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We Asked Doc Searls: Do Ad Blockers Cause Cancer? (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the ads-that-follow-you-even-into-the-darkest-online-corners dept.

A whimsical headline, but not much more of a shark-jumper than some of the talk we've heard lately from ad agencies, online publishers, and others who earn their living from online advertising. Doc Searls recently wrote a piece on his personal blog titled Beyond ad blocking — the biggest boycott in human history. Naturally, we wanted to ask Doc to expand a bit on what he's been writing about ad blocking and advertising in general. So we had a fine conversation about online advertising -- ending with a challenge to the advertising industry, which Doc says should be looking for ways to produce better, more effective, and less annoying ways to sell to us online.

2 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Mozilla Firefox with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    ... AdBlockPlus
    Ghostery
    Greasemonkey
    HTTPS Everywhere
    NoScript
    Privacy Badger

    Because running code on somebody else's computer without consent is trespass to chattels.

    NO TRESPASSING!

  2. I never bothered with ad blockers until ... by tchuladdiass · · Score: 4, Informative

    One day, I had a Slashdot page still opened in my browser, locked my screen, went to lunch. Came back to complaints that my computer was annoying everyone in the office -- delayed auto-playing video ads were the culprit. So thanks to Slashdot (and me wanting to keep my job), I now have adblock installed.

    Oh, not to mention the 3 times in the past I got a nasty computer virus due to an infected ad network. These are now no longer a worry.