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French ISP Blocking Web Ads By Default

Posted by Soulskill on from the hasn't-yet-surrendered-to-pressure-from-ad-suppliers dept.

New submitter GavrocheLeGnou writes "The french ISP 'Free.fr' is now blocking ads from Adsense and other providers by default for all its subscribers. The option can be turned off globally, but there's no whitelist (Google translation of French original). From the article: 'Because the service doesn’t offer a whitelist (contrary to Adblock, a service I’ve used for years), this means that it is an all or nothing choice, activated by default to block everything. And since it is not only internet, but TV and phone lines running through the FreeBox, it’s possible that, if left unchecked, Free could beginning blocking TV ads, or phone calls from known spam hotlines. While this seems like a potentially beneficial service, there’s no doubt that it’s biting at the heels of several sectors who rely on advertisement to make money, let alone the advertisers themselves who pay to reach an audience, and are blocked at the door.'"

8 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. Good. by Gordonjcp · · Score: 1, Interesting

    About bloody time, too. The Internet is not for advertising.

    1. Re:Good. by c0lo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The internet would still be a bunch of news groups if it wasn't for advertising: ...

      Like Wikipedia, you mean?

      advertising spurred people to create and advance content

      Ah, yes, we wouldn't have FaeceBook without advertising.

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
    2. Re:Good. by TapeCutter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The internet would still be a bunch of news groups if it wasn't for advertising.

      I don't really know... are you arguing for or against ads? Your "threat" might be seen as a promise.

      Nothing wrong with nostalgia, but only a Luddite could possibly see the expansion of news groups into what we have today as a BadThing(TM). Seriously, "there is no such thing as a free lunch", news groups in the early days were funded mainly by the taxpayer, advertising pays for the banquet of free content we now enjoy. If you have a better funding model for providing free content on the same scale as radio/TV/internet combined, we'd all like to hear it.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    3. Re:Good. by infinitelink · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Weird. When I search on Google the first three million results are usually ad farms that have no bearing on what I was searching for, and then about ten million results in I find someone's personal web page with the information I actually wanted.

      Do them a favor. Since you're looking for that info, perhaps you have a related or semi-related (in some way) blog or site? Write an article with related content to that you found, incorporating and expanding on it in some way. Put links within that content, in meaningful contexts, with words showing for the link relevant to the linked content, within this post or essay of yours. Publish online, and making sure to link to from blogger or something, to get it fast-indexed by Google and raise the pagerank of the site that was useful to you...

      And you're done. Yes, I do this for people and sites out there. And I agree, I often find what's needed on obscure non-corporate/farm/business/institutional pages.

      --
      Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
  2. A big win by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would pay additional money for services like this, in the US. Maybe not for internet, since adblock does a fine job at preventing my consciousness from being polluted by bullshit. But for things like Hulu, or TV...

    My wife watches Hulu when she wants to see something that I haven't set up to be auto-pirated with sickbeard/sabnzb/couchpotato. It amazes me the crap people will allow into their brains. "You could save fifteen percent on car..." "FUCK OFF, I'm already a Geico customer, WHY DO I HAVE TO HEAR THIS SHIT?!"

    I won't pay for Cable TV but I probably would if I could get TV without advertising.

    Yeah, yeah, the industry is driven by advertising, blah blah, guess what, I don't give a shit, totally not my problem, if they want my money, they can start by providing a service that I want. TV with ads? Do not want. I'll keep giving my money to a premium usenet provider, thanks.

  3. There's another side to that story by obarthelemy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Free is a major French ISP, also just breaking into the mobile phone market with rock-bottom prices. They've always been at the forefront of the price war, and without them we probably still wouldn't have $40 ADSL with unlimited phone, TV..., nor $27/month for mobile with unlimited data/voice/texts, and no restrictions on VOIP, tethering... full net neutrality in fact. So up to now, they've undoubtedly been Good Guys.

    They have a long-standing dispute with Google though, about who should pay for bigger tubes between their servers and YouTube, which is unusable at peak time for Free subscribers. Free have been advising their clients to use Dailymotion instead, and don't want to pay for extra bandwidth. Free users are very dissatisfied, and this is becoming a *major* issue.

    The ad-blocking move, which seems right now to target mainly Google, is probably mostly a bargaining chip to get Google to pay for better YouTube access for Free.

    --
    The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
  4. Re:Not the ISP's problem by squiggleslash · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I dunno, I don't see this ending well. I assume a fair number of ad supported sites would block the ISP from accessing their sites, which, given such a block would also affect customers that are willing to see ads, would ultimately undermine the ISP as customers switch to other ISPs in droves.

    Not that I don't understand the motive, ads have gone from bad to OK to bad to OK and now back to bad again with the ridiculous number of autoplaying HTML5 videos. But this probably isn't the solution.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  5. U R the product: re Side business v. main business by girlinatrainingbra · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You are the product!: re side business vs. main business (You actually wrote "Advertising should just be a side business"
    .
    Sometimes, people forget the obvious because it is well hidden from us with shell games. (Q1) Why are google and its googlicious products free of cost to use? (Q2) If newspapers cost so much money to buy, then why do they tend to give them out for free just before Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays? (Q3) What do magazines really sell if not the content which is in them?
    .
    (a1) -- Google sells an advertising service: their ability to connect your eyeballs to the advertisers selling their product.
    (a2) -- Newspapers sells an advertising service: their ability to connect your eyeballs to the advertisers selling their product.
    (a3) -- Magazines sells an advertising service: their ability to connect your eyeballs to the advertisers selling their product.
    (a4) -- (not that you/I asked but also) Television sells an advertising service: their ability to connect your eyeballs to the advertisers selling their product.
    ;>)
    All of these products exist in order to market things or services available for purchase to you who thinks you are the consumer. You are not the consumer in these equations for Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. You are the product (the eyeballs connected to desire and to a wallet to be emptied) that is sold to the advertisement makers who sell the advertisements to the merchants and makers of these things and services for sale.