No Opt-Out For Ads On New Kindle Fires

An anonymous reader writes "Lost amid the announcements for Amazon's new tablets and e-readers was the news that their latest Kindle Fire tablets would include advertisements. So-called 'Special Offers' would place ads on the devices' lock screens in a similar fashion to the lowest price Kindle e-readers. However, on the e-readers, you had the option to 'buy out' the ads by simply paying the difference in price between the cheaper device and the regular version. But Amazon has no confirmed there is no way to opt out of the ads on the new Kindle Fire tablets." Update: 09/09 03:02 GMT by S : Reader Aoreias sends words that Amazon has now changed its mind. A spokesman announced that users will have the ability to opt-out for a fee of $15.

Comments

Expect more of the same

[NixieBunny]

Ads will take over the world. We'll have to jailbreak our devices with illicit ad-blocking software.

Re:Expect more of the same

[goombah99]

I wonder if they will accept ads for ipads.

Re:Expect more of the same

[amiga3D]

I don't see where they're coming from at all. They make money when they sell the device although admittedly not much. They make money when they sell the ebooks to you for damn near what it costs to get a hardcover delivered to your house. Greedy Bastards need to quit.

Re:Expect more of the same

[ultranova]

I wonder why ads bother people so much.

Ads lower the signal-to-noise ratio by saturating the environment with irrelevant misinformation. Even if every ad was 100% honest and trustworthy, they would still distract you from more relevant inputs. But of course they are typically extremely dishonest and manipulative.

Furthermore, ads perpetuate the idea that life's purpose is to work your ass of so you can consume an endless stream of useless (and sometimes actively harmful) crap. They do their part in making people waste their lives chasing after a winning lottery ticket for the benefit of the 1% at the top who run the lottery. They feed various neurosis and addictions to manipulate people into spending their hard-earned cash to try and fix imaginary problems by illogical means of buying an unrelated product.

An ad campaign is basically information warfare. People disliking them is simply their self-protection instincts at work.

Re:Expect more of the same

[pla]

I wonder why ads bother people so much. Especially on the kindle where the ads are unobtrusive (you only see them on the power-off screensaver).

Has some of my bandwidth gone to downloading those ads? Has some of my electricity gone to displaying them? Did I lose a tenth of a second of my life hesitating on unlocking it because I thought I saw boobies in the ad?

In all seriousness, I first started blocking ads because of bandwidth, back in the days of dialup. Oddly enough, the ads have kept pace with technology, and you'll still see a noticeable speedup (whether actually my network, or just because they can't be assed to pay for decent hosting so the load takes about 10x longer than the rest of the page combined).

At some point, I came to consider the ads as no different than your run-of-the-mill spammer - They go out of their way to waste my time, get me to look at their crap, try to con me into spending money, all on something in which I have no interest to start with. They fight back against ad-blocking technology with ever more subtle ways of getting around our filters, and yet they still can't take the goddamned hint.

So, you want to know why I loathe ads so much? Because marketers don't know how to take a polite "no" for an answer.

Re:Expect more of the same

[thegarbz]

No they don't have an off switch. The switch at the bottom locks the display and then it shows a static picture. Estimated battery life in this state is approximately 8months.

E-ink displays use power only to update the display, and that power is rather consistent. That's why you see battery life quoted in page turns. I'm not sure how fast the adverts cycle but I doubt you'll get 8months out of a device which has to display a new ad periodically unless the ad is static for the entire day or per activation of lock. Then there's the 3G usage in fetching those ads too.

Re:Expect more of the same

[I_am_Jack]

They'll quit when people stop doing business with them. Based on their sales, I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

Re:Expect more of the same

[Kjella]

At some point, I came to consider the ads as no different than your run-of-the-mill spammer - They go out of their way to waste my time, get me to look at their crap, try to con me into spending money, all on something in which I have no interest to start with. They fight back against ad-blocking technology with ever more subtle ways of getting around our filters, and yet they still can't take the goddamned hint.

What hint would that be, that you want the site to be run by magic pixies that don't have any server costs, don't have any bandwidth costs and don't have any costs creating the content? Most people hate pay-walls and subscriptions with a vengeance so you don't want to give them your money, you don't want to give them eyeball time, you should get the part that benefits you but they shouldn't get the part that benefits them. Nobody wants ads as such, if customers do it's so they can get more content or pay less. It used to be that if you don't like what they're offering, don't buy it. If you don't like all the ads on TV, don't watch it. If you don't like all the ads on a website, don't go there.

Ad blockers are part of a bigger cultural change which is "if you don't like the deal, rewrite it". Don't like all the ads on TV? Get a PVR to skip them. Don't like the web ads? Get an ad blocker to browse the site without them. Don't like the DRM on BluRays? Download it off TPB. It's like a boycott, except the hard part of forgoing something you actually wanted. And there's a lot of people out there that just aren't reasonable in what they want, but nobody's going to sell them a Ferrari for $100. In the digital world there's no limits though, if you don't feel paying a buck for Angry Birds is reasonable and want to pirate it for nothing then you can. And the more unreasonable you are, the more you can justify.

Re:Expect more of the same

[ljw1004]

It bothers me that overt $2000/person/year is spent on adertising in the US per inhabitant, i.e. including all babies, children, adults. That's a huge waste, a kind of regressive tax.

Also, ads to me are an unwanted intrusion into my personal space. They're forcing their way into my perception and consciousness. I'd rather keep those two things clear for what's more valuable to me.

Re:Expect more of the same

[pla]

What hint would that be, that you want the site to be run by magic pixies that don't have any server costs, don't have any bandwidth costs and don't have any costs creating the content?

Nice strawman, but I have my own website. And not a crappy LiveJournal blog, but a real, live, actual website. Costs me a whopping $10 a year.

Does YouTube differ somewhat from my own website? Sure it does! Do I, however, give the least fuck about whether or not Google makes a profit on a collection of content provided for free by its community

Nope.


See the disconnect here? People will provide content. The internet existed before its "monetization". Advertisers want to cash in on us, but honestly, we have very little use for them.

Google may have a use for them. I... Do not.

Re:Expect more of the same

[NeutronCowboy]

Nice strawman, but I have my own website. And not a crappy LiveJournal blog, but a real, live, actual website. Costs me a whopping $10 a year.

Yeah, I know quite a few people too who run their own website. Some even have their own actual business website. You know why it costs you $10 a year? Because no one visits it. A popular website can easily run a grand in monthly hosting costs. At that point, you either make sure your business can support the site as a marketing expense, or you make money off of each person visiting the site.

People will provide content. But they will provide it only for as long as doing so doesn't bankrupt them.

That will make the choice simpler

[Gonoff]

I think this will help Google Nexus sales. I am not aware they come with built in adware.

Re:That will make the choice simpler

[Anonymous Coward]

Over the course of the last few days, Amazon has raised the price of the Nexus 7 in their store by up to $50 (it's only marked up $40 today) and stopped offering Prime shipping on it. Last week, I could pick one up for $199.99 and get free 2-day shipping on it. They now clearly want me to buy a Kindle Fire HD. Assholes.

I guess I'm going to my local Walmart and picking up a Nexus 7 now. Walmart, of all places!

Re:That will make the choice simpler

[teg]

I think this will help Google Nexus sales. I am not aware they come with built in adware.

From a 30000 ft view, Android is just an ad delivery mechanism. If you zoom in, it's a mobile OS, but it's sole job is to enable delivery of Google's ad service to users from it's customers. And as always, you are Google's product, not their customer.

Now, I use google mail, google docs, google talk and chrome... but I know they're doing this to sell me.

its no confirmed.

[matt007]

"Amazon has no confirmed there is no way to opt out of the ads on the new Kindle Fire tablets."

They no confirmed so its no sure there is no way out.

Obligatory Neal Stephenson Reference

[fm6]

Recall the guy in Diamond Age who made a name for himself by putting animated ads on chopsticks? As always, SF is way ahead of reality.

Sure you can!

[Snaller]

Don't buy it

Re:Mostly meh, but some Grr

[nurb432]

Give them an inch, they will take a mile. This is similar to the trial balloon where they were optional, and if no one protests they are mandatory, expect more intrusive ones the next round.

Re:Nook touch FTW

[Isaac-1]

Look at the new Kindle Paperwhite introduced with the new Fire, but not getting any press

significant nuisance

[bcrowell]

I picked up a low-end kindle at a discounted price (~$40) that I'm sure represented a loss for Amazon, and I don't buy any DRM'd books for it, so they're not recouping that loss from me. This gives me a gratifying feeling that I've successfully fought back against "the Man." I can read Jane Austen novels while traveling and not run out of reading material.

But the ads really are creepy and a nuisance. Every time you stop reading for a while, an ad comes up. To get past the ad, you have to click a button. Then it talks to your wifi network and pops up the details of the ad. Then you can finally click again to get back to reading Pride and Prejudice.

I accepted the ads as a conscious part of my plot to screw Amazon financially and get a useful toy for myself, which I use only while traveling. But would I pay hundreds of dollars for a device that pulled this kind of crap, if I was going to use the device a lot? No. Way. In. Hell.

We're really headed for a nasty, dystopian future with ebooks.

Re:Bing search too

[Anonymous Coward]

And best of all, Bing Is Not Google!

My opinion of e-books are reinforced

[kheldan]

I'll continue to stick to printed books, thank you very much. They can't edit them, delete them, or plaster ads all over them once I own them, can they?

Filter or modify the ads on your wi-fi network

[crow]

Has anyone analyzed the protocol that they use for advertising? How hard would it be to use a bogus DNS and serve your own ads, or to simply block them? Could a business with free public wi-fi set it up to serve ads for their business? Can I serve up ads for rooting your Kindle on my home network for any friends that visit?

Business Opportunity.

[jcr]

I have no intention of buying a device that won't let me remove the ads, but for those who do, I think there might be a brisk business for a router that can block ad servers, along with a nice user-friendly UI to control it.

-jcr

Re:Will?

[NixieBunny]

I don't watch TV, and I use AdBlock Plus on my computer. So in a sense I am blind.

Readers will hate this.

[Animats]

Every time you stop reading for a while, an ad comes up. To get past the ad, you have to click a button. Then it talks to your wifi network and pops up the details of the ad. Then you can finally click again to get back to reading Pride and Prejudice.

That's totally unacceptable. It may well bomb, like binding ad cards into paperback books did in the 1970s and the 2000s.

Where does Amazon get off doing this? They're not the publisher. The device is paid for. The books are paid for.

Re:Except that...

[DeeEff]

Google doesn't want you to opt out of ads on the Nexus, because a lot of their income comes from ads.

That would make more sense if Google actually had unblockable ads anywhere in their devices. I have both a Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7, and neither has ads anywhere outside of individual apps.

And honestly, you don't sound as if you really know what you're talking about, since it's trivial to root Nexus devices and subsequently install ad-blockers across all applications. The same can't be said for all of Amazon's devices.

Re:Will?

[fm6]

ven some of your clothing is most likely a walking ad..

You're referring to the logos on brand-name clothing? That's not an ad, that's part of the product. People want to display these logos, so people will know how cool they are.

In China, where logos used without authorization are the norm, you'll often see clothes displaying multiple logos from competing companies.

Screwing themselves

[Charliemopps]

I paid for the version without ads. In the kindle hacking community, there was a definite aversion to helping people circumvent the ads. If you don't want the ads, but a kindle without ads they'd say. Now however, I'm willing to bet that very same hacking community will consider it their duty to help people remove the ads. Amazons screwing themselves with this move.

Re:Will?

[nurb432]

Not all people do. I wore 'name brand' for a while, and i removed the logo as i refuse to be a walking billboard.

My dad used to demand the dealer take his logo off the car when he would buy a new car. Same reason. ( and when we had a body shop and could repair the damage, sometimes even the manufactures logo came off.

Reminds Me Of The Free PC Era

[rsmith-mac]

For better or worse this reminds me of the "free" PC era.

For you youngins that weren't around at the time, in the late 90s at the tail-end of the dot-com boom, companies would offer PCs for free in exchange for the ability to track your usage of the PC, track your buying habits, and to run ads. This happened to come late enough in the dot-com boom that "free" PCs were only around for a short period of time before the PC suppliers (and really, the crazy dot-coms that funded them) vanished in a puff of red smoke.

Anyhow, even though no one is getting a free device this time around the similarities are very strong. Amazon gets to track your usage and buying habits (via Silk), and they get to run ads. In fact the only thing that seems different is that instead of being exploited for free, people are expected to pay to be exploited this time around. Financially this is an improvement - this stupid concept may get off the ground for once - but I'm not sure this is any better for consumers than it was the first time around.

It's opt-in

[Fuzzums]

"there is no way to opt out of the ads on the new Kindle Fire tablets"

Actually, you opt-in by buying that tablet.
Your opt-out option is not buying that tablet.

Easy.

Troll?

[Ecuador]

Eh??? BS much?
I have both the low-end Kindle and the Kindle Keyboard (for me and my wife), both with "Special Offers" and have been extremely happy with them (which is why I bought the second) and would never even consider paying more for skipping the ads.
How it works is, if you stop reading and leave your Kindle for a while, it will go to "sleep" mode. Instead of showing a blank screen, it will show an ad. I am noting here that since an e-ink display will only use power to change a page, this ad will do nothing to your battery usage. Anyway, the next time you pick up the Kindle you will see the add instead of a blank screen etc. You just have to press the power button and in a second you are back to where you were last reading.
Now, if you like the ad (sometimes it can be something good, like a discounted book, or a $-off coupon etc - another reason to get the special-offers section), you can get more info on it by holding the center button, and at that point you will need a wifi/3g connection.
Also, if you don't connect to the internet for a while, you will actually stop seeing ads and you will get instead a "connect to the internet if you want to get new ads" screen instead.
There is also a banner in the home screen - I don't spend any time in that screen (too busy reading books), and it is a rather small banner.
So, overall the special offers version is great. Cheaper to buy the device, also has saved me some $ when books I wanted came up as a special offer in an ad and it does not cripple the device in any way.
The parent poster is either a troll, or mildly retarded and actually follows the on-screen instructions on how to read more about the ad instead of just skipping it.

Re:No.

[digitig]

No, common sense says that a device with these specs would cost more without the ads.

You're not an economist, are you? The price isn't set by the cost of production/distribution etc, it's set at the point expected to maximise revenue, and it's well established that increasing the price of a product can in some circumstances increase sales. Yes, no doubt Amazon expects its profits to be higher with the ads, but that probably has almost nothing at all to do with the price to the consumer.

Re:Nook touch FTW

[Overzeetop]

No, it's exactly lighted e-ink. It is not self-luminescent e-ink, but if it were that would defeat the purpose of e-ink being a reflective surface and easy-to-read. The light is even better than an external light because it has been engineered to provide even lighting, which is almost impossible to get with external lighting solutions.