AdBlock Plus To Introduce Independent Board To Oversee Acceptable Ads Program

Mark Wilson writes: Ad blocking has been in the news quite a lot recently, not least because of iOS 9's new support for advertising avoidance. Perhaps the most famous tool in the arena is Adblock Plus. It's something that many people have become reliant on for cleaning up their online experience but Eyeo — the company behind AdBlock Plus — has been keen to encourage people to permit the display of some advertising through its Acceptable Ads program. That companies can pay to bypass Adblock Plus is nothing new, although Adblock Plus insists that most ads that are deemed 'acceptable' are added for free. Today Eyeo announces that it is going to hand over control of the Acceptable Ads program to a completely independent board.

Comments

Acceptable ads?

[xenotransplant]

What are those?

Re:Acceptable ads?

[gstoddart]

I'll tell you my definition of them: If the host in question serves the ad from its own servers, and doesn't use any Javascript or Flash.

Anything which just links to external ad companies, analytics companies, and expects to run code on my machine is blocked. Because expecting me to trust code execution from a 3rd party is simply not happening.

If I can't do that, then I'll pretty much block every form of ads I can.

Re:Acceptable ads?

[TWX]

I'm willing to accept a couple of lines of small text on a page within a box labelled that it's an ad.

Come to think of it, had we not had ads with audio, ads that popped-up, ads that popped-under, ads that moved around on the screen to avoid the cursor, ads that spawned more ads, ads that hijacked DNS, ads that hijacked Windows Socket Services, I probably would have even been okay with a small number of appropriately-positioned graphical ads, basically the equivalent of a magazine or newspaper's ad content but with the potential for simple animated GIFs. Early on the advertisers fooled me once, I will not give them the opportunity to fool me again, as ad-blocking software, javascript-blocking software, and flash-blocking software will forever be used on any and all browsers that I run.

Re:Acceptable ads?

[xenotransplant]

The worst type of ads, in my unsolicited opinion, are the download buttons that are located adjacent to each other. These are the ones that cause most of my customers their headaches. Of course telling them to stop downloading software from dubious sources is not an option, as the customer is never, ever, ever, ever, ever wrong.

Re:Acceptable ads?

[TWX]

Does the customer have to pay monetarily, or at least through downtime, for their error?

At least make 'em pay through equipment unavailability while it's fixed. Take the gear away from the customer site to fix it without providing a loaner, and attribute the problem to user-infected malware brought down from the world wide web as the problem while it's being serviced on the bench. They may get mad, but if it's documented that they shot themselves in the foot even if accidentally then maybe they'll learn not to do that.

Re:Acceptable ads?

[rainmaestro]

How many ad-containing sites give you the OPTION to pay for the content? That's the real question. I'm perfectly happy to toss a few bucks to the site if I get value from their content, but damn few even give me the option. It is either fund them through dodgy third-party ads or don't support them at all. And when those are my choices, sorry, no funding.

Re:Acceptable ads?

[hairyfeet]

Exactly. During the early days most of us had NO problem with ads because they weren't being assholes. They had simple .txt, maybe a .jpg or if they wanted to be fancy a .gif, and since it was first party it was actually relevant to the site and usually the site host had good experiences shopping there.....then came the MBAs, Masters of Being Assholes.

First came the pop ups, then came the ads blocking content, then came loud as hell sound blaring, then Java (in fact the reason I originally started advising customers to remove Java was early Java ads) and then came Flash, now look at what we have...want to make a PC so safe you can remove the AV and be just fine? Block ALL ads and watch infections disappear. Last figures I saw had malware ads causing something like 96 out of every 100 infections, nothing else came close.

And to all those that say "we need ads to have the web, boo hoo" I'll say the exact same thing I said to Jim Sterling that got me banned from The Escapist when he was being their apologist, I produced links showing how many times The Escapist had shown malware ads and said..."are you gonna be responsible for the damage you cause? Are you gonna pay to clean their PCs, have a watch put on their CC numbers? Gonna pay them for the lost hours dealing with resetting passwords and cleaning up the messes YOU CAUSED with your ads?" You want to be treated like REAL journalists and stores? Fine and dandy because they pay when they are hacked sometimes to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars like TJ Maxx when their system got hacked.

You cannot have your cake and eat it too ad pushers, either you step up to the plate and claim responsibility and pay for the damages when YOUR ADS cause damage or you have a heaping cup of STFU when users do the only smart and sensible thing and block the largest source of malware their PCs can possibly see.

Re:Acceptable ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because expecting me to trust code execution from a 3rd party is simply not happening.

This is an interesting intersection of trust issues.

You don't trust a 3rd party. Fair enough.

But the 3rd party doesn't trust the publisher either. Advertisers can't trust publishers to report how many times an ad was viewed, because the publisher has a very strong incentive to "cheat" and claim more ad impressions than really occurred. This is why the advertisers absolutely insist that the ads be delivered from a 3rd party server under their control so that they can trust it to report the correct metrics.

In fact, it's this lack of trust that makes ad blockers possible at all. Ad blockers have an easy job: they simply blacklist the domain names of known ad servers. But if the publishers served the ads directly from their own server, then ad blockers would have to solve the brutally difficult AI problem of figuring out the difference between "content" and "ads" that are both intermixed inside one HTTP response.

The publishers would love to serve the ads from their own servers, just as you want. But that's never going to happen, because the advertisers can't trust the publishers to do that. Be very thankful for that lack of trust, because that's the only thing that makes ad blockers possible, which, in turn, is the only thing that makes the Web tolerable.

Re:Acceptable ads?

[david_thornley]

Depends. Am I on my laptop or desktop, which are hooked into an uncapped 40Mb/s fiber, or on my phone, which does have limits on its cellular data consumption? My answer would be different between the two.

Re:Acceptable ads?

[epyT-R]

I pay for my bandwidth. Why should I have to subsidize theirs with mine?

Re:Acceptable ads?

[saward]

As you say, 'damn few' do, but some do. Some offer the option to subscribe, or pay a once off fee to remove those ads. My concerns in those cases are that it means remembering a separate account for each such website, signing into those websites each time my session expires in order to remove the ads, and paying a significant sum of money if I do it on too many sites.

That's why I've started webpass.io, a service that offers websites an easy way to offer the option to pay for content, but that avoids these extra kinds of concerns.

A Step In The Right Direction

[Jawnn]

Clearly, the profit motive and the obligation to deliver on their product's promise are in conflict for Eyeo, so handing off the chore of deciding "acceptableness" to a third party is a good thing. The proof of course, will be in the pudding. They have yet to disclose how that board will be set up.

Re:A Step In The Right Direction

[leonbev]

I'm not sure if anybody other than the user should be deciding what ads are "acceptable" when using an ad blocker. That's why I like the Adblock extension for Chrome. It doesn't have this "acceptable ads default to on" nonsense built into it, and it's run by a lone guy who accepts donations instead of a for-profit software development company.

No. Give the control to the users

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Let the users define using AdBlock protocol what their individual ad acceptance policy is. "No video" "No audio" "Not more than 100% of the bandwidth of payload data." Whatever. Let the users also define keywords like, "Looking for: digital camera, used pick-up truck" "Interested in: traveling, wine, gadgets"

Take it as a browser agent string from the user, or as app setting from the user, and deliver it to the web sites. Let the web sites obey these policies and deliver ads.

Most uses would let unobstrusive ads through. I have had the privilege to block slashdot ads for ages. I never do. Same goes for other sites I support. Give us the control. Not some unelected third party ombudsmen.

Re:No. Give the control to the users

[steamraven]

I have had the privilege to block slashdot ads for ages. I never do.

I used to do this too, until ads from Slashdot took up a full CPU and a third of my memory. I would love to support Slashdot ads, but they have to behave.

Re:Not a concern when you use uBlock Origin

[TWX]

I think you forgot to check, "Post Anonymously"...

Still, I appreciate the sentiment, thanks for the chuckle.

Ad Block Plus has been around for ages

[Earthquake Retrofit]

Why has the mass media finally 'discovered' it? Because Apple. Does this mean that advertisers believe Apple users are suckers?

Re:Ad Block Plus has been around for ages

[mccrew]

Why has the mass media finally 'discovered' it? Because Apple.

Yep, because Apple.

I think Apple is more friendly to ad blocking because they are already sucking all the profits out of the mobile ecosystem with device sales, while their chief rival makes approximately zero from device sales and is dependent on advertising revenue. They are trying to leverage their high-value platform to deny revenue to their competitor.

Re:Not a concern when you use uBlock Origin

[Snufu]

AdBlock Maybe.
AdBlock Uwish.
AdPassed CuzReasons
AdBlock Plus. Now with more Ads!

They're too tame

[joh]

What adblock should do is blocking ALL ads and all tracking religiously (no exceptions, treat every ad or tracker as a bug to fix) and then instead inject own ads they sell. Limit that to one ad per page (none on pages that had no ads to begin with, on pages with only a single ad let this through), small, no tracking at all, no flash, no video, no sound. Deliver ads to devices based on rough location (as determined by the IP address) and the URL of the page, no more personalisation by tracking. Add an opt-in system with an account where users can voluntarily submit preferences for ads to get more relevant ads if they want to.

This would be revolutionary and could help to beat the online advertising business back on track. It would allow less (but more expensive) ads, more page views for websites, less bandwidth waste, and more honest and meaningful targeting. It would be rather a kind of "page sponsoring" than the firehose approach that we have now, but this doesn't have to be bad, for nobody.

I mean, things like trying to trick users into clicking on an ad by accident or devaluing your advertising by drowning it in a flickering sea of crap does neither help the users nor those who advertise or the websites themselves. Online advertising is being ABUSED and all but some scum companies suffer from it. Both websites and advertisers (that is the companies who want to show ads to people they think they have something to sell to) have to organize against that kind of abuse. Websites need to get much, much more selective about what they allow their content to be framed by and if they can't spend that kind of effort on it they have to outsource it.

And yes, someone has to do something drastic or we will never see things changing here, and everyone will suffer just longer from it. There is no real reason for advertising being a too dirty business, it's what made the press and radio and TV affordable and helped countless businesses to stay in business and customers find companies to buy things from.

It's harder with laptops

[tepples]

Windows 10 cannot stop you from blocking their telemetry addresses in your home router.

Which means you have to carry around your home router and a battery to power it whenever you want to use your laptop with open public Wi-Fi or your cellular MiFi device.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but anyone who values privacy should be using BSD or Linux.

Provided that a laptop in your preferred form factor is available with BSD or Linux installed. The 10" 2-in-1s in Best Buy come with Windows 8.1 (with Windows 10 upgrade available for the cost of bandwidth) and have a whole bunch of things not working in Debian.

Re:Why would I NOT want to block some ads?

[danbob999]

Well, maybe not this way, but don't you think there should be a way to have websites earn some money

Of course. They are free to put ads. Or charge for access. But I am also free to block their ads.

Let's face it. People like you try to pretend that we block ads because they are annoying. But let's face it, we won't unblock them just because they stop flashing. We block them because we can, and it is perfectly legal to do so. Maybe if ads weren't so annoying, there would be less of us blocking them to begin with. But now that we have ad-blockers, and that we use them, we won't go back.

Can you imagine TV or radio with no ads?

Sure. I watch most of my stuff with no ads. I prefer paying for content than having ads.
Also, I have the right (and use it) to mute/fast-forward/leave the room during TV ads. I don't feel bad about blocking ads, just like I don't feel bad muting TV or not reading ads in newspapers.

Freedom has a price. In Russia advertising has been outlawed for private TV

That was a quick Godwin.

White list

[tompaulco]

No committee, no user group, no consortium. Just give each user a white list for sites they want to accept ads from here. To get you started, I've paste mine below.





Thank you for your attention.