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Google, Amazon, Microsoft Reportedly Paid AdBlock Plus To Unblock
RoccamOccam writes with the following news from The Register: Internet giants Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Taboola have reportedly paid AdBlock Plus to allow their ads to pass through its filter software. The confidential deals were confirmed by the Financial Times, the paper reported today [Paywalled].
From the Register's article: Eyeo GmbH, the German startup behind Adblock Plus, said it did not wish to comment. So far more than 300 million users have downloaded its software, it said. The add-on is free to download, with Eyeo generating revenue through its "whitelisting" programme. Companies can request their ads to be unblocked as long as they comply with AdBlock's "acceptable ads" policy. Large companies pay a fee for the service.
'nough said.
"Companies can request their ads to be unblocked as long as they comply with AdBlock's "acceptable ads" policy. Large companies pay a fee for the service."
How is this news? Seriously, how?
Some people get AdBlock to avoid intrusive adverts. I don't see this being a problem for them.
However some, such as myself, use AdBlock as part of an anti-tracking solution. This concerns me more.
I'd assume (without further info) that this is about the "allow some non-intrusive advertising" checkbox you get in the filter options. It's on by default, but when you install adblock (as I did a few days ago) it one of the things you go through when the configuration dialog pops up.
It links to: https://adblockplus.org/en/acc...
It's not perfect in that it's on by default, but it's easy enough to disable. Perhaps they could improve it by tying this checkbox to your "do not track" preference?
Everyone running ad blocking software is not sustainable, since ads pay for a lot of stuff. People also don't want to have to directly pay for things (plus, could you imagine if every website was paywalled?)
Seems to me that the best solution is to just run unintrusive ads. People don't really mind ads all that much, they just hate it when they're noisy (literally and metaphorically) and get in the way
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Its the ones that cover the whole screen, have someone who talks over the speakers, or force me to find a tiny hide button that I want blocked. So far, i have not found that Google, Microsoft, or Amazon do this. (SO FAR.....) Also, i run a site that uses Google Doubleclick for Publishing that houses some ads as part of the site's content. They are not obtrusive and you would mistake it for the site's content. Adblock will block them though, even though they are just in-house ads for my own content on the same site.
Basic blocking: https://github.com/gorhill/uBl...
More extensive blocking: https://github.com/gorhill/uMa...
Extensions are available for Chrome/Chromium. It seems Firefox is (getting) supported as well.
I've been using it for years - from very early states - and I know within seconds if adblock is not installed on chrome, firefox and opera and android via adaway.
If adblock leaks an ad, we get the ad and block it manually, and also there are lists that are not directly under adblock plus , adblock chrome's control. The lists are pulled from and maintained separately than the blockers so Im not sure how this can go on for very long. It would be glaringly obvious over time if ads get through and the lists will be updated.
If any one of the adblockers "betrays" the community with exceptions in the code, we have plenty of places to defect to.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
I'm also a Firefox user, with AdBlock. I disabled the acceptable ads checkbox so I don't see any ad (I would have noticed). If AdBlock makes any money out of the ads companies, good for them. If they force acceptable ads to everybody, I'll move to something else. uBlock seems to be as good. There will always be something to block all ads. At worst the hosts file.
Faster, better, hackable and free. https://github.com/gorhill/uBl...
there's no place like ~
I use Adblock Edge. Used to use Adblock Plus before they started accepting bribes to cripple their own filters.
I use ad blockers because I DO NOT WANT TO SEE ADS. Period. I hate ads. To me there is NO SUCH THING as an acceptable ad.
Corporatism != Free Market
Hey, these companies put their stuff up freely available on the internet, and make no attempt to block us.
If they think that magically confers some obligation on us to look at every damned ad their website serves, they're full of crap. How many times to ads end up serving malware? Do they take any responsibility for that? Or just say "wasn't us"?
They may think they have some magic click-through license, but I'll be damned if I think all of those analytics and ad companies should have access to all that. I'm not conducting a transaction with those companies, I'm viewing your publicly available website which makes no effort to keep me out.
Not my problem about your ads.
Don't want me to block your ads, make your site subscription based and block me out entirely.
But don't act like I'm somehow ripping you off. Since their privacy policy is crap, we're just enacting our own.
Scorecard research, doubleclick, quantserve, and literally HUNDREDS of other companies ... their product is information about me. But I never signed up for that.
So if some billion dollar media company wants to piss and moan that I'm not watching their ads ... fuck 'em, stop me.
I rank this crap right up there with "by reading this billboard you agree to have this 3rd party company rifle through your wallet". Yeah, no, there's as many as 30 third parties on a lot of sites ... and I've signed a contract with NONE of them.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Correct me if I am wrong, but if someone creates a product that interferes with someone else’s business and then charges them a fee to stop interfering, isn’t that extortion?
Craziness in the ad space has all the feel of being a ginormous bubble. Companies who have a business model of selling banner ads via an app and have no other revenue sources seem especially precarious to the perception of advertising effectiveness. If at some point studies come out showing banner ads are as ineffective as I think they are (I think they are a net negative to most companies who use them) the rug could get pulled out from the whole mess.
People are getting trained to filter this stuff out left and right. I find myself avoiding google when I look for certain things because I know that if they are common I will have to wade through a page or more of paid up links that are mostly only tangentially related to what I am looking for. I can't recall the contents of any recent banner ads, and there are a number of sites I just don't visit on my ipad because they are so awful without AdBlock running.
How about a new Kickstarter campaign where we pool our money to buy up highway billboard space and put up pretty murals instead of ads?
this is the truth. Anyone who was using adblock plus before the sell out knows this and uses the fork, Adblock Edge, instead.
It's actually pretty old news.
That being said, I don't recall ever seeing one of those acceptable ads due to the other measures I use like noscript/scriptsafe, so I can't really comment on how acceptable they are.
Log in or piss off.
obtrusive (adj.): noticeable or prominent in an unwelcome or intrusive way.
advertisement (noun): a paid announcement, as of goods for sale, in newspapers or magazines, on radio or television, etc.
oxymoron (noun): a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction
You misunderstand the definition of one of the words you are using.