AdNauseam Browser Extension Quietly Clicks On Blocked Ads

New submitter stephenpeters writes The AdNauseam browser extension claims to click on each ad you have blocked with AdBlock in an attempt to obfuscate your browsing data. Officially launched mid November at the Digital Labour conference in New York, the authors hope this extension will register with advertisers as a protest against their pervasive monitoring of users online activities. It will be interesting to see how automated ad click browser extensions will affect the online ad arms race. Especially as French publishers are currently planning to sue Eyeo GmbH, the publishers of Adblock. This might obfuscate the meaning of the clicks, but what if it just encourages the ad sellers to claim even higher click-through rates as a selling point?

Comments

No tanks

[Anonymous Coward]

This tool seems like it would be really great if you want to waste your bandwidth.

Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was an advertiser, I'd be pissed.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[frostfreek]

It could be considered click fraud if you used it against your own website that you have advertising on.
But I do agree, if I was an advertiser, and this caught on, they could see a potential spike in clicks, and therefore a big jump in advertisement expenditures.
That might lead to drastically reduced payments per click for websites, or maybe the end of pay-per-click, or who knows what else?

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Roodvlees]

If you were an advertiser you should reconsider using annoying adds.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[TWX]

I don't see how it's fraud for a user to choose how to voluntarily use a service that they're not obligated to use, when there's no signed contract or even terribly binding agreement between the user and the entity from whom they're retrieving content. If the entity serving the content doesn't like what the user is doing, they're free to block the user.

Remember, these are the same people that complain when you fast-forward through commercials, and have tried to make legal arguments to prevent one from being able to do that.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[ArcadeMan]

As a user, I've been pissed at advertisers for nearly two decades now.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Responses calling you a freeloader from schmucks that make a living this way in 3, 2, 1....

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[gstoddart]

If I was an advertiser, I'd be pissed.

Well, the reality is ... you as an advertiser don't get a vote what I do in my browser.

You want me to view and click ads? Well, you'll have to pay me. Paying some other guy to embed shit in his web pages which I'm "required" to view? Kind of bullshit, and not happening.

If you're not paying me, then you don't matter, and I don't owe you a damned thing.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I don't see anything here that suggests this will employ some form of AI to determine which ads would be annoying and only click on those.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most people are like the parent poster (and myself as well). We want everything on the Internet to be (1) free and (2) free from ads. Why anybody would bother making content if that were the case everwhere, I dunno. The only things that come to mind are fame and popularity as well as advertising disguised as reviews (IIRC some fashion blogger already receives millions in return for endorsing some clothes).

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

If you're an advertiser, you should consider seppuku. Be an hero!

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

I already paid to get on the internet. Comcast gets sixty bucks a month. In addition, I pay to host my own websites out of my own pocket. You aren't entitled to a revenue stream from your website. If the only way you can make money on the web is by pushing malware (which is what all third-party ads are) then you don't belong on the web and should GTFO.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[drinkypoo]

I don't see anything here that suggests this will employ some form of AI to determine which ads would be annoying and only click on those.

Some people are annoyed by all advertising. But other people have the checkbox set to permit unobtrusive ads. Since this extension "clicks" on ads which have been blocked, that means that the unobtrusive ads won't be false-clicked.

I find pretty much all advertising obtrusive. It doesn't necessarily make me buy shit, but advertising does influence mood. Some say only if you are malleable, but I have this nagging suspicion that it's more than that. They say that if you don't yawn when other people yawn, you may be a psychopath. I don't know that not reacting to colors and motions in typical ways makes you a psychopath, but I do think it is related to a lack of presence and alertness. Being brought to a state of alert by motion is a feature, it's what helps permit you to not get run over by some distracted moron in a parking lot for example. But it also means that moving advertisements (for example) are particularly annoying. Advertisers also exploit known effects of color to get attention and influence mood — whether it induces a sale or not, it still affects you. Or, again, if it doesn't it's because you've built some sort of structure in your brain which deadens your sensation. Otherwise, you couldn't possibly watch Ow, My Balls with 8/9 of the screen dedicated to ads.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[javilon]

Agreed.

The basic idea here is that the http protocol doesn't mandate what to do with the information stored on a given URL. That is left to the user to decide. It is just information you use in any way you want. Removing the ads is just one application of this concept, rendering text for blind people is another possible application.

Protocols with DRM (Digital Rights Management or actuall Digital Restrictions Management) functionality try to mandate what you can do with information. They didn't work. But even if they would, http is not a DRM protocol (except for the newly introduced video extensions). If they want a DRM protocol, then let them try to push a new standard protocol and put their shit there. See if it sticks.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[hairyfeet]

Adblock by default has the "acceptable ads" feature which is pretty much that. I personally uncheck this box on every customer because they allow Flash ads if they aren't annoying and with flash ads the #1 source of malware it is simply irresponsible to allow them but if you care to support advertisers (which I don't***) then this combined with AB should fulfill that goal.

*** Advertisers, you stupid greedy pieces of shit, you brought this on yourself and deserve your slow death as does anybody on the net who bases their business model around you. For nearly a decade the thought never even occurred to us to block ads because they were just text or JPG hyperlinks or if you really wanted to be fancy a small looping GIF. They were so small and unobtrusive they had a negligible effect on even the shittiest dialup and since they were first party they were actually relevant, a D&D site may have a link to buy miniatures, a site for musicians footpedals and strings. Everyone got along and things ran smoothly.

But then you stupid fucks listened to the MBAs, Master of Being Assholes, who said "Fuck this being nice man, we'll pop up and under, we'll bury the content, we'll slap screaming flash vids on every page so the stupid peasants will give us money just to STFU!". It was YOU that created the pop up/under/over, it was YOU that demanded Adobe turn what was a simple video player into a code running malware delivery system so you could make "punch the clown and win an iPod" style bullshit, it was YOU that added MBs worth of bullshit to every single page, it was YOU that caused pages that should have been one to become seven, it was YOU that made simple cookies into tracking dogs, it was YOU that made pages slow to a crawl as unsecured ads from a half a dozen sites became the norm, it was YOU that made ads the #1 attack vector by not giving a shit about anything but your bottom line, it was YOU that took a business model that worked for a decade and burnt it to the fucking ground with your feces flinging short term outlook, you worthless douchebags!

So as we, the Internet users, do everything in our power to slowly but surely starve you out and make your business model a thing of the past just remember, it didn't have to be this way, it was YOU that shit on everybody and because of this we won't shed a tear, not a single fuck will be given, as you cry and whine about how poor you're becoming. You brought this on yourself, you deserve what you get, you worthless greedy fucktards!

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[oneandoneis2]

(1) Nonsense, people cheerfully pay for all manner of internet services. Spotify, Netflix, etc. etc. Even Google, the patron saint of spying on people to advertise effectively, has finally started the process of simply allowing people to give them money so they don't have to bother with ads.

(2) Yes. Because, despite the enormous amount of effort the advertising industry has made to try and stop people noticing: Advertising is not the only way to make money off a website. Adverts are a tired, unpopular, ineffective way of raising cash. Their only virtue is they're no effort at all to use, so the lazy and unimaginative webmasters turn to them time and time again.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[amiga3D]

I don't mind simple ads. They are fine with me because I can look at them or not as I please. The ones that flash or jump onto my viewing area or otherwise intrude into what I am doing do annoy me greatly. To the point I hate the people that are selling the shit. It has caused me not to buy products that I might otherwise have bought. To be assaulted by this crap while trying to browse really infuriates me. I can't believe any fool actually buys shit from these people. I would love an extension that clicks these ads in the background. If everyone does it then it makes all their numbers bogus and eventually it could undermine the entire system.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[javilon]

If you put stuff on an URL, and then you make the URL public (and put it on search engines), you are agreeing with the http protocol. The contract is:

"At this URL you can find public and freely available data".

That's the way http works. There is no click through contract to get to an URL and the standard is made so data can be processed easily (there are content, presentation and behaviour separated parts, and each part is designed so it is easy to extract only a subset of it). So, again, clearly the intent of the http protocol design is: "At this URL you can find public and freely available data in a format easy to process so you can use any subset of the data any way you want".

Seen in this way, an advertiser has agreed with the http "contract" by publishing the data. It should be illegal than an advertisher tries to subvert the nature of the http protocol and force you to consume content in a way that further's his interests.

This is similar to what is happening with net neutrality. People trying to subvert the design to convert a protocol into something it is not so to achieve control in the ways the protocol is used, removing control from the actual users of the protocol. They should call it something different, like "filtered internet".

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, they don't even have to flash or jump to be annoying as all hell. For example - cnn.com. Their home page is unusable for me without adblock. It often has some full bleed "background image" ad (doesn't seem to be there at this minute), then a banner ad, multiple side ads, etc. Of course these rotate and change - but I just loaded the page and it has a banner ad for Cannon and two square ads on the right side for Cannon. Then, if you scroll to the bottom, another ad for - you guessed it - Cannon. The content gets pushed all out of shape. The page is remarkably clean and usable with adblock.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[stephenpeters]

Agreed.

The basic idea here is that the http protocol doesn't mandate what to do with the information stored on a given URL. That is left to the user to decide.

The thing about this point is that advertisers seem not to have understood this basic concept yet. I have no idea of the quality of the browser extension I linked to in TFA. However the idea that an extension could be used to automate the deliberate poisoning of advertisers collected user data seems to be a powerful one. In my view this is a logical next step in the user vs advertiser arms race.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[AmiMoJo]

Most likely lawsuits alleging false reporting of clicks for profit by the advertisers. It's like Facebook reporting false user base numbers due to the vast number of fake, duplicate or non-human accounts. Facebook is careful to provide those numbers now, because when money changes hands based on them they have to be right.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Deathlizard]

But other people have the checkbox set to permit unobtrusive ads.

I don't, and everyone I set up doesn't either, and it isn't because I hate all Ads. It's because I hate Removing Adware and viruses.

All of the unobtrusive ad's I've seen from adblock plus contain some link to a malicious download. Don't believe me? do the VLC Test.

1) Turn on Unobtrusive ads
2) Go to Google (or Bing, or Yahoo, Or Ask, ETC.)
3) Search for "VLC Media Player" (As a side note, DuckDuckGo is the few Search engines that do this right, but still serves malicious ads once in awile. Use "Libreoffice" or "Openoffice" Instead of VLC for an example)
4) Click on the first link you see. If the first link you see is an ad, click on it.
5) Download the installer ***WARNING!! Do not run it unless you Enjoy Cleaning viruses for fun!***
6) Go to virustotal.com, and submit the file for analysis
7) Watch the detections go off the charts.

I get roughly 3-7 pc's a week in our shop infected by adware caused by malicious ads that would be otherwise considered unobtrusive. If ad firms would clean up their act, and refuse malicious content ads or obvious scams then I would be more receptive of turning it on. Until then They're no different than a trojan downloader to me.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Maritz]

Agree apart from Flash. It was originally a vector graphics animation platform. I liked Macromedia back in the day. Adobe are asswipes.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ianal, but even the definition they put in their FAQ states that intent to harm the advertiser is click fraud. The do not track purpose seems like a thin veil over causing massive amounts of false clicks that harm their advertising revenue. We should certainly be able to block what gets served to our computers, but this add-on definitely crosses the line.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[mooingyak]

Adverts are a tired, unpopular, ineffective way of raising cash.

2 out of 3 ain't bad. I'll give you tired and unpopular, but hell no on ineffective. Sure it's not the only way, but it is an incredibly effective way.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the owner of the web site was getting revenue from advertising and was using this tool on that site, it would be click fraud. The owner is creating fraudulent events and reaping monetary compensation for it from the advertisers.

If users of a website are doing this, it is not click fraud. The users are not being paid by advertisers. If advertisers were paying users to view the ads, then the advertising model would be very different.

Furthermore, click fraud can only happen when charging per click. An alternative is to charge per impression (e.g. every time the advertisement is displayed). There are estimates that can be made for clicks, usually at 1%. A click on an advertisement does not imply a sale, however. Typical sale conversions are much lower.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[matbury]

Ianal, but even the definition they put in their FAQ states that intent to harm the advertiser is click fraud. The do not track purpose seems like a thin veil over causing massive amounts of false clicks that harm their advertising revenue. We should certainly be able to block what gets served to our computers, but this add-on definitely crosses the line.

That would make it civil disobedience and protest then. It would only be criminal fraud if the intention was for a competitor to gain an advantage, to demand payments for it to stop, or to extract more money from advertising agencies' clients, which AdNauseum doesn't do. It'll be interesting to see how this gets treated by the press who have a vested interest in online advertising.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[mooingyak]

1. No, it's not click fraud or anything resembling click fraud.
2. This thing only matters if it becomes very popular. Otherwise it's background noise.
3. If it does become popular, it will probably have some kind of detectable signature to it and will get filtered out.

Advertisers really won't give a fuck about this.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[VIPERsssss]

If you're in advertising or marketing, kill yourself.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no honor in what these diseased corporate shills do, seppuku does not apply. To take ones life to preserve honor requires you have honor to begin with.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[squiggleslash]

All of the unobtrusive ad's I've seen from adblock plus contain some link to a malicious download. Don't believe me? do the VLC Test.

OK, point taken, but you're very much an edge case - I'd estimate the vast majority of people use web browsers for things other than exclusively for downloading VLC. I use mine - as an example - for reading the news, a certain amount of social networking (largely Twitter), discussions (like Slashdot - how did you get here BTW?), etc.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some annoying adds... 1+1, 1+2, 1+3.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[DarkOx]

A false representation of a matter of factâ"whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosedâ"that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury.

This sure sounds like it very well could fall under that definition. The question is for (me at least, IANAJ) does an HTTP get represent a page view? Who agreed to that interpretation? Perhaps the advertizing firm and the site operator agreed those are equivalent but I never did. My guess is though the "by conduct" part is going to cover it. I mean in this case an individual has downloaded software specifically designed to disrupt statistics gathering that is know to be used for paying on ad views, and then your proceed to use said software. No part of the definition requires you to gain anything directly, only the other party to be injured so this may qualify as "defrauding the ad company" by you the user, without involving the site operator as a party.

I really don't know, but would/will stay away myself.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[stephenpeters]

So as we, the Internet users, do everything in our power to slowly but surely starve you out and make your business model a thing of the past just remember, it didn't have to be this way

There still is another way, there always has been. If browser extensions such as the one I linked to take off perhaps it will occur to advertisers that their reputation is important. Despite running AdBlock I still do see ads, just not the attention seeking disruptive ones. I really do want the sites I like to make money. Real time black hole lists forced those using email to advertise to think again. I expect this browser extension idea will make online advertisers rethink their approach. Eventually. In the mean time break out the popcorn for the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

I already paid to get on the internet. In addition, I pay to host my own websites out of my own pocket. You aren't entitled to a revenue stream from your website. If the only way you can make money on the web is by pushing malware (which is what all third-party ads are) then you don't belong on the web and should GTFO.

Amen to that. More and more interesting to me forums goes subscription way more or less formal.
We are using it, we are paying for it. Advertisers please bent over and kiss your posterior good bye.

Dear advertisers, you want me to watch your adds - pay me, not third part. I am paying for every downloaded GB.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

they argue that you are getting paid with the content you consume.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[mangobrain]

Doesn't sound like that much of an edge case to me. These things may only need to be downloaded once on a given machine, but I assume that almost everyone who does so, does so via a browser. This sounds quite plausible to me without the need for exaggerating about using the browser "exclusively" for this purpose.

Also, GP was giving this as an example, not as the one and only case in which malicious ads get through AdBlock.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[jd2112]

And to appeal to your marketing instincts, I and many others here would gladly pay to see that.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Cajun Hell]

def is_annoying(ad):
    # Problem too trivial to need AI.
    return ad is not None

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[bkr1_2k]

Some people simply can't afford to pay for their bandwidth usage themselves, though. Think of the communities that used to use BBSes and now have forum sites where they post pictures, videos, and massive amounts of text. The owners, presumably hobbyists (originally), just want to share information, not foot the bill for everyone else who has a similar interest.

Advertising has a place. Personally, I can ignore most non-intrusive ads and they really only bother me if the move around following my cursor, or blocking the real content, which is more a problem with site or particular ad design than advertisements in general. Other people have a lower tolerance.

Make no mistake, though, what you're suggesting is just elitism trying to keep "poor" people from using the internet for its intended purpose, sharing of information. I'm sure that's not your intent but that's the reality of what you just indicated in your post. "If you can't afford it without advertisements, you shouldn't use the internet" is basically what you just said.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

That ship sailed a long time ago.

I wouldn't have installed adblock in the first place if the ads weren't so unbelievably intrusive.

The best they can do now is lower the obtrusiveness of the ads and hope that more people don't install adblock. This is a problem entirely of their own making.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[stephenpeters]

If the entity serving the content doesn't like what the user is doing, they're free to block the user.

If the entity serving the content does not refrain from allowing advertisers to annoy users then they are unlikely to have either users or revenue. I think that the key idea behind the browser extension I linked to in TFA is an interesting one. It could be used as a kind of RBL blocking the most unpopular advertising practices. In time advertisers might find this an important type of feedback when AB testing.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Cajun Hell]

What THE FUCK? The whole ad issue aside, that's not how you get software. You never know what page will have best SEO for a term, so even without ads, that technique (running random code from the web) is pretty much guaranteed to occasionally get you some malware, and you only need one infection to be infected. Those people ought to be installing VLC (and nearly everything else) from their repository.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

VLC is actually rare for me. I usually see people who tried to update their flash player. Because some site (or even OS) suggested them that their flash is out of date. The they googled "flash player" and clicked on the first link (a malicios ad). For a long time i wondered how my elderly relatives get infected - as i use an adblocker i had never seen those ads.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[mythosaz]

I'd at least wait for the user to execute a script on my landing page before counting click-through type payments.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, but this is via an advertisement that is allowed through the channel we're discussing specifically.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[war4peace]

That's the root cause, yes.
Annoying ads caused AdBlock to appear, and AdBlock simply takes a blanket approach and removes ALL ads, annoying or not.
As an user, I am lazy and don't manually enable non-annoying ads, although I wish I would. It's next-to-impossible, though.

I have no problem with ads in general, as long as they behave. But for fuck's sake, don't release ads with SOUND. Listening to grave or lento music while browsing a site only to be blasted by some retarded, badly sounding Jigle Bells tune inviting me to buy Christmas-themed toilet paper is... let's just say it makes me a bit upset.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear you about the vlc thing. My boss at work did that and wondered why her computer acted "differently" after hitting the bad link.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mad bro?

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[war4peace]

Same here. Ads that escape AdBlock in some clever way or the shit I'm seeing on browsers without AdBlock are a guarantee to never buy that shit or never visit that website.
There's a particular website in my country featuring very aggressive ads, and I specifically blocked that domain on all my machines and all my browsers so that I would never visit it, even by mistake. That's the effect their ads had on me.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[squiggleslash]

No, no, sorry, it doesn't work that way.

If you use your browser for things other than downloading VLC, then you end up with a range of ads based upon those other things, and your attempt to download VLC is only one minor factor in the process Google et al use to determine which ads to show you.

So no, unless you exclusively use your browser for downloading VLC (or some other gamed search result) it is absolutely not the case that you will only ever see malicious ads.

I can prove this based upon my own experience, BTW. I have used by browser to download VLC, and I very, very, very, rarely see malicious ads. They're extremely uncommon.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[CauseBy]

Read it again, it's right there in the first sentence of the summary:

The AdNauseam browser extension claims to click on each ad you have blocked with AdBlock

This software employs Artificial Intelligence to determine which ads would be annoying by recognizing that it doesn't take Artificial Intelligence to know that all ads are annoying. All ads are annoying, this clicks on all ads, therefore it clicks on all annoying ads.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[CauseBy]

"Advertisers, you stupid greedy pieces of shit, you brought this on yourself and deserve your slow death as does anybody on the net who bases their business model around you"

Shut down the thread, hairyfeet has made the only statement that needs to be made. Ads suck. Advertisers are to blame. If something is bad for advertisers then it is good for the world. If they complain, fuck them.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[perpenso]

It would only be criminal fraud if the intention was for a competitor to gain an advantage, to demand payments for it to stop, or to extract more money from advertising agencies' clients ...

It might be illegal for merely trying to interfere with business between others (website and advertiser). Tortious interference.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[CauseBy]

"If the entity serving the content does not refrain from allowing advertisers to annoy users then they are unlikely to have either users or revenue."

This is a cute thing to write in a theory textbook, but it's demonstrably false because here in the real world we see that annoying sites are sometimes quite popular. It is simply false that low-quality products don't succeed in markets. It is simply false that harmful or undesirable products don't succeed in markets. The only way to argue otherwise is to employ circular reasoning: "it's high quality if people choose it, and people choose it because it's high quality".

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[CauseBy]

I was about six years old when I received a t-shirt with a logo on it (a Nike swoosh, I think, or something similar). I don't know where it came from but somehow I had the maturity to ask whether I would get paid to advertise for that company.

I still feel the same way. If Tiger woods can get ten million dollars for wearing a Nike swoosh, then I can get paid ten dollars for wearing a Nike swoosh. Otherwise I'm not going to wear a logo unless I personally already love the logo for some reason.

Fuck you, advertisers. Fuck you.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[CauseBy]

And everybody else sees that as bullshit.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I don't blame the advertisers - they're just doing what people like that do. I blame the writers of the browsers and browser standards. When someone suggested that there should be such a thing as a "cookie", someone else should have thought about how it could be exploited to do something the user doesn't want it to do. And then, to stop those scenarios, they should have set appropriate limits on what a cookie could do - or, if necessary, axed the idea entirely.

Browsers should be developed in the interests of their users, not the interests of website developers. Website developers should be treated as a malicious enemy. Instead, the task of thwarting website developers has fallen to the writers of browser extensions.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

A thought occurred to me :

in the great humanitarian deed of bringing the internet to the poor (although strangely enough they pay to access the internet as we all do) that subsidizing them via advertisements is largely futile.

There are a greater number of poor than rich so targeting towards getting them to click or view makes sense. But in the end they will buy nothing because they are poor.

Why not serve advertisements to the rich instead?

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[timrod]

The real vector for malicious ads these days is on mobile devices. I can't tell you how many websites I see that will automatically redirect you to a full-screen ad asking you to "PLEASE INSTALL OUR MOBILE APP". In most cases, their "mobile app" consists of launching the site's "mobile page" but with additional advertising and tracking cookies. In the worst cases, the ad is designed so that touching anywhere on it will attempt to install the app, except for a tiny red X in the corner that is very difficult to touch without zooming in (which in some cases can be interpreted by the browser as touching the ad).

Sure, this isn't malicious advertising in that it's trying to install a worm or virus without my consent, but it's still software that I don't want and have no intention of installing.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[wiredlogic]

It'll be interesting to see how this gets treated by the press who have a vested interest in online advertising.

They'll ignore it the same way they ignore substantial reporting on anything that upsets their master, be it the guy who pays the bills or the government rulers in charge.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Paying some other guy to embed shit in his web pages which I'm "required" to view? Kind of bullshit, and not happening

Yeah. And you should get paid for all those ads on TV and in Newspapers and in Magazines and in... wait. You're an idiot.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[wiredlogic]

It's not an edge case. The repackaging of free Windows applications with malware is commonplace. CutePDF has this too and many others.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[TWX]

If popularity drove movie awards, Michael Bay would be a multi-time Oscar winner.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[BarbaraHudson]

But the example is flawed.

The very first links are to the official videolan site.

Further down the page, you have softonic.com, filehippo.com, downloadastro.com, win-install.com, 01net.com, safe-setup.com (if you believe that, well ...), keweek.com, etc. Download at your own risk.

Now, as for the whole topic of click fraud, it's been known for years that between 25% and 50% of all clicks are fraudulent ("you can make money surfing the net" pay-to-click scams, bots, competitors, etc). Knowledgeable advertisers have already baked in that number into their budgets.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Pfhorrest]

Hosting is absurdly cheap though. I have a Dreamhost "unlimited" (for purposes of hosting a website, not being your personal backup, etc) plan that costs me less than $10/mo. The labor required to build and maintain a hobbyist site for a large community would be worth more than cost of hosting. So if you've got hobbyists who are enthusiastic enough to actually do the community-maintenance stuff to keep their online community running, gathering a measly 33 cents a day on average across all of them can't be that hard. If just one person in that community makes a decent enough living that a $10/mo donation to their favorite online community is trivial, then bam, hosting costs handled. Or ten fans who can each spare a buck a month?

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[bingoUV]

Only ever seeing malicious ads is not the issue - ever seeing malicious ads is the issue. FYI, one malware is one malware too many.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

I made the same argument when I bought my last car. The dealer typically installed a dealer badge on the back (in my case it would have been riveted to the trunk). They tried to convince me it came that way so I offered to keep it for $50/mo. Magically the car arrived minus the badge.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. It is no one else's business what and how software processes web pages my machine surfs to.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, can you imagine someone doing something so old fashioned as to charge for their useful service? Apparently advertising is the only possible way to survive online.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[aaaaaaargh!]

Why anybody would bother making content if that were the case everwhere, I dunno.

It worked quite well in the past.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Khopesh]

There are plenty of existing issues with abusive click fraud.

For example, Fraud from bots represents a loss of $6 billion in digital advertising @Reuters says

Almost one-fourth of video ads and 11 percent of display ads are viewed by fake consumers created by cyber crime networks seeking to take a chunk of the billions of dollars spent on digital advertising

I think getting "clicks" from actual targeted customers is a non-problem in the face of all this other fraud. When it comes to security research (my field), more information pretty much always leads to better verdicts. It's therefore quite reasonable that you want to crawl an extra step deep in order to vet a page you're on. This isn't even unprecedented; think of the browser link prefetching, which anticipates where you'll click and downloads content ahead of time.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that matter? Once the user looks for ANY legitimate program and ends up downloading ANY malware, it's potentially game over. The program is now perceived as crap that ruined his PC, the person who recommended the program is perceived as an idiot, the person who set up the PC is perceived as negligent, and, worst of all, depending on the malware, his saved passwords are potentially known to malicious entities. Deathlizard's point still stands.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Deathlizard]

Actually, been seeing a lot of ad popups saying to install either flash player or Java recently (hell, even "your machine is infected!! Call this scammer phone number to fix it!" ads have been popping up lately). These have been around forever and AdBlockPlus blocks almost all of them.

The search for "(Insert company here) Support" ads on search engines however adblock plus does nothing for unless you disable unobtrusive ads. I've had people call them and get hosed by some scammer cause their printer wasn't working and they searched for HP Support and got a scammer.

These ads are cases where the 4 Laws of Computer stupidity (See my Sig) are exploited to the fullest and why I block all ads anymore.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, but the average user doesn't do that and doesn't care until it's too late. So if blocking all ads prevents that, I'm all for it.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Locando]

That's assuming that it's accurate to call ad-supported sites useful, generally speaking.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be illegal for merely trying to interfere with business between others (website and advertiser). Tortious interference.

Go ahead and try! Perhaps there is such law . . . in the U.S. Good luck getting anywhere with 'click fraud' from Asia, western Europe, eastern Europe and so on. Many counties see nothing illegal here - many don't even legislate against 'click fraud'.

Anyway, this talking about "interfering with business between others" when they show ME a webpage is silly. It is not business "between others". It is business between three parts: the website, the advertiser, and ME. And I didn't sign any contract, so I get to do whatever I like. Such as running a script that click 1000 times on some ads - ads that I don't display on my screen. And no, I'm not in the U.S. . .

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the entity serving the content doesn't like what the user is doing, they're free to block the user.

If the entity serving the content does not refrain from allowing advertisers to annoy users then they are unlikely to have either users or revenue.

Wrong. You perpetuate the lie that "most web sites are funded by ads". Lots of websites were around before internet ads, many of them still are. Many are funded by other means. I.e. a webshop is not funded by ads - it is funded by people buying from the shop. Running a website doesn't cost much anyway - you can run a site from home.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

but this add-on definitely crosses the line.

But this add-on was JUST released! How are you claiming it is a decade old?!

No, ad scam hosters like yourself have crossed the line after installing malware and botnets and rootkits on your "customers" computers for the past ten years.

You lost the right to bitch about defensive measures long long ago, and you don't get to look BACK at us saying we crossed the line you already crossed and are so far beyond it on the scale of "damaging the world" you can't even see us anymore.

Fuck off and die in a fire.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[bazorg]

5) Download the installer ***WARNING!! Do not run it unless you Enjoy Cleaning viruses for fun!***
6) Go to virustotal.com, and submit the file for analysis
7) Watch the detections go off the charts.

that's a good heads-up. I think this kind of test is something to consider the next time that Microsoft releases a OS version that prevents users from getting applications outside of the Windows Store. Last time they tried, the rage against RT was loud on Slashdot and elsewhere.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Paying some other guy to embed shit in his web pages which I'm "required" to view? Kind of bullshit, and not happening

Yeah. And you should get paid for all those ads on TV and in Newspapers and in Magazines and in... wait. You're an idiot.

Drop TV entirely, use Amazon streaming or Acorn or Netflix, subscribe to the Times on your tablet and run ad blocker, who reads magazines? Oh, wait.... you LIKE TV and magazines... so, who's the idiot?

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[hairyfeet]

Thank you. And while I'm on my soapbox allow me to say I FUCKING HATE when people say "U should like teh ads, they infect teh puters and get u more work!"...imagine you built a lovely cabinet with your own two hands, everything just so, with the scrollwork in just the right places, sure there are plenty of other cabinets out there but you took pride in your work and made a really nice piece of furniture. Now imagine somebody comes by and buys your lovely cabinet and brings it back a few weeks later covered in shit and vomit and some of the scrollwork obviously beaten off with a hammer and offers to pay you to fix it...would this make you happy or would it piss you the fuck off that somebody vandalized your work?

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Agent0013]

It doesn't matter what you download. I wanted to get Chrome for my PC after a fresh install. IE/Bing led me to an infected version to download. I'm sure that Microsoft is just fine with people who install Chrome ending up with viruses, but I know who is really at fault and that is why I detest MS to the core. If it weren't for the games I wouldn't even use it. And even then, I refuse to give them money for their lock in.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

I very, very, very, rarely see malicious ads. They're extremely uncommon.

Yeah. They're only one of the leading exploit vectors online. Pretty rare, all and all.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bravo!

I love you. I want to have your babies....damn I'm a guy.... I could always change that.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.

The basic idea here is that the http protocol doesn't mandate what to do with the information stored on a given URL. That is left to the user to decide.

The thing about this point is that advertisers seem not to have understood this basic concept yet. I have no idea of the quality of the browser extension I linked to in TFA. However the idea that an extension could be used to automate the deliberate poisoning of advertisers collected user data seems to be a powerful one. In my view this is a logical next step in the user vs advertiser arms race.

What you don't understand, is that click URLs are not the ones on google listings. When you receive one of them, you KNOW it comes from one of your ads. Whether it's due to user intent or not is not clear, but a tool that actively wants to interfere with that process is a very grey area indeed.

Would you consider sending lots of SYN packets to a server to bring it down criminal activity? Well, this is the same, but to bring down data. It's not clear at all whether this is harmless protesting or blatant criminal activity.

This would be totally prosecutable under the CFAA, though IANAL. But it is indeed a protocol message being abused to destroy some company's business.

Good for the tool's creator that only the users are at fault here. Bad for the users though.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were an advertiser you should reconsider using annoying adds.

But annoying subtractions might be OK?

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[geminidomino]

Sounds like we need more bots.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[phorm]

Yeah. I do see some cool monoprice/dx.com/etc ads at times, but generally they're more "X found one easy trick to do Y and Z hates him/her for it", or when you're downloading software, there are billion fricking ads with big green malware-installing download links of various types, etc etc.

Who are the people complaining, because frankly I'd love to see them sued for deceptive and/or possibly fraudulent marketing.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[wvmarle]

Does Windows (last time I checked still by far the #1 operating system in use) already have anything resembling a software repository?

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Cajun Hell]

I don't know, but if you're considering using that OS, that's obviously something you'll need to find out first. If your preferences are anomalous (say, for example, you have objections to running malware) you might decide that the "#1 OS" isn't quite the right one for you.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

I run a website that uses Google's text ads at the bottom of each of my wiki pages. I'm worried that if I use this extension, Google will ban me from my Adesense and the rest of my Google account (including my Gmail, which would be a disaster), for what appears to be click fraud in their eyes or for "clicking my own ads."

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[FunkSoulBrother]

Download at your own risk indeed. I was curious so I opened a VM with a fresh IE install (no Adblocking) and chose the download.com link for VLC.

Download.com is reputable enough anyway, right? Long history with cnet serving up shareware and all that?

http://i.imgur.com/l8n2ScB.png

WHICH OF THE DAMN DOWNLOAD BUTTONS OPENS ACTUALLY GETS ME VLC?!?!

Obviously I know, but my dad doesn't, and that's why I have no sympathy for online advertisers.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[BarbaraHudson]

Download.com is reputable enough anyway, right?

You're a bit behind the times

Adware

Beginning in August 2011, download.com changed their own installer to add adware to the software that users wish to download.[3][4][5] Accusations have included the surreptitious installation of a trojan installer[6] and a browser hijacker.[7] In fact, CNET admits in their download FAQ that "a small number of security publishers have flagged the Installer as adware or a potentially unwanted application".[8]

In August 2011, Download.com introduced an installation manager called CNET TechTracker for delivering many of the software titles from its catalog.[9] The installation manager offers to install add-ons like browser toolbars and change default homepages before downloading the software the user wants. Users registered with Download.com can access files either with the Download.com installer or directly via "Download Direct Links".

In December 2011, Fyodor of insecure.org published his strong dislike[10] of the installation manager and concerns over the bundled software, causing many people to spread the post on social networks, and a few dozen media reports. The main problem is the confusion between Download.com-offered content[11][12] and software offered by original authors; the accusations included deception as well as copyright and trademark violation.[12] Spigot

CNet uses Spigot to monetize the traffic to download.com. According to Sean Murphy, a General Manager at CNet, "Spigot continues to be a great partner to Download.com, sharing our desire to balance customer experience with revenue." [13] Security Vulnerabilities in foistware

In 2014, The Register and US-CERT warned that via download.com's foistware, an "attacker may be able to download and execute arbitrary code"

And that's why you go to the first link, videolan.org. Download.com isn't exactly a reputable source any more, and their download pages will often trick people into installing all sorts of unwanted crap.

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[allo]

It does not matter for you as user, as you do not have a contract with the site owner or advertiser. The site owner is not allowed to do so on his ads, you are free to do whatever you like.

Re: Isn't that click fraud?

[matbury]

They'll ignore it the same way they ignore substantial reporting on anything that upsets their master, be it the guy who pays the bills or the government rulers in charge.

Sadly, more than likely true.

I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.

Technically that's not a gerund. It's a present participle and so functionally still a verb, which also takes an indirect object ("gerund"), making it even more of a verb. Try, "I am gerunding, destroyer of verbs." Or how about on a different track, "Meaningless verb concepts define saliently."?

Re:Isn't that click fraud?

[Cinnamon Beige]

Adblock by default has the "acceptable ads" feature which is pretty much that. I personally uncheck this box on every customer because they allow Flash ads if they aren't annoying and with flash ads the #1 source of malware it is simply irresponsible to allow them but if you care to support advertisers (which I don't***) then this combined with AB should fulfill that goal.

I handled it by simply not installing Flash--if there's something embedded in Flash that I want, I use VLC or MPC, and I have YouTube set to give me the HTML5 versions.

As far as I can, Flash is as much an infection vector as ads, regardless of if the Flash is an ad or not.

Though, really, what we need is somebody going after an ad company for their ads being used to distribute malware: as I recall, we actually do have laws already on the books which say that deliberately infecting a computer with malware is a crime. Simply holding the ad companies liable--as we may already be legally able to do--might well push the bottom line towards where they will be acceptably paranoid.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The point (or one of the points, at least) of hiding ads is so nobody would click them and they'd eventually die out. I don't see how this helps anyone.

Re:Why?

[ceoyoyo]

Automatically clicking on all of them means that the advertisers can't tell when a legitimate sucker clicks or when the program does. So click counts become worthless. Currently the ads work on some people and not on others, and they can tell which is which.

Re:Why?

[PIBM]

Years ago, I had a version of a webgame ad supported (you could pay to get rid of them and get non-game-modifying perks .. oh why was I against game modifying perks again .. ) and people cheating at the game weren't only damaging the game, they were also reducing the amount we were getting per thousand ads displayed and the value of the clicks.

One of the solution was not to display ads to players who would exhibit this behavior (false positive are much more costly when you ban a real user than simply not showing them ads) so yeah, this solution can work ( and people can do it manually by visiting ads that would pay based on the percentage of successful follow up and just leaving it waste it's time in another tab)

Re:Why?

[BarbaraHudson]

Automatically clicking on all of them means that the advertisers can't tell when a legitimate sucker clicks or when the program does. So click counts become worthless. Currently the ads work on some people and not on others, and they can tell which is which.

Actually, savvy advertisers (or ad networks that manage the ad serving process) can easily tell by sending you to a page that requires you to do something (for example, a dialog with an offer to subscribe, which you will click on to get rid of and expose the underlying content). How do you think they've been dealing with bots for the last couple of decades?

All for poisioning the well

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I am all for poisoning that well. For those of us who use adblock it won't affect what we see and will cost the advertisers money as they will have to pay the site we visited for those clicks. So really no down side from my perspective.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Racemaniac]

And if you don't want people to be able to use your site in different ways than you intended, don't put it on the internet. it's that simple :p.

It's always easy to say don't use something if you don't agree with it, but a lot of things are just too big to ignore and if you can just work around the issues and enjoy it how you want it, why the hell not?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

You nailed it on the head. The answer is yes, he wants stuff and he wants it for free.

It's a complicated issue though because ultimately you are the one rendering web content. You can render it however you like.

Is a page a cohesive product, ads and all? The law is very unclear on this.

One thing is clear though. It's trivially easy to block AdBlock. Many sites do, and many sites redirect adblockers to sites like pleasedontblockads.org but obviously most websites don't care enough to do so.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[gstoddart]

Of course there is no downside from your perspective, since your perspective is that of a little child. If you don't like they way a site operates, don't use it. Is that so fucking hard? Or are you just one of those freetards who thinks you have a right to everyone else's work, and they should get no benefit from it?

If you lack the technical skills to prevent me from blocking your ads, don't piss and moan if I do. If you do have the technical skills to force me to see ads, you'll never see me again because your site will be complete crap.

It's a self leveling problem.

But don't act like you are legally entitled to me seeing or clicking on ads and allowing all of the trackers and analytics companies to provide you with information. That's not my problem.

If you're a big and successful site, you won't notice the small amount of reduction in ads from me (which I was never going to click on anyway). If you're a crappy and struggling site ... well, that's kind of your problem.

Blocking those analytics and ads companies is what I'm gonna do. You do what you want to do, and either your web site will succeed or fail.

But I don't owe you advertising revenue. I don't have an obligation to your advertisers. I don't owe you a damned thing, and you don't owe me anything.

Either I can view your site with the crap blocked, or I can't. But the internet is full of other websites. Just don't expect that I'm going to give permission to 3rd parties to track me just to help you pay the bills.

Re: All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

Freetard? Fuck off back to The Register you pompous cunt.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[bws111]

This is not blocking, this is actively attempting to screw with the sites revenue by making ads worthless. I can see absolutely no justification for that.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[beelsebob]

See, I'm far from a freetard who thinks he's got the right to other people's work. But...

If your business model is to make content freely available, with no contract, in a format that's trivially modified, where it's known that there are tools for hiding advertisments, then, you're doing it wrong.

If I walk through a mall, I'm perfectly at liberty to hold up my hand and cover up people's adverts so that I don't see them. The same is true on the internet.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

According to my rules, if you respond to this post, you owe me $1000. If you don't like the way I operate, don't respond. Is that so fucking hard? Or are you just one of those freetards who thinks you have a right respond to everyone, and they should get no benefit from it?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[beelsebob]

The justification is that it's not the site's revenue, it's the advertisement company's revenue. What you're doing is stopping them from harvesting your private data. The dick move is the company trying to grab my data, not me trying to stop them.

Re: All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

Your work isn't as valuable as you think it is.

It's not so different than Wall Street trading. Nothing of value is produced, but you're firmly latched onto the producers of content or material. You're a bottom feeder that produces nothing on your own. You're parasitic.

I don't want your content. That's why you had to Seo to get me to look at it.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[gstoddart]

This is not blocking, this is actively attempting to screw with the sites revenue by making ads worthless. I can see absolutely no justification for that.

Really? Because I can see absolutely no justification for a these ad sites to be able to track everything I do on the internet or why I should accept that as normal.

This is about far more than the revenue of an individual site. This is about a bunch of companies who have a business model which more or less amounts to spying on every damned thing you do and using that to make money.

I wouldn't personally use this tool, because I'd rather block. But it's intent is to clearly mess with the ad companies themselves, and give them shitty information about you to preserve your privacy.

Targeted advertising becomes useless when the have no idea of what you're really looking at.

But since these are companies the consumer has no direct relationship with, who make money based on our personal information without any consent from us, and who then use it for anything they like because they have it ... I don't have a problem with this.

The interwebs provide the ability to have a much more detailed set of information about people than any advertising medium beforehand. That doesn't mean the companies who do this shit should be entitled to that information.

The sense of privilege here is with the advertisers and the the sites who use them.

So screw the ads, and screw the companies who provide them. Why should we give up our privacy so some corporation can make money by hawking baubles and keeping track of what we do?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[bws111]

Nobody said anything about blocking ads. YOU are the one who said it was a good idea to 'poison the well'. Yes, you can not look at ads as you walk through the mall. You can not go and paint over all the ads so nobody else sees them either, which is what this idiotic 'poisoning the well' is attempting to do.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[bws111]

Huh? You think the sites allow the ads on there for free? It IS their revenue.

Re: All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

If your stuff is so fantastic and worth the reading, charge money for it. That's what good authors do! I pay for ebooks often, subscriptions also. PPC Ads, popups, redirects and other annoying methods are garbage! The automated click is a fantastic idea!

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Then you should get your eyes checked. I pay for my own crappy websites out of my own pocket. I don't burden others by imposing third-party ads on them. I have this magical thing called a "day job", because I realize that nobody on the net owes me a single goddamn thing.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[will_die]

One downside would be that since it clicks on everything what is being told to advertisers is that you are interested in all that stuff.
So your profile could look like you want hello kitty, mercedes cars and dating sites.

Re: All for poisioning the well

[TheDarkMaster]

Dude, almost all ads are ALREADY worthless.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[CaptainDork]

Agreed.

Until blocking ads or screwing with their dynamics becomes illegal, it's my computer and I make it do what I want it to do.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[gstoddart]

Huh? You think the sites allow the ads on there for free? It IS their revenue.

That doesn't mean they're entitled to good data. Or any data at all.

In the old days, people paid for advertising, and you have no way of knowing if it worked unless you asked people. Everybody saw the same ad on TV and in the newspaper.

The modern analog on the interweb is kind of like having a bunch of advertisers put a tracking device on your car, or a tag in your ear like livestock so they can track everything that you do.

Why the fsck should we accept this just because it's digital? The answer is, we don't need to.

You want to put ads on your site? Go ahead. You think I'm not going to block them then you're a moron. You think I owe your advertisers good analytics data just so you can make money? Yeah, fuck that.

People shouldn't be willing to accept tracking, analytics, and violation of their privacy just to see a website. We don't know your privacy statement (assuming you have one), we don't know what you do with this data, and we have no recourse for what you do with it.

We wouldn't accept this is the 'real' world, but we're supposed to accept it in the digital one?

Which means the only sensible thing is to either deny them the information, or make sure their information is useless.

If your poor website goes under because your advertisers can't figure out if I wear boxers or briefs ... boo fucking hoo .

Re:All for poisioning the well

[cdrudge]

So your profile could look like you want hello kitty, mercedes cars and dating sites.

As oppose to having absolutely no profile information, in which case they'd just display random Hello Kitty, Mercedes cars, and dating site ads anyways. The net effect of the end user hasn't changed, but you've still managed to screw over the advertiser in a small, relatively meaningless way.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[sinij]

I 100% agree that we don't need to accept tracking. Still, your analogy is somewhat flawed - robots don't watch TV or subscribe to newspapers, scripts/bots do crawl websites.

I am largely with you, but keep in mind that we don't want Pyrrhic victory. All-time anonymous and add free Internet is not a desirable outcome if it all goes subscriptions and walled gardens.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing your "day job" isn't running websites.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[amiga3D]

I've seen the pleasedontblock ads. All those sites are now in my blacklist. If they don't want me on their site then I don't go there. Simple.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

I use adblock chiefly due to the reduced bandwidth and dns lookups required to load some pages when i block the useless parts. If it does all that in the background anyways then adblocking is almost useless to me.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Bob the Super Hamste]

So like regular OTA TV then?

I don't see a down side to poisoning the data-mining well especially with the metadata collection that goes on. I have managed to get facebook to believe I am a gay unmarried Jew living in Hiafa or at least that would best describe the ads it serves up to me. I find that after giving up on TV after the digital switch over where I then found myself in a dead area my desire that I need some new wonderful thing has gone away. There are things I do and spend money on (go go cardboard crack MTG) but those are things I actually enjoy doing or I am replacing some thing that I actually use that has worn out.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[AmiMoJo]

If I walk through a mall, I'm perfectly at liberty to hold up my hand and cover up people's adverts so that I don't see them.

AdBlock for prescription lenses would be the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have no doubt that it will come one day, and probably be necessary with Minority Report style beaming of ads directly into your retina.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[amiga3D]

Actually he's not painting over the ads. What he is doing is lying to the ad company about who he is, what he does, what he likes and other personal info about himself. Lying to advertisers is a right. I don't have to tell them anything and I'm under no obligation to tell them the truth. Other people who come there are not affected by this. They are free to either block or cooperate with being tracked and spied upon. If my lying to the admakers causes them harm that's too bad. I am under no obligation to cooperate with them.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

They cannot route around a hosts file though. Not legally, anyway.

Did I just summon APK?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

My day job involves doing to your girlfriend what you aren't man enough to do yourself, AC.

Re: All for poisioning the well

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Exactly. Someone's cat picture isn't worth anything to me and apart of a 3 second chuckle in now way makes my life better, but a good book (I have shelves full) is worth the price. Hell even take the electronic copy of the Complete National Geographic. I bought it a few years ago and have bought the updates that have the issues not initially included and I will probably keep buying the updates because they are convenient and really cool. Add in that my wife is a teacher and frequently makes use of it and it was a very worthwhile purchase. I would consider getting a paper subscription but it just seems so wasteful especially given how easy it is to use the electronic copy.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Wookact]

I do, if it gets rid of ads then I don't have to worry about blocking them anymore. I would gladly pay some sites 50 cents to a dollar a month to view them. I just hate dealing with the virus laden ads.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Maritz]

Someone spoiling your ads? Don't you have one weird trick to get past everyone's AdBlock?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[mooingyak]

Does that including hiding the body afterwards? Can you post your rates?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

If this program is clicking on ads the ad network is still getting your data and tracking what sites you're visiting. Even if they're hiding the ads they have to be loading loading them and clicking on some.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[bagofbeans]

What if AC is a lady?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Morgon]

That's great that your own websites are 'crappy' enough that you can pay for them out of your own pocket.

What if one of them stops being crappy and ends up with 5 million users with millions of daily hits, and you suddenly have to get new hardware and support increased bandwidth expenditure? Are you going to continue to pay, say, $1,000 out of pocket to keep it up? Or would you rather kill it than supplant the costs with advertising?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

This AC might be a woman, but I doubt she's a lady.

Re: All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

How is he lying by clicking on all of the ads? Maybe he's the advertising company's wet dream of a user that is actually intrigued by every single ad he sees.

Isn't the reason people put ads in websites for people to click on them? Now they're going to get mad because people click on them?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Morgon, if my sites are getting that kind of traffic, then I'm probably selling a shitload of my books in the process. I'll just write off the hosting bills on my tax return, since the sites exist to promote me and my work. (Whether they're effective is another story.)

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

I do, if it gets rid of ads then I don't have to worry about blocking them anymore. I would gladly pay some sites 50 cents to a dollar a month to view them. I just hate dealing with the virus laden ads.

From the cable TV experience we know what web sites will do: charge the monthly fee and eventually re-introduce ads.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay then, but to collect $1000 from me you'll have to provide me with identification, address, and payment details, (bank details only please i do not use online payment methods,) or you know, you could just sit and swivell.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great that your own websites are 'crappy' enough that you can pay for them out of your own pocket.

What if one of them stops being crappy and ends up with 5 million users with millions of daily hits, and you suddenly have to get new hardware and support increased bandwidth expenditure? Are you going to continue to pay, say, $1,000 out of pocket to keep it up? Or would you rather kill it than supplant the costs with advertising?

If you suddenly have 5 million users and something for them - "introduce subscription" - 50000 paying subscribers - solves $1000 problem.
If they are not interested in paying - then you have again 50000 users and no problem with costs it goes down to $10 .

Re:All for poisioning the well

[rvw]

One downside would be that since it clicks on everything what is being told to advertisers is that you are interested in all that stuff.

So your profile could look like you want hello kitty, mercedes cars and dating sites.

That is a poisoned profile. The problem is that you will soon get targeted ads for very rare things because you are one of the three people who clicked. Another and bigger downside is that those ad companies not only get the clicks, but get to follow you around the net, and if they ditch the clicks, it might give them a very valuable profile.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[mujadaddy]

Is a page a cohesive product, ads and all? The law is very unclear on this.

Uh, only in the sense of copyright is this a legal concern. It's your browser and your pipes; they can only cripple their own layout, not enforce your victimhood.

On a side note, what are people using currently for mobile browsing on Android? Every once in a while I'll pull up links friends send me, and after about 2 seconds of scrolling around some misaligned full page overlay shows up with the close button off-screen. I'd like to step up my blocking game on the phone...

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Bigbutt]

Shame on you for not knowing that ladies can have girlfriends.

[John]

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

So then your site IS the advertisement. You are paying out of pocket to promote your product. That's not the same as someone running a site for actually sharing ideas or providing a real service.

You're just another advertiser on the web.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like they way a site operates, don't use it. Is that so fucking hard?

Seeing that you don't like the way slashdot works and can't avoid using it, it appears the answer to your question is "Yes, it is very hard, bordering on impossible"

Perhaps you should stop trying to infect millions of computers world wide and being a script kiddie freetard yourself.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[deesine]

It's the digital version of folding up all my junk snail mail into one of the prepaid postage envelopes some advertisers provide and sending it back. I wish everyone did it.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Morgon]

AC is right. Instead of 'running ads', you are the ad.

Also, you're assuming that every site exists to sell a specific product. In my case, I ran a pure service in which users (who are generally less-militant against ads for games, peripherals, and at least somewhat tolerant on "related" products like snack foods) could track and compare their progress on a popular gaming service.

I did it for fun initially, but the numbers I gave from my original post weren't pulled out of thin air; this actually happened. I needed hosting, I needed hardware, I needed consulting (because my DB modeling skills were terrible). While I actually did end up paying out of pocket for my hosting during its final year, I never could have scaled with demand without advertising. Being an uninterested third-party, it's easy to say "well your site didn't deserve to exist", but I am confident you would feel differently if it was your own blood and sweat at stake.

The point of all this is that not every site is equal. Not all of them are click-bait, copy-pasta "journalism", or someone's blog about their cat. There are many people out there doing labor-of-love projects that, for whatever reason, end up being useful for a number of people. Some of them have the ability to monetize them into products, like games and what have you, and others may make the end-user the product (Google, Twitter) - but there are others who may not have that ability. In many cases, advertising is simply the best and/or only business model that is viable. The web is vast; these sites deserve to exist, and there is room for them to do so.

Actively boycott those who you feel are taking advantage of its users (80 ads on a page, bad ad networks, etc), but don't damn the entire system. People willing to pay to get their message out has worked for hundreds, if not thousands of years. There's a huge difference between that, and 'punch the monkey' shit that started this 'war'.

[* Sorry for potentially putting words in anyone's mouths, I'm basically covering all the bases from every conversation I've had within ad-blocking threads on Slashdot - You can see my post history]

Re:All for poisioning the well

[CauseBy]

The justification is to undermine a system which makes the world worse, thus making the world better. Personally I see "making the world better" as the best possible justification for an action. How do you see it?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

This should NOT be implemented in a NEW browser. But as a plugin to FireFox and Chrome.
It also needs to run in a sandbox so that its clickstream cookie trail NEVER mixes with your own since that would destroy your own privacy / session management.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Pay for what you use. Its the only honest way.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[aardvarkjoe]

The advertisers are getting exactly what they are paying the owners of the sites for: they are getting to serve ads to the users visiting the sites.

If the advertisers think that they're paying to have real people click on their ads -- well, they should learn how the internet works. That's not under the control of the website owners.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

... we don't want Pyrrhic victory. All-time anonymous and add free Internet is not a desirable outcome if it all goes subscriptions and walled gardens.

Yeah, I really miss the free days of the NYT and WSJ. Just kidding, happy to see them go, and may they rot in subscription hell.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[bingoUV]

Firefox to the rescue. It has become an awesome Android browser in other ways too, and comes with the repository with ad blocking extensions, privacy enhancing extensions, and send to be reasonably secure.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

One downside would be that since it clicks on everything what is being told to advertisers is that you are interested in all that stuff..

I don't care - it is not as if I see any of those ads anyway!

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not blocking, this is actively attempting to screw with the sites revenue by making ads worthless. I can see absolutely no justification for that.

Maybe you can't. And I cannot see any ethical problem with this - so I might use this add-on just for fun! Nobody has a 'right' to a working ad system. If my glasses could block out ad posters on the street, I would use that opportunity too.

If we make ads worthless/useless, then there will be fewer ads. Some of us think that the world will be prettier that way. If someone goes bankrupt - sheesh, they weren't viable anyway. Good products will survive on their good reputation anyway.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[bingoUV]

I tend to agree, but a question nibbles me. When, if, it all becomes paywall, the tracking will be far more complete? It is possible that each website will manage its own paywall mechanism / data, but isn't it far more likely that it will be outsourced to 2 or 3 companies which will handle paywalls for 97â of websites?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

Is a page a cohesive product, ads and all? The law is very unclear on this.

Um, are you kidding me? How about taking a newspaper page as an example? Is there a law that tells me I cannot form a hat out of a newspaper? Is there a law that tells me I have to read it? Is there a law that tells me I cannot put little marks with a pen on it? The answer is no.

The law is very clear on this. There is no obligation for endpoint software to even display a web page at all, let alone advertisements on it, and there is no reasonable to construct such an obligation in any way legally conceivable, because that would be utterly moronic.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[KiloByte]

He will get targeted ads, yes. He'll also click on them again (at least from the advertiser's point of view). All while not being aware of the ads' existence because they're being blocked!

Re:All for poisioning the well

[sinij]

You don't realize how big the problem of traditional media retreat to walled gardens is. You think outrage and clickbait are bad now? Well, wait until it is the only game in town, because it is the only way to monetize content creation. That and cat pictures.
 
Do we want this kind of internet for the sake of "purity"?

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that if we all block ads 95% of all of those bullshit regurgitation sites might have to shut down?

Count me in!

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

I do, if it gets rid of ads then I don't have to worry about blocking them anymore. I would gladly pay some sites 50 cents to a dollar a month to view them. I just hate dealing with the virus laden ads.

From the cable TV experience we know what web sites will do: charge the monthly fee and eventually re-introduce ads.

Preach it, brother! I am old enough to remember those halcyon days when cable was first introduced. All your neighbors are getting TV, without any ads!!! Then the ads started to trickle back in. Just a few, at first. Then, the flood gates were opened and now there are just as many, if not more, ads on cable as there are on the networks.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

This would only poison the well of CPC ads (which pay more) and not CPM ads (which are shown, but gain nothing if they aren't clicked on, the advertiser is only interested in eyeballs, any sales are inconsequential.) Actually blocking CPM ads actually is to the benefit of the advertiser because it means they aren't paying for non-delivery.

BUT... there is always a but. Adnauseam doesn't do what it's actually claiming to do. If it's clicking on the ads, but not actually opening new windows/tabs, then nothing happens. It defeats the purpose of blocking ads by actually processing the javascript or noscript markup blocks. Which the entire reason people block ads in the first place is because many websites just dump the ads on their site without any consideration to the size design. So 95% of the ads out there are just endless chains of document.write, that's why they're slow, because the document has to be reflowed after every script.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually he's not painting over the ads. What he is doing is lying to the ad company about who he is, what he does, what he likes and other personal info about himself.

Actually, what he is doing is pretending to look at ads when he hasn't.

Lying to advertisers is a right. I don't have to tell them anything and I'm under no obligation to tell them the truth. Other people who come there are not affected by this. They are free to either block or cooperate with being tracked and spied upon. If my lying to the admakers causes them harm that's too bad. I am under no obligation to cooperate with them.

Agreed. I don't get these people who insist that we must cooperate with advertisers. Any website that forces us to look at ads to get at their content will likely find their customers headed off to find the content elsewhere. That is, of course, our right. I recall a few years ago going to an Office Depot or Office Max store to buy a few pens. I stepped up to checkout where the woman at the register asked me for a name, address, and phone number. I shot her a withering stare and loudly told her I would be paying in cash. She just looked at me for a moment before it dawned on her that the company policy of collecting personal information for ALL transactions, regardless of payment method, was just plain stupid. I doubt that it even ocurred to her before then that the data collection policy of the store was just too intrusive. Also, these companies do this sort of crap because we their customers let them. We need to start fighting back. A good first step is to not cooperate by poisoning the well.

Re: All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

Freetard? Fuck off back to The Register you pompous cunt.

Well said my good friend.

The Register is full of silly 40 year old men who still act like they're going through puberty. The rare occasions I do visit I still see the sad wankers signing off their posts with Paris Hilton because... the meme died about a decade ago you backwards cunts and only ever existed on the register.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

According to my rules, if you respond to this post, you owe me $1000. If you don't like the way I operate, don't respond. Is that so fucking hard? Or are you just one of those freetards who thinks you have a right respond to everyone, and they should get no benefit from it?

Well, OK then. Could you please give me a name, address, physical description, and your schedule? Once I have those I will send by a few "business associates" to "deliver payment".

Re:All for poisioning the well

[popo]

Hahaha. Mod parent up! That was a solid comeback.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? You think the sites allow the ads on there for free? It IS their revenue.

That doesn't mean they're entitled to good data.

It's not just good data. You're fucking the servers with automated requests. That's a bad no-no. Would you like that happening to your servers? That's called DOS, and it's not nice.

You don't want the internet to be a hostile place. It is. It sucks. But you don't go and make it worse intentionally.

If you're allowed to send fake requests to their servers, they will start sending fake responses to your browser. It's all-out war.

Everyone loses.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[sjames]

People put cool stuff on the net before there was even a such thing as web advertising. People put stuff up when web advertising was just a static image with no tracking.

They will continue to put cool stuff on the net even after advertisers realize that tracking is dead.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not blocking, this is actively attempting to screw with the sites revenue by making ads worthless. I can see absolutely no justification for that.

Really? Because I can see absolutely no justification for a these ad sites to be able to track everything I do on the internet or why I should accept that as normal.

But a great many of those ads don't track everything you do. They just count clicks, because that's what they bill their partners. It's how they count their revenue-generating traffic. If you muck with that, you don't accomplish anything good for you, and everything bad for them.

The way things work between advertising agents, is that a lot of this tracking is only to count who owes what to who.

This is about far more than the revenue of an individual site. This is about a bunch of companies who have a business model which more or less amounts to spying on every damned thing you do and using that to make money.

I wouldn't personally use this tool, because I'd rather block.

Some companies do, but think of all the horrible things you expose yourself to with such a tool.

In order to "click" one of those ads automatically, the browser most likely has to execute javascript and download assets. I certainly don't want my browser automatically and invisibly doing that. Every once in a while, one of those adds points to malware. Do you really want an add-on that automatically clicks on that?

Targeted advertising becomes useless when the have no idea of what you're really looking at.

But since these are companies the consumer has no direct relationship with, who make money based on our personal information without any consent from us, and who then use it for anything they like because they have it ... I don't have a problem with this.

Ad-block is enough for this. Invisible ads are useless to them, click or no click.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[tlhIngan]

I am all for poisoning that well. For those of us who use adblock it won't affect what we see and will cost the advertisers money as they will have to pay the site we visited for those clicks. So really no down side from my perspective.

You aren't that naive, are you?

You think if you're poisoning the well that advertisers don't notice? Or rather, Google since Google's the one doing all the advertising these days.

Face it, sites aren't paid by the click anymore. They're paid by the legit click. Google's already done it by detecting fraudulent clicks and reducing their payment to websites as a result.

The end result is that websites will simply get less money, so either you'll see more ads on your favourite sites, or you'll see more and more stuff go behind paywalls that were formerly free.

And no, just because it's a fraudulent click doesn't mean it's not counted. It's counted against the website so not only does the website not get the money from that click, they are paid less per click overall.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

AC is right. Instead of 'running ads', you are the ad.

The difference is that I'm up-front about it. If you were to punch up my site at starbreakerseries.com, it would be pretty damn obvious that the site exists to promote my fiction. My shit isn't cluttering up your reading experience at other sites. Facebook and Twitter aren't going to clutter your feeds with ads like "Angry wizard sex! Check it out at starbreakerseries.com!" If you're at my site in the first place, it's most likely because you already bought my book and want to see if the next one's out yet.

My site is a first-party ad for my own work. I don't see any hypocrisy in condemning third-party ads or sites that use them.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Morgon]

I guess if you're content with refusing to at least consider both sides of the discussion and thinking only your version of advertising is 'correct', then sure.... no hypocrisy.

Since you responded to literally nothing else from my post, I can only assume you aren't interested in actual discussion or debate on the topic, or simply cannot physically comprehend creating something that requires anything more than a static page or two (which would be ironic, given where we're communicating).

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Come on, Morgon. This is the internet. Did you really think you were going to change my mind when I've already stated somewhere in this this topic (if not to you) that I consider all third-party ads to be malware as a result of the abuses you describe as "punch the monkey shit"? Ten years ago, I would have said your stance was reasonable. Now, I say your stance is reasonable, but I no longer consider myself obligated to care. I've already made my decision, and that's to block all third-party ads.

The ad industry had their chance, and they blew it not only for themselves, but for those who depend on them to make money because nobody wants to pay for anything on the net when they already pay at least fifty bucks a month to their ISP. Instead of providing a legitimate public service, they tried to turn the Web into TV 2.0.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really think the web was going to remain free without the ad industry, you're sadly mistaken.

Hardware is not free. Manpower is not free. I highly doubt the transport side would be altruistic, so bandwidth still wouldn't be free. 90% of the early web was from educational institutions, and that hosting certainly wasn't truly free, just rolled into tuition. You're fooling yourself if you really think we'd be better off going back to home directories.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[mujadaddy]

I'm all about FF on the desktop. I've hesitated porting my entire Paranoia Setup (cookie whitelist, Noscript, big ole hosts file) to mobile though, because of the adjustment period which would be necessary to get my trusted sites (bank, mostly) working right. I suppose it's just laziness at this point. Let me fix that! Thanks.

Re:All for poisioning the well

[Anonymous Coward]

Does AdNauseum make a distinction between advertising sources that don't track personal information versus those that do? If no, or if it can but users don't configure it to, then the GP is correct in that either the software or the user may be just fucking over everyone for the hell of it.

Genius

[Anonymous Coward]

Genius

Leading by Bad Example?

[rioki]

I am not sure if on purpose or not but their website is a classic example why ads are bad and distracting. Their website is loaded with ads for their campaigns, social media buttons, links to the extensions and stuff. The entire design looks almost like a terrible online magazine, that derides their article just so you will see the ads. It may that it is a bold sarcastic statement or they are hypocrites.

Re:Leading by Bad Example?

[Mr D from 63]

Unfortunately, views from clickbait sites are just as valuable as views from quality sites. So, not only do we have ads that are annoying, we are constantly being baited to view content that is stupid.

Have quality, non-annoying, fast loading ads, relevant to the content, placed on quality content/sites, and I will be much more likely to not block them, and in some cases I may actually look at them.

Re:Leading by Bad Example?

[wvmarle]

Have quality, non-annoying, fast loading ads, relevant to the content, placed on quality content/sites, [...]

This part I wholeheartedly agree with. Most of the ads are so irrelevant, so totally unrelated to whatever you're looking at, they're useless. For some reasons the advertisers like to look at all the info they can get about you, like your past interests and so, and serve ads based on that. Instead of simply looking at the page you're browsing, and serving ads that are relevant to the content of that page.

The only one that I know that's doing this, is Google on their own search page. Search for something, and you get ads directly related to it.

[...]and I will be much more likely to not block them, and in some cases I may actually look at them.

Not likely, as the damage has been done already.

Like me, I suppose you're running an ad blocker. This I installed as I got too irritated by ads - first it was FlashBlock as mostly flash ads were the culprit, but the animated gifs aren't much better so it was ABP. I never looked back. I'm not going to "test" whether a site has improved and is worthy of unblocking. When blocked, ads are gone, and I for one doesn't miss them. If they're there, unobtrusive and relevant, that's totally fine with me - but that won't happen, as it's simply blocked already. When installing a new system, ABP and FlashBlock are among the first add-ons to install, it's like a habit.

For the advertisers, the damage has been done, they've completely lost my eyeballs. Sorry guys, it's your own fault by seriously irritating me.

I can't be the only one

[TheCastro1689]

I'm not so much concerned that companies create ads and that they're almost completely irrelevant to me. They only show ads for websites I've already went to or ordered from so they're meaningless. I'm more concerned that I can't click on ads for fear that they'll take me to malicious websites. Even companies you think you could "trust" sometimes have malicious code in them. Give me ads that aren't clickbate for viruses and are actually relevant and I'd click them.

Brilliant

[Anonymous Coward]

Insidious, I love it. If it's difficult to distinguish these from genuine clicks it will screw the model.

Wonder...

[phillk6751]

...if the developers of this app are secretly associated with an AD provider in order to generate more revenue from the companies paying them for the ads.

Click fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes, this brings back memories of scamming doubleclick and adsense.

Gotta love the creativity.

[Qbertino]

You gotta love the creativity the geek community comes up with time and time again. It is plainly obvious that you can't sue adblockers away, but it's fun to watch the battle unfold in front of us anyway. I'm grabbing my deck-chair and my popcorn just now. :-)

Re:Gotta love the creativity.

[Charliemopps]

The lawsuit is in France... Things are less obvious there. :-)

Re:Gotta love the creativity.

[Triklyn]

france, the place where liberty was born, and where it went back to die.

Re:Gotta love the creativity.

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberty was born in France? The ancient Israelites had a fully functional anarchic society when the Gauls and Franks (who were in modern day Germany at the time) were still living in caves and swinging from trees.

Re:Gotta love the creativity.

[Anonymous Coward]

lol. What bollocks.

Terrible idea ...

[gstoddart]

I want to block this crap.

I want to block their cookies. I want to deny them the analytics or even know that I visited the page. I want the advertisers to piss off and die.

Sure, you can shit in their well and give them crufty data which is useless.

Or you can just block this crap outright, never see it at all, save your damned bandwidth, and leave the parasites out of the equation entirely.

So, Quantserve? Scorecard Research? Google Ad Services? All that crap which is embedded in every page you see? I'll take tools which prevent them from getting traffic from me or any information in the first place.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[drinkypoo]

Saving the bandwidth is job #1 for me. I don't care if sites know I buy stuff, really, unless they mail me more kindling. I have enough already, thanks. Stop killing trees, fuckers. But the best internet connection I can get is 5MBps on a good day...

Re:Terrible idea ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Or you can just block this crap outright, "

Except you can't. You are still getting tracked (Canvas for instance)

Re:Terrible idea ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I rather just block them and have my pages load faster with less bandwidth. Why would I want a extension clicking 20+ ads in the background every time i visit a news site. Its just making my my browsing slower, using more bandwidth and linking my IP to more to their analytic.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I like getting physical spam mail. It keeps the postal system funded and gives me free scrap paper. No need to buy post-it notes.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[plasm4]

I just edit my hosts file. http://someonewhocares.org/hos...

Re:Terrible idea ...

[Zocalo]

I have no issues with the sites I choose to visit knowing what I do there - they could get all that from their logs after all - but I also object to feeding the mill of Google, Quantserve et al so I can become their product on my bandwidth, whatever negligable amount it might be. My tool of choice for this is actually my DNS server, with ABP and NoScript only the second line of defence for all the small fry and locally hosted ad/tracking scripts. Good luck getting tracking information when any host on your domain is configured to resolve to 0.0.0.0 via my local DNS' authoratative version of the zone (you don't actually need all that many to make a huge difference), let alone serving up ads, scripts or any other crap. It's not a foolproof opt out of all tracking, but it sure as hell makes them work for a very incomplete picture of my online habits.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[drinkypoo]

I don't really need the postal system. I only need parcel service, and internet access. Let's let POTS and the USPS die already, and get universal internet access instead. It's a lot more useful.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical perspective of someone living in a city. Do you have any idea of how bad internet access is outside of major urban centers? Let alone parcel delivery, drop off an pickup.

AC

Re:Terrible idea ...

[amiga3D]

I have over 200 America Online CDs. I wonder what that cost in manufacturing, handling and postage. I never ever even looked at AOL once and my IRC bot automatically kickbanned anyone with an AOL domain. I'm sure they got plenty of money out of it though, there are about 10 suckers born every second. AOL, American Organization of Lamers.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[amiga3D]

Actually the US post is the only way to send a message where they have to get a warrant to read it.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[amiga3D]

Are you on dial-up? It's been a decade since I had any noticeable lag on a website. Except for the computers at work of course, they run like they're on dial-up.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean?

Canvas tracking is purely optional. It depends on voluntarily running scripts from ad/tracking domains. Just ... don't run their scripts, and canvas fails.

It's your computer, not theirs. You get to decide how it operates and what it does.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical perspective of someone living in a city. Do you have any idea of how bad internet access is outside of major urban centers? Let alone parcel delivery, drop off an pickup.

I'm sure people were making similar complaints about the USPS when it was new. In general, rural areas fail the cost/benefit analysis for a large set of economic activity. It costs more to get goods in, and the market is too small to make much profit. The USPS serves these areas anyway, because the voters believe it is in all of our interest to have access to long distance communication. If we were to replace or update the USPS with current technologies, rural communication service would have to improve. Since it's an economic loser, this would be subsidized by the urban population.

Your characterization of OP is a self-involved urbanite with no concern for anything outside the city is nonsense, since he's proposing to use his tax dollars to build better communication networks in rural areas.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[drinkypoo]

Typical perspective of someone living in a city.

I talk at least once a month about how I live in the boonies, and how my internet access is crappy. You fail. That's not a problem we cannot solve, it's a problem we have not solved.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[drinkypoo]

Actually the US post is the only way to send a message where they have to get a warrant to read it.

Actually, in practice "they" open mail without your permission all the time. Wait, you trusted the USPS? Tee hee hee.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[Morgon]

> I want to block their cookies. I want to deny them the analytics or even know that I visited the page. I want the advertisers to piss off and die.
> save your damned bandwidth, and leave the parasites out of the equation entirely.

This is extremely easy to do, and I'm not sure why you or others haven't suggested it:
You could not visit the site/page. The 100% bandwidth savings is worth it, wouldn't you say?

Re:Terrible idea ...

[amiga3D]

Of course they can always break the law. Let them bring anything they find there into a court of law though and it's a different matter. No warrant, no evidence.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[aardvarkjoe]

It's been a decade since I had any noticeable lag on a website.

Have you really not used the web in the last 10 years, or are you just exaggerating?

Web page sizes and complexity have, if anything, grown faster than available bandwidth. Websites with many embedded flash widgets will bog down even a new-ish system, much less a less-powerful laptop.

Re:Terrible idea ...

[amiga3D]

It's no exaggeration. Running on a 50 megabit connection it's trivial to browse even heavy sites. Bandwidth was always the biggest limitation anyway. I've not had to wait more than a couple of seconds for a page to load in ages whether it's my quad i7 mac or my dual core i5 laptop.

There's a better way to handle this

[Anonymous Coward]

Just install AdBlock Plus/Edge, remove all filter lists and then install custom made local filter lists using a file URL object

Those custom made filter lists do not contain lines with @@ or @ signs (whitelist entries) and modify the header to not contain an update URL except 127.0.0

Example:

[Adblock Plus 2.0]
! Version:
! Title: My private blocking list
! Last modified: 07 Jul 2014 08:31 UTC
! Expires: 400000000000 days (update frequency)
! License:
! Please report any unblocked content or problems by email or in our forums
! Email:
! Homepage: https://127.0.0.1/
! Forums: http://127.0.0.1/

In this case ABP is not able to replace the changes you made and you're able to modify the list using a text editor. And the list doesn't contain whitelist entries.

Not our problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not our problem if the ad sellers claim higher click-throughs, we're not seeing the ads and they're not getting any useful data.

Endless escalation

[sinij]

While I personally block _all_ online advertising (and tracking) via various means, I disagree that intentionally breaking per-click model is a good thing. If the AdNauseam gains adoption, it will likely trigger further escalation in tracking. Advertising pays for significant portion of online content, and vast majority of people have to deal with it. If substantial fraction of people are given tools to block and automate click-spoofing, then new and much more draconian ways to track will be developed.

You think flash cookies are bad? Wait until AdNauseam forces Google to cut anti-NN deal with telecoms in exchange of ISP-level in-stream identifier insertion.

Re:Endless escalation

[Anonymous Coward]

FUD. Slippery slope. Why not try being rational? ISP-level monitoring? Absolutely nuts.

Re:Endless escalation

[Anonymous Coward]

That right there is the problem: "Advertising pays for significant portion of online content".

Let's just scrap that "significant portion" entirely. I won't miss it. I'm happy to pay for the things I actually want to buy online. Amazon was here before Google, you know - e-commerce doesn't depend on advertising, and nor does Wikipedia.

Could be devastating for advertisers

[Anonymous Coward]

This could be devastating for advertisers and their online advertising budgets. CTR for all ads is somewhere between 0.1% (desktop) and 4% (video) - let's say that this averages out to ~1%. If a sizable fraction of the internet starts using this add-on, or something like it, that 1% could move to 2% or 3% very quickly. ROAS disappears, as does any meaningful data about whether advertising is working.

If successful I suspect that advertisers will simply change their model from CPC to CPA and install even more invasive tracking measures to confirm the "A".

Re:Could be devastating for advertisers

[OrangeTide]

One of the most popular browsers is controlled by an advertising company, I'm not sure how popular such an extension could become.

But yes, if we add lots more clicks that can never be converted to every page visit that will dilute the value of clicks. I think it's brilliant, but it is an arms race. And there is a better infrastructure for advertisers to use a cost per action model, I could imagine them all jumping over there if cost per click model is exploited.

Perhaps automatically ordering something with an invalid credit card number could make CPA less compelling, but that might be considered wire fraud. I'm not sure if it would be feasible to prosecute millions of people for thousands of spoofed orders, at least not feasible in criminal court (you can't do class action suits for crimes). Maybe the plugin author could be sued for damages in civil court though.

Re:Could be devastating for advertisers

[Anonymous Coward]

I will allow ads when:

- Ads only, no attempt to track or do analytics.
- Don't place cookies to ascertain my travels.
- Don't attempt to learn anything about me. If you get hits, you get them, if not, you don't. That's how you know people are interested.

Personally, an ad has never sold me on anything. I've been blocking them since Adblock existed. Before that I used hosts files. I have a right to a clean Internet experience that does not waste my bandwidth, track me, or attempt to ascertain who I am, what I like.

Ad can do click analytics w/o tracking the user. I know for a fact this is possible, as I've worked in Web hosting for several years.

More details plz

[ctrlshift]

The website is pretty sparse on the details of what actually happens when this plugin is doing its thing. Unless it's all explained in that paper they posted (which I can't make any sense of, and I'm an IT professional).

Does this plugin simulate a click, or does it actually load the entire target page offscreen, and if so, is there any possibility for recursion here? Suppose there are banner ads on the page being "simul-clicked" on? Does the plugin proceed to them as well? How does this affect bandwidth? And what about security? What happens if that page wants to install the Ultra Monkeys Toolbar in my browser? Is it able to do that? Am I not able to decline or close the offending page before something bad happens because it's all happening offscreen?

Please, developer we've never heard of before, explain to us a bit more why we should trust this plugin. In ENGLISH.

Re:More details plz

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not even listed on the official firefox add-ons registry - I am not trusting this xpi download

Re:More details plz

[OrangeTide]

A simple mark and sweep would solve the recursion issue. Hash table of places you've visited, although it's tough to say if it should be by domain or by URL. If by domain you may only click once per ad network. If by URL, you could still hit recursion if a page generates random URIs. A recursion depth of 1 seems easier to implement than any of that though, requiring that each page load be configured to either apply the clickspoofing feature or not apply the clicking feature.

Re:More details plz

[stephenpeters]

While I am not the developer of the extension in TFA I did find the idea interesting. Even if this implementation fails it seems likely to me that this idea is a logical escalation in the online ad arms race. If the idea gains traction it will be just a matter of time before a decent implementation emaerges. The reaction from Google should be interesting if a Chrome extension appears.

Re:More details plz

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not likely to ever be listed in the official Firefox registry or in the Chrome store. Can you imagine the shitstorm that would ensue if browser developers "endorsed" this extension in such a way? Ad blocking is one thing, ad clicking is another beast entirely. Many of the best and most interesting browser extensions have been self-hosted anyway. I always install Ghostery from ghostery.com, I install HTTPS Everywhere from the EFF's site, there used to be an awesome plugin called Customize Google that I'd install directly from them, etc. The official plugin repositories are overrated.

Other side of the coin

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the biggest complaints people have about ad-blocking technology is that it undercuts revenue to the free sites that I visit. In some sense, this seems like a reasonable compromise. The website I visit still gets the revenue as if I had seen the ad, and I don't have to actually see it. It comes down to a gentleman's agreement of "let's not and say we did."

The Click is Dead Anyway

[garcia]

I work in marketing analytics and, specifically, in measuring the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns at a customer level. Straight up click tracking is dead and this will do nothing which is purports as organizations begin moving away from siloed measurement of IMP -> CLK within single channels at an aggregate level and instead go down to the very granular cross-channel customer-level attribution.

If you really want to avoid detection and behavior tracking, I highly suggest you entirely disable cookies entirely (yes, I realize this is not worth it at all), otherwise you will not have accomplished what you had hoped.

Re:The Click is Dead Anyway

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I highly suggest you entirely disable cookies entirely (yes, I realize this is not worth it at all)

Why on earth would it not be worth it? Especially with whitelisting. Unless I have an account with a company there is no reason to have them save data on my machine.

Re:The Click is Dead Anyway

[ShaunC]

If you really want to avoid detection and behavior tracking, I highly suggest you entirely disable cookies entirely (yes, I realize this is not worth it at all), otherwise you will not have accomplished what you had hoped.

Self-Destructing Cookies is pretty nice for those who find it impractical to disable cookies entirely.

Re:The Click is Dead Anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

BINGO!

Re:The Click is Dead Anyway

[wvmarle]

Thanks! Going to check that one out.

Recently I found out I had to allow third-party cookies to get a very useful extension to work... had it disabled to at least make tracking a lot harder.

Cookies certainly have their purpose, e.g. to remember my language choice for a site. Don't want to completely disable them. Keeping some cookies alive that the site that I visit uses is fine; third parties tracking me across sites definitely not.

How about a URL reference to denote a "lost user"

[bigattichouse]

How about appending:

yourdamnad.com/?BLOCKEDBY=AdBlock (or whatever)

to the fake click. THEN get the word out that customers should ask for BLOCKEDBY ratios vs. actual clicks.

NSObfuscation?

[Anonymous Coward]

So...is there an extension like this, that will randomly browse all available sites (not just advertising one's) when I'm not actively using the browser? Kind of like spidering?

The reason would be to somewhat foil traffic data and thus interests collection by hostile agencies and/or data retention laws applying to ISP's.

Anyone know of such a (user-friendly) thing?

Phony data

[RogueWarrior65]

I had an ad company try to sell me an online ad space. So I asked the salesperson what the click-thru rate was for the other advertisers on the site and she said she didn't know. I said, "It's 2014. This is the kind of data you should have at your fingertips. It's not like a print-ad where you have no clue how many people really look at an ad."

Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

You can bet, if Google figures out a way to calculate these fake clicks, this company will get ripped to pieces in court for massive fraud. Good luck.

Re:Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice plan. The problem with it is that it's not fraud.

Malware risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

My concern is drive-by malware attacks, especially if they're exploiting zero day security holes. I block all ads not because I care about ads on my page I block them because drive-by malware risk. Too many big advertisers are extremely loose selling ad space to multiple vendors who sell to multiple vendors who sell to people and even more lower class vendors. The farther down the chain you go the more shady business becomes and that's bad for the viewers.

ADblock at gateway level on LAN

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless I'm required to do otherwise, I usually install pfblocker + AD server lists on every firewall/gateway I set up: advertising blocked on the whole LAN with a simple, tiny firewall rule. No one cared about that so much to complain, and that's five years and about 20 public LANs...

Re:ADblock at gateway level on LAN

[fisted]

And how do you handle ads delivered via https?

I don't use an ad blocker,

[scruffy]

but NoScript seems to block most of them anyway. I don't mind seeing a few ads, but I'm going to try to control what programs run on my machine.

Ads weren't the problem for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Ads weren't the problem for me. But here are the problems

• Ads that pop up a window are a problem.
• Ads that pop up a lightbox are a problem.
• Ads that make noise are a problem.
• Ads that cause flash to take lots of CPU cycles are a problem.
• Ads that follow me around the web because I visited a certain website are a problem.
• Ads that cause a drastic slow-down in page loading.

Not all advertisers are evil -- no, really

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Wow. Got a little off your chest there, buddy? :-)

It's worth remembering in these discussions that "advertiser" includes basically every business and for that matter every open social group in the world. It includes the emergency plumber you call when your home is flooding at 2am. It includes the band your kid wants to go see for their birthday. It includes your grandmother's knitting club.

There is nothing inherently evil in these people advertising. Their ads provide a useful social function because other people do want to find them. Of course, they also fund various media, which presumably the viewers/listeners/browsers value or they wouldn't be those things.

What everyone hates is excessive/intrusive advertising, and on the Web also the specific problems of malware/spyware served by ad networks. Those guys can go take a running jump, but let's all try to remember that they represent only a small minority of "advertisers", and they always have (or the Web would have become unusable long ago).

So, how about we stop talking as if we're stupid and think everyone who advertises is some evil demon whose only purpose in life is to frustrate everyone who browses the Web. Nothing useful comes from all the "advertisers should go kill themselves" bull that people who I can only assume are twelve years old post every time this subject comes up.

Re:Not all advertisers are evil -- no, really

[JaredOfEuropa]

True, advertising does serve a useful purpose. The problem is with the people who think it's a good idea to make their ad just a little bit louder, brighter or bouncier than the rest, so it gets noticed more. And then of course the rest of the advertisers, even the well-meaning ones, are forced to make their ads a little louder still. Yes, even the "regular" advertisers do this: television ads have been normalized in terms of dBs and often in compression as well. But those same exact same ads do not behave so well on unregulated channels, such as broadcasters' websites showing repeats of their shows with ads in between. Some of those ads fairly blast out your eardrums, and that's not just laziness on the webmaster's part for failing to adjust the volumes properly; those ads also have extreme compression (for higher perceived loudness) that is absent from the televised versions.

Re:Not all advertisers are evil -- no, really

[BarbaraHudson]

What everyone hates is excessive/intrusive advertising, and on the Web also the specific problems of malware/spyware served by ad networks. Those guys can go take a running jump, but let's all try to remember that they represent only a small minority of "advertisers", and they always have (or the Web would have become unusable long ago).

Pretty much all advertising is intrusive and/or spyware. Take a look at how many ad networks track you "to better serve you ads you might be interested in." How many ads do you see that aren't served from an ad network?

Re:Not all advertisers are evil -- no, really

[bingoUV]

Wake up. The "Web" did become unusable long ago. Without adblock, anyway.

Re:Not all advertisers are evil -- no, really

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

How many ads do you see that aren't served from an ad network?

The only ads I see aren't served from the major ad networks.

I still see plenty of ads, though: any e-commerce site I visit is full of "recommendations", reviews often have an "affiliate link" so you can buy the item reviewed and they get a commission (an obvious conflict of interest, but that's another issue), a lot of the niche sites I visit carry their own advertising, social network sites integrate self-hosted ads into their main feeds, and so on.

I don't really find those things annoying myself, precisely because they don't tend to be excessively intrusive.

Re:Not all advertisers are evil -- no, really

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm guessing the majority of people I know enjoy the Web but don't use an ad blocker, so maybe you just have a much lower threshold for usability than most people.

Re:Not all advertisers are evil -- no, really

[Anonymous Coward]

What everyone hates is excessive/intrusive advertising, and on the Web also the specific problems of malware/spyware served by ad networks. Those guys can go take a running jump, but let's all try to remember that they represent only a small minority of "advertisers", and they always have (or the Web would have become unusable long ago).

Let's get things straight, it may be the minority of advertisers, but it is the vast majority of served ads, because that minority are the big ones on the market. And FYI, the web DID become unuseable long ago. When was the last time you visited an unknown site without any ad or malware blocking services? Apparently not in the last 10 years or so, or you wouldn't have made that statement.

Re:Not all advertisers are evil -- no, really

[hairyfeet]

Do the people you named hire MBAs and SEOs which teach them to be annoying cunts? if so they can DIAF with the advertisers. Which since I wasn't clear I will elaborate that when I say "advertisers" I don't mean little Suzy putting up an ad for her bake sale I mean those Madison Avenue pricks that took what had worked perfectly well and took a giant sheeeeit all over it to squeeze some short term gains at the expense of everybody else.

Don't want to be a hated festering pustule on the ass of the Internet and still advertise? Then follow these simple rules and nobody will hate you, in fact you might even see people supporting you and pointing you out as a model citizen...1.- FIRST PARTY ONLY, when you hand control to a first party you might as well say "I'm too lazy to give a fuck about my viewers, please give them malware" 2.- NO FLASH ADS, see rule 1 as why that is a bad idea, 3.- NO JAVA ADS, again see rule 1. 4.- NO SOUND ADS because there is nothing that will make you hated than ruining a nice quiet surf with a loud ad, you might as well have farted in the person's face as both are equally obnoxious and rude. 5.- NO POP UPS, see rule 4 for why that is a no no.

Follow these simple rules and not only will nobody hate you but by default both adblock and adblock plus (even adblock edge) won't block you as they'll just think its content. But I advise everyone to remove the ABP "acceptable ads" filter as they allow flash ads and you might as well just remove your AV and start surfing topsites if you are gonna allow flash ads, they are the #1 source of malware by a country mile. in fact I've cut the infection rate of my customers by over 90% simply be blocking flash ads, yes they are THAT nasty.

Nope, not click fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

[Isn't that click fraud?]

The only situation where this would be click fraud, is when the owners of a site use this extension while looking at their own site. For anyone else to use it, isn't click fraud because the user isn't getting paid for the ads' click through rate.

If I was an advertiser, I'd be pissed.

Yes, and if I were an underground sewer cleaner, or a telemarketer, or a retail salesperson, or a Visual Basic Legacy Maintenance Programmer, or a newpaper reporter assigned to go cover Hollywood "events," I would be pissed too. Some jobs are hard, distastful(even if useful), soul-crushing, stupid/useless/hollow-purposed, or a mix thereof. You wanna add web advertiser to the list of jobs that suck? ("Wait, my business model is hoping people choose to user their computers in a certain way, which that conflicts with their own interests, but sometimes some of the users are sometimes choosing to use their computer their way? This business sucks!") Fair enough, it sucks, and most people who work in that area have reason to slowly fill up with resentment throughout the work day, until they come home and kick their dogs, yell at their wife/kids, sink into alcoholism, and eventually evolve a pleasureless misanthropic nihilistic attitude, which eventually poisons their experience of life to the point that they can never enjoy anything and might as well have never been born. I'm not denying it; this job isn't for everyone.

Internet 3.0 is a Ponzi scheme

[hessian]

Google is desperately searching for new products because they know what the rest of us are beginning to figure out: internet advertising is a paper tiger.

In theory, it leads to targeted ads reaching more people than ever before. In actuality, it advertises by demographic in the same way television does, and mostly repeats products you have shown interest in before whether you bought them or not.

Further, most of the sites showing advertising on their content are putting so many ads on the page that the effectiveness of any particular ad is radically diminished.

When this "dot-com bubble" (3.0) goes down, it's going to take the US economy with it, and through them, the world.

Re:Internet 3.0 is a Ponzi scheme

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Internet advertising is a scam. Dice and even Google are really not being any more honest with their advertising customers than spammers are.

Adblock

[Anonymous Coward]

Adblock is no different than putting a sign on your mailbox that says, ‘no junk mail,’ or a ‘do not call’ registry. The public has a right to block advertising, especially when it is invasive as most are on the internet.

Re:Adblock

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be the same thing only if the postal service derived its revenue from junk mail.

They don't, so it's not the same thing at all.

Re:Adblock

[geminidomino]

Actually, USPS does derive quite a bit of its revenue from "bulk rate" mail.

Re:Adblock

[Swave An deBwoner]

It would be the same thing only if the postal service derived its revenue from junk mail.

They don't, so it's not the same thing at all.

Ha ha. Joke's on you. The USPS makes its living delivering junk mail.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/business/seeking-revenue-postal-service-plans-to-deliver-more-junk-mail.html

misunderstanding

[Anonymous Coward]

This appears to stem from a complete and total misunderstanding of how tracking works. There are publishers and there are advertisers and the two are largely disconnected in terms of tracking. If anything, clicking on every ad provides more tracking information because now advertisers can set first party cookies on your browser. It's completely stupid.

Could make user vulnerable to data loss ?

[perpenso]

... or who knows what else?

Or how about an ad that has a button "I agree to upload my address book" ?

As with many "good" ideas, the big problems are often due to the unintended consequences and responses.

Re:Could make user vulnerable to data loss ?

[amicusNYCL]

Or how about an ad that has a button "I agree to upload my address book" ?

As with many "good" ideas, the big problems are often due to the unintended consequences and responses.

What? You've discovered a way for Javascript code to access someone's "address book" and upload it without any further prompting from the user? And this is a real problem rather than some hypothetical issue that would never happen?

Re:Could make user vulnerable to data loss ?

[perpenso]

Or how about an ad that has a button "I agree to upload my address book" ?

As with many "good" ideas, the big problems are often due to the unintended consequences and responses.

What? You've discovered a way for Javascript code to access someone's "address book" and upload it without any further prompting from the user? And this is a real problem rather than some hypothetical issue that would never happen?

You are having a forest/trees moment.

That said, good thing that there are no javascript exploits that lead to arbitrary code execution. Otherwise a user could inadvertently approve of running such arbitrary code via an auto clicking addon. Its not unauthorized use of the user's computer since they clicked?

Again, the main point is that auto clicking can have unintended consequences. Its naive to think its just going to screw up advertisers and not provide and entirely new avenue for exploitation.

Re:Could make user vulnerable to data loss ?

[Grishnakh]

Again, the main point is that auto clicking can have unintended consequences. Its naive to think its just going to screw up advertisers and not provide and entirely new avenue for exploitation.

Shouldn't it be fairly simple to write the plug-in to "click" on ads, download the ads, and then direct the download results straight to /dev/null? Downloading an ad shouldn't have to mean actually interpreting the data or rendering anything and certainly not executing any downloaded JS code; all the advertiser needs to know is that you've "clicked" on something (which means you've downloaded it); they don't know that you didn't actually look at the ad.

Re:Could make user vulnerable to data loss ?

[perpenso]

Again, the main point is that auto clicking can have unintended consequences. Its naive to think its just going to screw up advertisers and not provide an entirely new avenue for exploitation.

Shouldn't it be fairly simple to write the plug-in to "click" on ads, download the ads, and then direct the download results straight to /dev/null? Downloading an ad shouldn't have to mean actually interpreting the data or rendering anything and certainly not executing any downloaded JS code; all the advertiser needs to know is that you've "clicked" on something (which means you've downloaded it); they don't know that you didn't actually look at the ad.

That is a good description of an expected sequence of events. However unintended consequences involve things one is not expecting, that one has not considered. Which are things commonly associated with exploits. I'm sure that in time we'll learn of a sequence of events where auto clicking on a button yielded negative consequences.

Fantastic

[spongman]

hopefully this takes on and forces advertisers and publishers to switch to cpa instead of the meaningless cpm/cpc models of the past. Then hopefully we'll all see fewer, more relevant, more expensive ads for stuff we actually want to buy.

click-through is meaningless

[DarkSkiesAhead]

This might obfuscate the meaning of the clicks, but what if it just encourages the ad sellers to claim even higher click-through rates as a selling point?

As someone who has worked at companies using ads, I can assure you that click-through rate is fully meaningless. Customer Lifetime Value per ad acquired user, or revenue per ad channel, or some similar meaningful metric will be used. Dead clicks will not give ad sellers any fuel for their cause.

Re:How about a URL reference to denote a "lost use

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no. Why the heck would we want to give website an easy way to tell that we're not looking at their ads? If they'll just start returning "This website requires advertisements; please disable your ad blocker." if the query contains BLOCKEDBY.

Slashdot is a technical website, so surely you knew that. So I suspect that means you were just trolling, and I fed the troll. :(

Oh, good. Actual fraud.

[Anonymous Coward]

Blocking ads is one thing. You're receiving the source code and can do whatever you want with it on your machine. Go you. Not my thing, but whatever.

Clicking ads you're not visiting is fraud. Really.

Cue the anti-ad brigade telling me I'm wrong. But even if this ultimately is legal, it's well beyond the line of being a Dick Move for the sake of being a Dick Move.

This isn't civil disobedience. It's throwing bricks though shop windows because f**k windows.

Re:Oh, good. Actual fraud.

[Cederic]

Clicking ads you're not visiting is fraud. Really.

Sorry but following a HTTP link that's been presented to your browser is not fraud.

It may fall under various anti-denial of service or computer misuse laws, but I can't see how it's fraudulent. You were offered the chance to call a URL, you called it.

The fact that you chose not to render the response to your call on your screen is your choice. If the providers of the URL want to assume that you did then that's their own stupidity.

Don't do business through me then

[bingoUV]

The addon user did not give explicit permission to the advertising companies to do business with the website through himself. Websites generally don't even have EULA. If they then are prevented from doing this questionable business through non-consenting parties, that should be fine.

Re:Don't do business through me then

[perpenso]

The addon user did not give explicit permission to the advertising companies to do business with the website through himself. Websites generally don't even have EULA. If they then are prevented from doing this questionable business through non-consenting parties, that should be fine.

My understanding is that tortious interference is about a 3rd party (the user in this case) interfering with business between others (website and advertiser). The third party does not need to be part of any agreement in order to be interfering. Users of this addon might be at risk if so.

Re:Don't do business through me then

[perpenso]

And the developers of the addon are probably even more at risk

Re:Don't do business through me then

[Anonymous Coward]

A tortious interference complaint requires that the complainant establish that the interfering 3rd party is disinterested and without privilege to interfere.

In this case, a trackee is indirectly a party to the business relationship - as the object of the relationship, essentially - and is therefore inherently interested. A trackee has, therefore, the privilege (legally) to interfere as it sees fit.

I'd think any competent lawyer should be able to win a TI case using that line of argument.

Also, some other 3rd party that only creates software that helps an interested party interfere in that way - as long as they're not directly interfering themselves (as an outsider) - should be safe, generally speaking.

Re:Don't do business through me then

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, some other 3rd party that only creates software that helps an interested party interfere in that way - as long as they're not directly interfering themselves (as an outsider) - should be safe, generally speaking.

Regarding that 3rd party software developer. As the other side's lawyer once explained to us, a small software developer, it doesn't matter if you are factually right or wrong. All that matter is that you can't afford the legal costs to defend yourself and prevail.

So being safe in general does not mean being factually right / legal.

Re:Don't do business through me then

[perpenso]

The addon user did not give explicit permission to the advertising companies to do business with the website through himself. Websites generally don't even have EULA. If they then are prevented from doing this questionable business through non-consenting parties, that should be fine.

How can you say the addon user did not give explicit permission? They are running an addon that auto clicks on buttons. Perhaps the addon agreed. :-)

AdBlock = Inferior + 'Souled-Out'... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

A FREE hosts program adds speed, security, & reliability, doing more, more efficiently vs. addons + fixes DNS' redirect security issues:

APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

http://start64.com/index.php?o...

---

A.) Hosts do more than:

1.) AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/... )
2.) Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
3.) Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

B.) Hosts add reliability vs. downed/redirected dns (& overcome site redirects e.g. /. beta).

C.) Hosts secure vs. malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... w/ less "moving parts" complexity

D.) Hosts files yield more:

1.) Speed (adblock & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote dns)
2.) Security (vs. malicious domains serving malcontent + block spam/phish & trackers)
3.) Reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable dns, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ isp level + weak vs DGA, & Fastflux + dynDNS botnets)
4.) Anonymity (vs. dns request logs + dnsbl's).

---

* Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ faster levels (ring 0) vs redundant inefficient addons (slowing slower ring 3 browsers) via filtering 4 the IP stack (coded in C, loads w/ os, & 1st net resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization).
* Addons = more complex + slow browsers in messagepassing (use a few concurrently & see) & are nullified by native browser methods - It's how Clarityray's destroying Adblock.
* Addons slowup slower usermode browsers layering on more - & bloat RAM consumption + excessive cpu use too (4++gb extra in FireFox https://blog.mozilla.org/nneth...)

Instead, work w/ a more capable native kernelmode part you already have - hosts (An integrated part of the ip stack)

APK

P.S.=> "The premise is quite simple: Take something designed by nature & reprogram it to make it work for the body rather than against it..." - Dr. Alice Krippen: "I am legend"

...apk

Ask yourselves these questions... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Can adblock do 15 things hosts files can for more speed, security, reliability, & more:

1.) Secure you vs. known malicious sites/servers (beyond malicious adbanners - see 2 thru 6 below next)
2.) Secure you vs. downed DNS servers aiding reliability
3.) Secure you vs. DNS redirect poisoned dns servers
4.) Protect you vs. fastflux using botnet attacks and stop their communications back to their C&C servers
5.) Protect you vs. dynamic dns using botnet attacks and stop their communications back to their C&C servers
6.) Protect you vs. domain generation algorithm using botnet attacks and stop their communications back to their C&C servers
7.) Speed you up for websurfing not only by adblocking but also hardcoding favorite sites
8.) Get you past a dnsbl you may not agree with
9.) Keep you off dns request logs
10.) Do all of those things and block ads (better than adblock) more efficiently in cpu cycles and memory usage
11.) Work on ANY webbound application (think stand-alone email programs, for example).
12.) Give you direct, easily notepad/texteditor controlled data for all of the above
13.) Block out trackers
14.) Block spam mails sources
15.) Block phishing mails sources

"?"

* Simple YES or NO answers will do for repliers to this - that's all.

APK

P.S.=> The ANSWER ="NO" to each enumerated item above as far as "Almost ALL Ads Blocked" (crippled by default & 'souled-out' defeating it's very base purpose) is concerned -> http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/...

So, *IF* you feel like doing things LESS efficiently as well -> https://blog.mozilla.org/nneth... ontop of doing less than hosts do (by far) with more complexity + from a slower mode of operations (usermode with more messagepassing overheads vs. hosts in kernelmode, also starting up w/ the IP stack itself, before REDUNDANT inefficient addons even BEGIN to operate, & as the 1st resolver queried by the OS as well)?

That's illogical: I can lead a horse to water, but I can't make them drink!

... apk

True story, AdBlock vs. Hosts

[Anonymous Coward]

W. Palant wrote me by email 1st saying "hosts are a shitty solution" to which I replied:

"Show us adblock can do more for added speed, security, reliability, & anonymity than hosts can, + that adblock does it more efficiently than hosts"

Which on my latter 'point-in-challenge' on efficiency AdBlock's proven by research to be MASSIVELY inefficient -> https://blog.mozilla.org/nneth... & adblock does FAR less than hosts (especially crippled by default).

I sent Wladimir Palant that challenge in response to his statement from 2 different email addresses I use!

Result = Still no answer from him in regard to my challenge put to him to this very day MONTHS later - that tell you anything? It did me!

He knows his addon is less efficient & features laden by FAR vs. hosts - Wladimir Palant RAN like a scared rabbit!

ClarityRay's also DESTROYING AdBlock - via native browser methods to DUMP what addons you use (it can't DO THAT to hosts files).

I only tell it how it is on hosts' superiority vs. AdBlock - Funny part is, Wladimir Palant running does too!

Especially considering "Almost ALL Ads Blocked" has 'souled-out' -> Google And Others Reportedly Pay Adblock Plus To Show You Ads Anyway: http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

APK

P.S.=> Bottom-Line: Hosts = a superior solution that also fixes DNS redirect security issues (vs. browser addons & their inefficiencies + messagepassing overheads as well as myriad lack of abilities hosts have from 1 file that's part of the IP stack itself - faster, more efficient, & less redundant as well, since TCP/IP has 45++ yrs. of refinement & optimization in it, & runs in a higher CPU serviced ring of privelege & operations in kernelmode vs. slower usermode layering over browsers slowing them more, & hosts = 1st resolver queried by the OS itself also)... apk

Peer-to-peer HTTP

[Anonymous Coward]

This problem could be solved with a peer-to-peer replacement for http. That would make the available bandwidth scale with the number of users, so you wouldn't be ruined by becoming too popular. The bittorrent protocol isn't suitable due to its high latency, but it's probably possible to design one that would be. Of course introducing a new protocol like this and making browsers support it isn't exactly done over night. And it will be hard to make it work with dynamic pages. But it shows that advertising isn't the only solution to this problem.

Re:Peer-to-peer HTTP

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be great, but that's not the end-all-be-all, since you specifically said that dynamic pages wouldn't work (or it would be harder to do). I don't know very many static resources outside of government that are all that interesting.

Meaning of the clicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "This might obfuscate the meaning of the clicks, but what if it just encourages the ad sellers to claim even higher click-through rates as a selling point?"

They might try that but for the ad networks, this is like handling flaming napalm with bare hands. Do it once if ever.

The thing is, the ad networks are getting paid by businesses who want value for the money they pay. Those funding businesses are quite sensitive to the amount of money they pay and the "real user" rates, plus the conversion into actual sales. As soon as the funding businesses get even a whiff of click misrepresentation, this becomes at minimum, a major negotiating point in the next sales contract. At maximum it's click fraud and the end of the business relationship, possible lawsuits, etc.

Back in the day Neilson spent a lot of time and money trying to get hard data on what people were really watching, when then watched TV. It makes a big difference if the viewers left the room during commercial breaks, versus staying and watching the ads. They know that some will stay and watch but the question is, how many? How many views can a program, and ultimately a TV network, deliver to the advertisers? It relates directly to how much money the advertisers are willing to pay, or whether they are willing to advertise that way at all.

Advertisers hate things that are out of their control. And there are always things that are out of their control! We should be used to advertisers being paranoid, seeking control, and claiming that the sky is falling every time new technology shows up. They did it, very notably, with VCR's, and were quite wrong about the impacts of VCR's on their business model.

So what?

[prateek_t2]

If this catches on and there are too many fake click, the conversion ratio - click to lead, will go down and hence cost per click will go down. So an advertiser would eventually pay for same amount for real clicks.

Re:How about a URL reference to denote a "lost use

[Anonymous Coward]

The clicks may already have CGI parameters. It'd be better to do it as an HTTP header.

Anyway, the whole idea that the clicks even matter is insane. Say I have a web site and you want to run ads on it. Is it my problem that your ads are all retarded shit (like "click the monkey") that my visitors are smart enough to see through and so they don't click on them? Is it my problem that you're trying to sell viagra to old men and all of my visitors are too young to need it? I have a page that has people looking at it, so you either pay to be there or I'll sell the space to someone else.

In particular, a lot of advertising works by simply advertising brand names, so that when consumers end up in a store, they know which brands are the generics and which ones they should believe are worth more. Just think about it: If you hadn't seen so many television ads for Tide laundry detergent, would you know that Tide was a "brand name" and not a "generic brand?" Simply getting their name into your head like that happens regardless of whether you click on the ad.

Anyway, every web site I've seen with cool original content that has ads also had a little link under each ad to buy advertising on the site, where you'd pay $100 or so and get to have your ad on that page for a month. Whether you got clicks or not was irrelevant because the site's author knew he had visitors and that someone would pay for the space on a monthly basis rather than on a "$x per click" basis.

Re:How about a URL reference to denote a "lost use

[wvmarle]

That's going to be a million to one.

On top of that, I'm sure the majority of the already low number of direct clicks on ads, is made up of accidental clicks. I see ads all the time in apps on my phone; and really the only clicks they have from me are accidental. Which happens quite frequently (and is quite annoying in its own right as it disturbs whatever I'm doing - I know, I should look for an adblocker).

Please sacrifice .001% of my bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

It's small overhead, but I find it funny that some people hate ads so much that they're going to throw more junk traffic on their LAN and cable modem to spite advertisers they're not even seeing.

Meanwhile the imaginary Big Brother isn't kept from gathering ANY info on you, he's just concluding "Your preferences tend towards 'those products which advertise on the types of websites you visit'" rather than concluding something else. As opposed to "no clickthroughs from this guy at all". Seems like not-what-you-want.

And if you did succeed in messing up tracking and targeting (which you won't), you would be thwarting your fellow "little guys", like me, who kinda appreciate a world that figures out to show me less ads for lawnmowers and tampons, and more ads for comic books and videogames. Which you're trading for - no tangible benefit to yourself whatsoever. Gee thanks guys. Glad your silly plan won't actually work though!

Firefox Only

[DERoss]

The extension will not install in SeaMonkey even though its core modules are the same as those used by Firefox.