Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica recently conducted a 12-hour experiment in which story content was hidden from users of popular ad blocking tools. Explaining the experiment, Ken Fisher appealed to Ars's readership: 'My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We've all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads.'"

Comments

Ad blockers will just stop announcing themselves

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

If you block browsers that have "with Mega Ad Blocker" in the browser string, then those programs will just stop mentioning their presence in the browser string. Or if the server detects if the ads were downloaded or not, then the Ad Blocker will starting downloading the ads (lowest priority), but still not showing them.

I block to protect my privacy, remove distractions

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

I started using an ad blocker just a few months ago, and my use has nothing to do with advertisements.

* One, my privacy is harmed because ad providers like Google/DoubleClick are logging my use of most of the websites I use.

* Two, some sites use flashing images for ads, and that interferes with my reading.

Print and TV ads never did either of these to me. Ars, any thoughts on these issues?

Re:It's *their* CPU you're using

[Disfnord]

It's freeloaders like you who are ruining the advertising industry. Ad people need to work, too, and you people are sending descent, god-fearing advertisers into a death-spiral. Advertisers aren't paying Ars sweet sweet green so people like you can just unblock and then ignore those ads. If you aren't scrutinizingly reading each ad, clicking them, and making a purchase, you're no better than a common thief. Each time an ad is loaded on Ars, it costs those poor advertisers money. If people like you continue to not block but ignore them, they will go out of business, and soon we'll have to have a subscription based service for the advertisers to keep them in business. Do you really want that?

Arstech doesn't do right: See inside (Ars Virus)?

[Anonymous Coward]

Virus on the Man Page of Ars Technica -> Philip

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=447008

Submitted by Philip on Wednesday January 02 2008, @03:00PM
internet

Philip writes "It looks like an add server that Ars Technica is using has a virus on it. When I go to Ars Technica my corporate antivirus MCafee reports that the site has a virus. Here is a copy of my log. I just wanted to get a waring out to all the tech sites. 1/2/2008 2:27:15 PM Script execution blocked iexplore.exe(http://arstechnica.com/index.ars) Script executed by iexplore.exe JS/Exploit-BO (Trojan)"

Link to Original Source

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=447008