uTorrent Adds "Featured Torrents" Ads — With No Opt Out (Yet)

wrekkuh writes "BitTorrent, Inc, the company who owns the freeware (but closed-source) BitTorrent client uTorrent, has announced that it will be updating its popular client with 'Featured Torrents.' In a post on uTorrent's forum, the company explained, 'This featured torrent space will be used to offer a variety of different types of content. We are working towards bringing you offers that are relevant to you. This means films, games, music, software ... basically anything that you will find interesting.' In the Q&A portion of their announcement, the company adds 'There is no way to turn in-client offers off.* We will pay attention to feedback, and may change this in the future.' (*The Plus version of the BitTorrent client does not include these ads)."

Comments

Not surprised

[nanoflower]

This isn't really surprising. It's one reason I never upgraded to the latest version when they started tossing in the kitchen sink instead of sticking with just being a great bittorrent client.

fairly standard business model nowadays

[Trepidity]

They're basically copying what YouTube and Twitter are doing, selling a "featured content" slot.

Re:fairly standard business model nowadays

[penix1]

They're basically copying what YouTube and Twitter are doing, selling a "featured content" slot.

Which is one reason not to use either of those if you don't want to be profiled and have ads targeting you. From TFS...

the company explained, 'This featured torrent space will be used to offer a variety of different types of content. We are working towards bringing you offers that are relevant to you.'

The only way to do that is to record all of your activity on bittorrent. Once they record that, the next step will be to hand it over to the government / media industry attorneys for later prosecution.

Surprise

[Mike Mentalist]

I had an odd experience on the uTorrent forums recently.

I uploaded my own books to some torrent sites, and posted links to them. From the people on Demonoid, Pirate Bay, ISOHunt, and 4Chan, I got friendly and encouraging replies.

The admins on the uTorrent forum deleted the thread, and banned my account, saying that they didn't want spamming scum like me.

Re:Surprise

[The Mighty Buzzard]

That's pretty much expected given that the uTorrent forums aren't for file sharing but for discussion of the client. By strict definition, you were spamming.

Another act which shows the difference

[Stirling Newberry]

between free as in beer, and free as in speech.

You don't know what's actually in the free beer, and by the time you get it, you can't take the mouse droppings out.

Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada

[NemosomeN]

Ditch torrents entirely. Usenet is much, much better, faster, and is really quite cheap. It is also completely legal for the downloader, though the moral implications are identical to torrenting. SABnzbd+ is fantastic.

More legitimate use

[dirk]

I see this as a good thing. First, as long as the ads aren't obnoxious, it will get a little money for the uTorrent team. Second, it will help encourage legitimate use of torrents. One of the knock on torrents and why they are so often throttled and blocked is that they are a tool for piracy. While there are currently legitimate uses, I would suspect that 95% or more of usage is for piracy. If these ads expose more people to legitimate torrent content and help get the legitimate use up, that is a good thing all around.

Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada

[Teun]

As far as I know downloading is at least in most of Europe not illegal, it's the sharing or making available that infringes IP rights.

Because the usenet server is usually seen like a proxy they are generally left alone.

(Beware of the words most of, usual and general)

Re:Showing ads to thieves

[Hatta]

Pirates spend more on media than non-pirates.

It is always the same story

[Golden_Rider]

Devs create small, easy to use program which does the one job it was designed to do very well.
Lots of people start using the program because it is good and lightweight and not annoying.
Devs think "oh, our program is very good, but we cannot simply leave it as it is, we need to have MORE FEATURES".
More features get put in, making users angry, because they use the program for its ONE job it initially was designed to do, not for anything else, because they already have OTHER programs which do those jobs better anyway.
Devs think "oh, time to make some money".
Ads get put in, plus "oh you can buy the premium version".
Users leave.

First Azureus, which transformed from a simple bittorrent client to a "your personal multimedia database/video streaming/community" monstrosity called "Vuze". Now uTorrent goes down the same road, from a small, lightweight "I can only download and nothing else and that is my whole selling point" bittorrent client to a "you can stream video and organize your multimedia experience for all your mobile gadgets" monster and now they add advertising on top of it, but oh, you can buy the premium version without advertising.

Thanks, but no. I'll just move on to another free and lightweight bittorrent client, because that's why I came from Azureus(Vuze) to uTorrent in the first place. But now you turned into Vuze, too. It's not as if there aren't any other clients around, uTorrent really does not have any distinguishing features, so I just kept using it our of pure laziness to install something else and put up with the added bloat instead. But when devs really think their bittorrent client is awesome enough to make users put up with advertising, it's time to move on.

Re:Showing ads to thieves

[markdavis]

Indeed there are legit uses for torrents. But if you add it all up, I bet 99.5+% of torrent traffic is the [illegal] exchange of copyrighted, commercial video, music, and software (and in that order, by volume).

Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay! Wow, it used to be so hard before....you know, when you had to click three times to get something done. But now, heh, we have the TERMINAL! In only 325 short typed characters later, you too can stare at a screen full of white text on black scroll by. No need for red(isn't done yet), green(your torrent is finished) visual indicators...we're all blind from terminal shit anyway!

Please give us a suggestion that doesn't feel like it was penned 20 years ago.

I bet you think Android tablets would be way better with a terminal don't you?

I find those who sling GUI around like it is an insult to be pathetically entrenched fan-boys who refuse to admit their choice of computing has been vastly outpaced.

uTorrent is the new Winamp.

[Emetophobe]

I love Slashdot, but all the comments below are pretty standard bashing we've come to expect.

Have you even used uTorrent recently? 5 years ago you didn't even need to install uTorrent, the executable was the entire program. It was extremely lightweight and fast.
Now they display ads everywhere, you have to uncheck multiple toolbars and crapware in the installer, and its bloated (I don't need a media player built into my torrent client).

This could actually provide more legitimacy to the protocol.

How does putting toolbars in the installer and displaying ads all over your product provide legitimacy? It's just developers trying to cash in.

It's Winamp all over again. The developers made a product that people liked, got bought out, and the new overlords monetised it and ruined it.