable advertising techniques. It takes perhaps 1 sec. longer to load the pages banners, but they are at the top and bottom, or left and right side of the page and there is still a good amount of content. I do not agree with this dichotomy between a physical object (e.g. a sandwich) and a non-physical object (e.g. a website) and that while we must pay for the first we have no obligation to pay for the second. The second, while not consisting of physical elements did require time, and does not a time expenditure deserve compensation just as a actual monetary expenditure?
- http://www.davemackey.net/ - http://www.daveenjoys.com/
My thoughts on this are fairly simple:
1. The advertisers, web site folks, etc have a way to know whether or not people are loading their ads--they only have to correlate IPs and times of content loads (i.e. *real* content) with times and loads of advertising.
2. So long as your are honest in the tracks you leave (i.e. don't send requests to load ads but then not display them, which is just a waste of bandwidth anyhow), blocking advertising is in no way unethical (I started using Privoxy when a car club site hosted by ezBoards started displaying rather non-work-safe ads, including popping and moving stuff, because that was the tipping point for me).
3. Some sites--Salon and their day passes come to mind--do provide an offer to you (i.e. you can view the content, but you need to view the ad first), which you must accept to view the content. This does create a contract (IMO), ethically if not legally, and in that case one does have an obligation to at least play the ad.
4. If you find ads on a given site to be non-obnoxious and you'd like to support the site with your two-hundreths of a cent (or whatever the impression rate is), then you should unblock them. Personally, I do this for non-doubleclick ads on slashdot and for Google text ads in general.
I dunno? Are you breaking a social contract if I tell you to fuck off, and you don't?
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Then you pay for it.
There are very few exceptions to this rule, mainly extremely specific service-oriented sites e.g. Lexis-Nexis, Britannica, Mercks. These are the sort of things you'd be paying a subscription or per-use fee for anyway, if you accessed them in paper form.
And no,
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
I've participated elsewhere in this thread, but wanted to post this as a separate question (rather than as a response to the responses to my earlier note), to see how people might respond to a voluntary solution.
/. readers respond (and how would you feel about it) if you encountered the following text message at the top of every page of a web site?
:-(
/. community think of this sort of an approach? Assuming that you in fact did want to read what the site had published, would you unblock their ads? Would you click away instead? Would you leave the blocking active and read anyway? How would you feel, seeing a header like that on the web pages? OK with it? Pissed off? Again, supposing that you find the sites content useful, how likely would you be to donate to support it, in order to leave the ads blocked and feel OK about it? (I know, obviously entirely dependent on how much you liked the site. Also generally a hassle to donate, given that there isn't any viable "micro payment" system that's generally available) Are there other things that should be included on the "ad policies page?"
A lot of the pro-blocker arguments here seem to spring from the fact that the site publisher never stated that receiving ads was a requisite for viewing their site, and that the site visitor as a result never agreed to receive them. (Hence, no contract existed.) The problem of course, is that there's not currently any sort of universally-deployed technology to automate this sort of transaction. (I know, you could always force visitors through a logon screen, but that would also likely hide the site from search engines, leading to certain site-death. Apologies in advance too, if my own technical inexperience means that I'm just overlooking something obvious.)
Here's the question: How would
---
"This site depends on commercial advertising for a significant part of its support. If you are using ad blocking software, we repectfully request that you either unblock the ads displayed here, or browse elsewhere. You may also _donate_ to support this site if you find its content useful. Click _here_ to read our ad policies."
---
The "ad policies" page might say something like this:
---
"Ads served on this site include a variety of banners, as well as popunders. Here are the ad standards we adhere to:
Conventional Banners:
Max file size 25K
Animation: Max of 3 loops or 20 seconds duration
Most pages have 2 ads/page, 3% of pages have 3 or 4 ads. Total ad content is less than 50K on 97% of pages, less than 75K in all cases.
Popunders:
Max file size 30K
Animation: Max of 3 loops or 20 seconds duration
Max of 1 popunder delivered per browser session
NOTE: Limitation of one popunder per browser session requires that cookies be enabled, because that's how we know when we've already delivered a popunder to you. If you have cookies disabled, you'll be bombarded with popunders, and likely be unhappy with our site. Sorry.
"Rich Media" banners:
Max file size without reader interaction: 25K
Max delivered content with mouseover or click: 100K
Rich media will only expand over page contents when the reader mouses over the ad or clicks on it. In the event of expansion upon mouseover, the ad will retract to its original size as soon as the reader mouses away from it again.
Ad Serving:
Third-party servers DoubleClick and Atlas are used for some campaigns, their policies for cookies and tracking apply to those campaigns. Campaigns served by ourselves use cookies only for visitor counting, tracking reader paths through our site, and to limit popunder serving to one ad per browser session.
Privacy Policies:
See our _privacy policy page_ for full details on our privacy policies.
---
This would make the "contract" explicit, even though reader compliance would be entirely on the honor system. - The site would have no way of knowing whether people were honoring the request or not, and hence no way of enforcing it. But the request would at least have been made explicit, and a copy of the ad policies would be available for anyone interested in reading it.
What would the
If sites advertised on 4Daily can attract customers, then that proves that pop-ups are absolutly unnecessairy. (For those who don't know, this is an GPT auto-surf program that cycles through websites on a 20-second timer.) These popups and pop-unders mess up regular browsing and computer opertaion, especially when you were attempting to post to a web-site such as
Another common problem is slow-loading pages. A web designer that cannot have a simple webpage fully load within dial-up 1 minute is putting too much information on the page. Unless this information is necessairy, such as a large quantity of thumbnails for a gallery, such webdesigners will reduce the amount of bandwidth per potential viewer. Users on broadband are still affected - it will either load more slowly, or cause them to approach their bandwidth limit of their "unmetered" connection.
I could switch over to Lynx or Links - those flashy images and popups render perfectly on those browsers.
(It seems that I've linked to a GPT site on Slashdot. It's non-referral and is generally permissable, but I'm sure that the moderator's reactions would be interesting anyway.)
I might've come off that way, but that wasn't my intention... Certainly the site operator can eat the costs, rather than his readers (that's how most individual's websites are run after all), because typically the cost is pretty low for a site with little traffic...
My post was mostly referring to corporate-information sites though -- newspaper or TV media sites, for example... Those, and heavily-trafficked sites (like Slashdot). Those sites have big-time bandwidth costs, server costs, etc., and somehow, those costs have to be recouped. Because they aren't going to eat the bills themselves, they're going to offload the costs onto their viewers, via ads or some form of micropayments or subscriptions (or personal information sales - register w/ the site, enter your name/address/etc. and receive junk mail and spam in return).
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Am I required to stay in the room and watch the TV ads? No.
Am I required to read the print ads in the newspaper and magazine? No.
Ads are paid for the *chance* to put their product in front of people, not for the certainty that they read the ads.
Besides, if there is any "social contract" it got violated with the ads for feminie hygene products and running the exact same ad every break for 3 hours.
This is more than just an ad issue.
A lot of web page "designers" I work with get upset when I suggest that readers ("users" they call them) might not want to see a long Flash splash page before getting to the real site. Likewise that users might not want to resize their window just to see things "just right." And of course ads might be blocked or even (gasp) all flash content.
I use custom CSS to control how web sites are displayed in my browser. Some sites don't look quite like the author might have intended (e.g. I make the text larger and substitute fonts). And yes I block flash and most ads. Why not? The page is sent to me; it's my choice how I chose to view it. I often don't even read every word of TFA before I go onto something else! I sometimes even skip around in a hardcopy book. Shocking!
These guys need to be whacked with the clue stick, and locked in a closet with those morons who object to so-called "deep linking."
Or even have to pay for the bandwidth taken up by overly long sig files... I think not! Ponyegg
Violating the "social contract" of allowing ads and other malware to load on my computer including spyware, more ads, trackers, root kits, and other various malware is NOT ACCEPTED to see a website. Frankly the idea of letting ads load because you want to "be nice" to the web-operator is bullshit. Clear and simple, they got greedy, employed ILLEGAL methods of placing content on users' computers and in the end, want us to "play nice"? Fuck that. I don't let ads load on my system and utilize Adblock and other blockers to my fullest extent possible due to the broken trust between consumers and advertisers. My most recent experience was to purchase an antenna online for my radio, but since the site was scripted for MSIE and not Mozilla, I was forced to use MSIE. At the cost of saving a couple bucks, I'm now plagued with an MCI dialer that I can't find on my system and is calling out to wherever. Thanks, I really appreciate the bullshit. All this for a fucking antenna...
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
OOPS...
:)
There were two replies to my post, the one from you and one from an anonymous coward. The reply I wrote five minutes ago was supposed to be directed at the anonymous post but I thought it was you and I got myself confoozled. Chuckle. So pretend I didn't attach it to your post
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Just to take it further, some places it's customary to tip. Many restaurants pay their waitstaff little or nothing, and they depend on those tips to make a living. States have exceptions to the minimum wage laws specifically for waitstaff, so that they can be paid $2 an hour or whatever, plus tips, instead of the usual $6.
If I don't tip, am I a crook? By asking my waitperson for a sandwich, have I contracted their services as well as the services of the restaurant in preparation of it? Do I really have a choice? Can I walk into the kitchen and order a sandwich from the cook instead?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
You've just described capitalism. Congratulations. And your analogies apply to everything of value, not just those that are difficult to quantify. There's a minimum volume and profit margin for every industry. If you don't meet them, you go out of business or you find a niche market.
I perform computer services for a set hourly fee. I feel my services are pretty valuable. My clients feel the same way. But, guess what, I won't talk to a client unless s/he has five computers. Because, as much as I'd like to mass together 100 people with one computer each and support them all, it isn't economical.
Do I bitch and moan and twist words and try to bend time and space to allow me to make a profit (or even a living) servicing companies or individuals with less than five computers? Do I imply that there is a "social contract" that whenever anyone buys a computer, they must pay a tax to support people like me?
No, I don't. I just target markets where I can profit and charge accordingly in markets where I can't. Every business does this.
It's the reason 12 ounces of water in a 7/11 costs as much as 1000 gallons of water from the tap. Yet, somehow, people still buy 12 ounces of water for $1. Perhaps it's valuable to them. If you're getting beat by people selling bottles of water, perhaps it isn't the concept of the penny that is flawed, but that your product just isn't valuable?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
that aren't subject to hijacking or spyware
Hmm I read this a little too fast and accidently merged the two words into "spyjacking".
I'm surprised this word only has 2 hits on Google. =)
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