The Morality of Web Advertisement Blocking

An anonymous reader writes "There has been some recent coverage of the over-hyped boycott of Firefox, in response to the rising popularity of the Adblock Plus Firefox extension. A recent editorial on CNET looks into the issue, and explores the moral and legal issues involved in client-side web advertisement blocking. Whereas TiVo users freeload on the relatively fixed broadcasting costs paid by TV networks, users of web ad-blocking technology are actively denying website owners revenue that would otherwise go to pay for the bandwidth costs of serving up those web pages. If the website designer has to pay for bits each time you view their website without viewing their banner ads, are you engaged in theft? Is this right? "

Comments

Oh boo hoo

[Trigun]

If things weren't so horribly intrusive and capable of tracking a user's entire internet experience, for the sole purpose of selling you stuff, people wouldn't bitch.

Re:Oh boo hoo

[ivanmarsh]

Agreed... web advertisers talking about morality and ethics is a joke.

When you site warns me that it's going to resize my browser, install software and watch everything I do I'll stop blocking it.

Re:Oh boo hoo

[KU_Fletch]

Exactly. I don't sift through every page and Adblock everything. One, it would be a waste of my time, and two, I actually do click on a few ads every once and a while. I use Adblock to get rid of "annoying" ads, like the ones screaming into my speakers that I won a free iPod Nano, or the ones who make huge flash overlays over half the page so I can't read the damn article. It's not immoral, it's pushback.

Re:Oh boo hoo

[xENoLocO]

It's not two wrongs... its one wrong blocking another. :)

As a site publisher I understand the angle that it "blocks advertising", but as a web surfer I definitely understand. I don't put intrusive ads on my page, but if people want to block them, I understand.

Re:Oh boo hoo

[Deagol]

Repeat after me: "It is my computer. It is my browser. If the web site operator doesn't want me to view the content for free, then they should not place it on the web in a public location."

This is not like TV, where all you get is what the broadcasters send to you. You are the one who requests data from them. If all I want is the text (say, I want to read in a terminal via Lynx), then that's my prerogative and nobody else's. If I don't want Flash or JavaScript on my machine, then who is anyone else to tell me otherwise?

As the user has total control of the browsing experience, online adverts were an inherently broken revenue model from the beginning. The fact that users are just now being empowered in this respect does not change the inherent flaws of the advertisers' plan.

Re:Oh boo hoo

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"Two wrongs don't make a right."

And blocking ads from your computer is not wrong. Your comment is null and void.

Re:Oh boo hoo

[mgblst]

Why are these people so intent on advertising to people who are clearly not interested in it. Are they of the belief that those of use who go out of the way to avoid these adverts, will somehow fall under their magic when we see their latest animations?

Re:Oh boo hoo

[Duhavid]

That was stupid.

If you shine a light in my window, annoying me,
I cant draw the blinds? Because your commercial
interests are affected?

Bugger off, make some ads that are not offensive.

Re:Oh boo hoo

[Paladin128]

Do you even understand the point of HTML and similar markup languages? The user agent which interprets the document has the option of ignoring tags that it doesn't support or doesn't want to. That's why we have non-graphical browsers, mobile browsers, and text-to-speech browsers. Other user agents include spiders (some of which only parse the first 500 bytes of text, removing most tags), validation engines, and mashups.

The short story is, it's not theft; the user agent is just configured to ignore certain elements that match a pattern. It's the user agent doing it's job of presenting the content in an efficient manner to the user.

If you want to force people to view the content so rigidly, use a PNG or PDF.

Re:Oh boo hoo

[PalmerEldritch42]

and not fulfilling your half of the bargain in letting them deliver the ads to you.

You had me up until this bit. When I go to a website, I am not engaging in any sort of bargain with the webmaster. I never negotiate what I will do or demand what I will get from them. There is no agreement that I explicitly agree to saying I will look at their ads. If there was such a EULA on a website, I would quickly opt out and not go to their site.

Some of the youngsters on /. may not remember this, but there was a time when there were no advertisements on the web. Somehow, people still found a way to afford to publish their sites. In the unlikely case that all advertisements on the web were to suddenly stop paying off, the web would still exist. The advertisers, and even the publishers of web content do not have some sort or god-given right to make a profit. And we, the web users, do not have any requirement to provide these people with profits.

As to your stealing soliloquy, come on. What has been stolen? Did I break into someone's house and remove the ad profit from them? No. There is no physical thing that they have lost. They lost a potential profit. A profit that they are not entitled to. They can not demand that that I look at an ad, or download one. If they want to force people to pay for their web page, then they need to ask them for money. The subscription model has worked for a long time.

It's like saying that you are stealing from Walmart if you walk into their store and you don't buy anything. In this scenario, they may want you to buy their crap. Their whole business model is predicated upon people buying their crap. And you are using their employees' time, taking up valuable parking real estate, and a whole host of other expenses. Their costs are the same regardless of how many people come into the store. But since you did not buy anything, you have stolen from them more egregiously than any mp3 copying, EULA violating, device unlocking pirates. Right?

Oh my.

[croddy]

I'd like to live in a fantasy world where I'm simply entitled by default to ad revenue, and I only have to deal with insidious "users of web ad-blocking technology" who are "actively denying" me my solid gold razor scooter. Fortunately for users, in the real world, a webmaster has to earn ad revenue by finding content that users want and ads they are willing to accept -- not by taking it for granted that they will just gaze longingly into the CRT clicking on everything that swirls.

For a long time, advertisers were able to support a huge number of frivolous web sites, partly because they could bombard the user with page after page of obnoxious flashing garbage for which no technical countermeasures existed. The collapse of the dot-com bubble eliminated the most unviable popup-pushers, and the rest are beginning to get the message. Popup blockers are normal mainstream software, and Google has had significant success selling all-text advertisements.

The website owners seem to think that we've pushed back hard enough, and should just deal with the sea of repellant Flash banners they want to drown us in. I guess those website owners are wrong, because clearly there are plenty of people who are not willing to tolerate the barrage of useless ads. We'll find a balance eventually, somewhere in between no ads at all and the websites whose masters believe they are entitled to a tithe every time their server sends a 200 status.

next step?

[mardin]

What's next step? Forcing people to actually look at the adds? Or press at it? Or are you a thief if you don't buy a product of an advertiser of a web page you visit?

Is it theft?

[rah1420]

If the website designer has to pay for bits each time you view their website without viewing their banner ads, are you engaged in theft?

No more theft than it would be if you were viewing web content with a browser that couldn't physically render the content. What if everyone used Lynx, for example?

Re:Is it theft?

[Overzeetop]

Does it really matter that much? If free entertainment content disappeared from the internet, would it really be that bad? To me, the internet is both a tool and an entertainment device. The part that's really useful is the tool part, and much of the information I need is either pay-to-play or funded directly by the site creator (product data and such - call it self advertisement). I hate to bring it up, but the internet wasn't meant for the entertainment business or advertisers, and I don't see a whole lot of the "value" they're providing.

Would I miss a free /.? Maybe. Or maybe I'd just get more work done.

Shift the example

[gentimjs]

Those poor innocent spammers need to pay (somewhere, at some level, be it money for bandwidth or time to write the virus..) to send you those viagra ads .. if we block those messages, and never see them, is it theft of some kind from the spammers or the viagra company?

A non-issue ...

[Woldry]

I fail to see how using Firefox to ignore the ad banners and such is morally any different than throwing out the advertising supplements to the newspaper without glancing at the ads therein.

And

[Vexorian]

Going to the bathroom during TV commercials is theft!

No

[cerelib]

No, it is not theft. I ask a server for a page and it gives it to me. I control which parts of the page will load and which parts won't. If websites don't like it, then they need to find a better business model.

Re:No

[rabbit994]

And as the server, I can control who I talk to. I don't see all the bitching, this is a two way street. If the server doesn't like a clients behavior, server can stop talking to client. Same thing in real life, if I no longer wish to have a conversation with someone, I walk away thereby ending the conversation. If these sites are sick of the "freeloading" Adblock users, don't "talk" to them anymore. Issue a 403 Forbidden, say your server will not talk to Adblock users and call it a day.

Sounds like the MAFIAA

[kerohazel]

"Our revenue model is broken, and exploiting said brokenness should be illegal."

Pay-per-view is dead, isn't it?

[J'raxis]

As far as I understand it, the pay-per-view advertising model has gone the way of the dodo, and they're all pay-per-click now. Telling me I have to let the ads through on a site, when I have zero intention of ever clicking on them, is pointless. In fact, since I'm never going to click on them, by not displaying them, I'm saving the advertiser bandwidth.

Exactly.

[khasim]

From TFA:

In the end, a few things are clear: Users of advertisement skipping technology are essentially engaged in theft of resources.

No. If you do not get the reaction you expected from me, then you have simply lost that portion of your investment. I have not stolen anything from you.

Next up on Slashdot, if she won't blow you after you buy her a drink, is she guilty of "theft of resources"?

What about my bandwidth?

[Erioll]

What about my bandwidth? They're trying to say I'm OBLIGATED to take everything on their page, not just the parts I'm requesting. I can assure you that I'm requesting their content, not the ads. They're forcing unnecessary bandwidth requirements (and slow load times) upon me by their advertising.

With a pipe, there ARE two ends to it you know.

Re:Depends on what kind of ads they are

[ericlondaits]

Yeah, but when we use AdBlock we block ALL ads, whether they're obnoxious or not.

What this might cause, eventually, is for ads to be served through the same server and directories as content (to avoid URL pattern matching), for content to be served through the ads (like a flash file that provides both the ad and text content) or that ads sneak inside content (which they already do, in the form of sponsored articles, sponsored tv shows, on-screen banners during shows, etc.)

It'd probably be in the best interest of consumers to find a good middle ground.

Many analogies

[J-1000]

A casino has a cheap buffet because they *hope* you are going to gamble before/after you eat. You, being a clever person, attend the buffet and leave without spending a dime on the slot machines.

Arby's has a "five for five" deal where you buy five items for five bucks because they *hope* you will spend five dollars instead of, say, two dollars. You, being a clever person, realize you only want two of the five items, so you spend $2.50 on two items and leave.

Circuit City sells printers for only $30 because they *hope* you are going to pay $20 for a high-margin Monster Cable. You, being a clever person, buy the cheap printer and purchase a generic cable for $2 from Fry's.

CNN.com offers their content for free because they *hope* you will click on their ads (or at least glance at them) while you visit. You, being a clever person, ignore the ads or disable them outright.

The point is, any free or below-cost business model is a risk that the provider has accepted, and they are inherently providing these extra "benefits" at *no obligation* to the consumer. If the provider isn't willing to run the risk of people not following their suggestions, then it is time to turn that suggestion into an obligation (pay websites, or otherwise restricted-access websites). This is not a morality issue for the consumer, it is a business issue for the provider.

Well you're half right.

[goldcd]

It's your computer and your browser and your net connection.
On the other end there's another persons server, content and bandwidth. If they don't want to serve you pages, then they don't have to.
Everybody's happy.

Re:Well you're half right.

[Chris Mattern]

It's your computer and your browser and your net connection.
On the other end there's another persons server, content and bandwidth. If they don't want to serve you pages, then they don't have to.
Everybody's happy.

Very true. He has every right not to serve me pages if he doesn't want to, and I won't complain if does that. What he does *not* have the right to do is to serve me pages and then bitch about how I view them.

Chris Mattern

Re:Well you're half right.

[h4rm0ny]

He's got every right to bitch about how you view his pages. He just doesn't have any right to do anything about it besides refactoring his pages so the ads are harder to block.

Which is how we ended up with sophisticated ad-blocking in the first place. When it was a picture here, or a link there, nobody cared. But then the ads got more desparate and we got little shaking boxes, pop ups, great big chunks of Flash (which we pay for out of our bandwidth costs as well, incidentally). The ads become a big detraction to the website that we actually want to see. So naturally ad-blockers arise and become hugely popular. I put one in ages ago to try it out and then after a re-install, I didn't bother for a long, long time. But a couple of months ago, after visiting /. a couple of times and having some irritating Flash movie start playing and overlaying the music I was listening to with its audible sound-track, I immediately went off and got Flashblock.

If advertisers had been a little less greedy or desparate, they wouldn't be in this mess. But I have every right to not download things I don't want. And it's very, very easy to do that.

Re:Well you're half right.

[Deagol]

Indeed, you are 100% correct.

You see, my problem isn't with a site trying to make a profit, but rather with advertising. If CmdrTaco wants to hold a bake sale in the Slashdot corporate office, fine. If /. sells t-shirts or offers paid premium accounts, that's cool. But I object to adverts on principle, as I imagine many here do. I know what I want to buy, so there's no need to convince me that Shiny New Widget is what I need today. I come for the tech news (consolidated from other sources) and the chatter amongst other users, not for ads.

I don't pay for a /. sub, and I unabashedly filter ads while here (and everywhere else). If /. folds, well, them's the breaks I guess. I'll go back to USENET or some other site for my daily dose of tech ramblings and gossip. Seemed to work well back in the BBS days when most sites were free and most operators were glad to spend money on their labor of love. Sure, the dial-up BBS couldn't have hundreds of thousands us users online at any given time, so it was a different beast. But really, it wasn't that much different.

This site is cool, no doubt. It's a shame that there's no real valid business model for it to keep it from running in the red. It's one thing for sites with real original content to sell subscriptions (research publications, newletters, newspapers, etc.), but trying to charge for a site where the content itself is provided by all of us? When you think about it, it's one of those cases where "Step #2: ?????" doesn't really exist.

a better mantra

[sdedeo]

"Your business model is not my problem".

Re:It's not your web server.

[Chris Mattern]

I have no problem with web server blocking views. What I have a problem with is the *whining*. Block if you're going to block, don't block if you're not going to block, but for God's sake quit whining about how people view the pages you do serve up.

Chris Mattern

Not Insightful. (not even a little)

[mcmonkey]

If things weren't so horribly intrusive and capable of tracking a user's entire internet experience, for the sole purpose of selling you stuff, people wouldn't bitch.

I'm sure there's some fancy latin term for this fallacy, but I'll just call it the War Games defense. (The only winning move is not to play.)

The parent poster is saying if an ad is static text or image--no flash--and doesn't track you past the single page displaying the ad, then it is immoral to block the ad. Interesting.

I say, my stand on blocking ads has nothing to do with the ads. My argument doesn't depend on ads being obtrusive or anything else. I simply say, I control what I download. I choose not to download from certain sources.

You see, I don't get into a debate on types of ads. I don't even really address the issue of ads at all. I just say, I download what I want to download. If I think I'll never have any reason to request data from a domain, I might use a HOSTS file to direct requests for that domain to 0.0.0.0 just to protect myself from any inadvertent requests I may make.

Someone who wants to take the position that there is something wrong with not viewing ads on a web page has to play on my field and explain why the ISP connection and the computer I pay for are obligated to accept someone else's data without my request.

Costs me money too

[Anonymous Coward]

Adverts on a web page are sent to my browser as links, which my browser must in turn request from the appropriate server.

This means that each advert on a page causes my computer to actively send and then receive additional data.

This results in real additional bandwidth usage on my part.

If I am using any kind of metered access, or even if I am using unmetered access but with one of the major ISP's who arbitrarily enforce unofficial bandwith caps, then I incur a real cost for viewing that advert.

So, me configuring my computer to not waste resources in that way is no more immoral than the web site configuring their page such that viewing the advertisements makes use of my resources.

Re:It's not your web server.

[stfvon007]

I have adblock as well. My policy with using it is this: If the ad is annoying (lots of movement, flashing, etc) I will block it. If I see several of these kinds of ads coming from the same ad servers/domain (doubleclick.net for example) , I block all ads from those servers/company/domain. You want me to see your ads? Don't make them annoying, and don't purchase advertising from a company that displays annoying ads. Ypu want me to see ads on your site? Don't get advertising from companies that display annoying ads. I don't have Google adwords blocked. Feel free to show ads from them.

Re:Well no.

[fatal wound]

Wow. First, let's clear the air. Morality has absolutely *nothing* to do with this. NOTHING. Please get that correct first. Business models are designed to make money by offering something that someone wants. It is that simple. Going by your post, it would be immoral to leave the room when the adverts arrive for television programs; or even scan the radio channels during commercial breaks.

We filter *everything*. If the business model doesn't work, it doesn't work. Whining that it is "immoral" to not view adverts because a freely offered web page has the ads clipped from it is plainly stupid. Take the corners of Las Vegas in the evening as an example. People stand there and offer various cards for "evening companionship" to all passersby. Would they whine if someone took a card (freely offered by any of these vendors), and clipped the ads from them to only keep the picture?

Even viewed from other angles, the argument is fallacious. If that form of advertising is not working for you, choose another. If your sole goal is to present free information to all passersby, then do so. If your goal is to make money, and the offering of free web pages have their ads blocked... move on. Examples of this on the web are rampant. You log in to purchase items from many web vendors. If you do not read their adverts, so what? They don't care. Newegg never complains to me that while purchasing my new hard drive that I blocked the other adverts along with my purchase. If they did, I just wouldn't buy anything there and move on to a vendor who was not confused about their ultimate goal.

So tell me again why a browser that blocks images is a "gray area"? Since no morality is involved (see above paragraph) it just means that the user wishes to use a perfectly valid browser to enjoy what internet content interests them. Ad content does not interest me, and I block almost all of it. I watch television (what little I do watch) via Tivo. The adverts are annoying (usually oppressively loud after a quiet portion of a program), and I am uninterested in their content. I pay a cable provider, who in turn pays the originator of the program.

The same applies to the internet. I pay a provider to get information I wish. If I need to support sites that I enjoy special content from, I do so. If their only manner of gaining revenue is from the adverts, *and* they are giving the pages away in hopes of you paying attention; tough. Poor business decisions are not my problem. It is the responsibility of a good business to decide their ultimate goal, and format their decisions to accomplish that. A local store gives free samples on the weekends to anyone who visits. They don't complain when you don't buy the product, nor when you do not even inquire as to the company that provides the sample.

Why should the internet be different?

Re:It's not your web server.

[ceoyoyo]

I don't understand why advertisers have this idea that forcing people to watch their ads will do some kind of good. If I don't want to see your ads I'm definitely not going to buy something in them if I'm forced to view them!

There are a couple of sites I go to that are sponsored. That is, specific, RELEVANT companies support the site. The site displays the advertiser's logo and provides a link to their store. Guess what? I BUY stuff from that sponsor occasionally! I've never, ever bought something from one of these random, always changing ads. Not that I see them much anymore....