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Mozilla Sets Out Its Proposed Principles For Content Blocking (mozilla.org)
Mark Wilson writes: With Apple embracing ad blocking and the likes of AdBlock Plus proving more popular than ever, content blocking is making the headlines at the moment. There are many sides to the debate about blocking ads — revenue for sites, privacy concerns for visitors, speeding up page loads times (Google even allows for the display of ads with its AMP Project), and so on — but there are no signs that it is going to go away. Getting in on the action, Mozilla has set out what it believes are some reasonable principles for content blocking that will benefit everyone involved. Three cornerstones have been devised with a view to ensuring that content providers and content consumers get a fair deal, and you can help to shape how they develop.
Many websites only exist because of user generated content (like /.).
Don't impose your idea of what's fair to the content I provide for your site.
Web sites had the chance to go the NPR route and be low key about advertising but by and large they went the obnoxious way and embraced pop ups, pop unders, Flash, animation, and widespread invasive tracking.
Fuck that, I'm not participating in your scheme to get rich off my content, at least the part where I provide you with content and am then expected to be shouted at by ads and tracked. That's not even remotely fair.
Here's my "guideline": I'll block whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want, for as long as I want.
"Guidelines? We don't have no guidelines...I don't need any stinkin' guidelines!"
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
HTTP is a pull protocol. The client pulls data from the server. Bandwidth usage is a resource. The more that is required to download to render a page the longer it will take. And where users pay for usage, the more it will cost the user.
Page render time is a high end user criteria and end users should expect to be able to have the client pull only the content they want to improve performance.
The web site producers only have themselves to blame for creating sites loaded with massive visual and data bloat.
Using a computing device to perform optimizations for the benefit of the user is normal usage. Nobody should be surprised by the use of ad blockers.
What this is really about (and what a lot of people are finding hard to accept) is that for the most part, people don't want to see or consume ads. With TV, we never got the chance to opt out except for "ad skip" and "fast forward." The advertising industry never really took notice of that because the numbers weren't there. With the Internet, it is possible to both block ads and measure how many ads are accepted/blocked.
Now people that deliver advertising are starting to see what customers really think: they don't like advertising. This is proving hard for business folks, especially those whose business is advertising, to stomach. How do they sell products?
Sure there are a token few that say "I'll allow advertising to support this site" but if you look in slashdot polls, those people are not a majority.
But lets face it, if there was no impact to a website and people had the choice to either accept ads or reject them, most people are going to select reject.
The main problem with advertising is that it is given to us when we're not looking to buy (or rent) something. If I'm watching Star Wars then I really don't want to hear about your latest car. If I'm reading slashdot, I don't want to see an ad for your latest cloud offering.
When I want to see ads is when I'm shopping for something - specifically when I click on the "shopping" tab in Google search. Then and at no other time.
This. Even the courts agree - what comes onto my system is my choice. I can block whatever the @$#$ I don't want, i can twist and control the data that is on my system for personal use. Does this harm the sites I visit? Sure, they don't get the ad revenue. That's not my problem that's their problem. Not getting enough ad revenue? Find a different business model.
The day the content guys pay for *my* internet access that's when they can serve me ads.
My computer. My browser. My bandwidth.
Until then, they can FUCK OFF.
If you want to do ads "right", look at what Steam does. It shows me which games are on _sale_ and *I* get a say in what ads I see. i.e. None, Next, or Product Sale.
1. Publish a product that's better than competitors'.
2. Open source it.
3. Earn the cheers from the free software crowd, and get the advantage from external contributors, as only large browser vendor.
4. Your users will love the freedom they have, and your product will be famous for its extendibility. They'll love ad-blockers as the web gets more and more annoying ads.
5. Get more and more market share by staying better than your shitty competitors.
6. Let other browser vendors copy your success by open-sourcing their browser as well, or giving up to EEE the WWW.
7. Start your downfall:
a) Require add-ons to be signed because we live now in a world of apps and every app is is signed.
b) Publish ads in your product's start page. Enjoy the annoyment of your users.
c) Integrate an useless closed source product. (Pocket). Enjoy the annoyment of your users.
d) Announce that your addon API will be locked down.
e) Publish your "principles for content blocking". <====== We are here
f) Enforce them. This is the point of no return.
8. Gently shove a Yoda Doll up your user's asses. Be careful, its larger than the dicks the other browser vendors ram up their ass as well. That's also the only reason your browser is still used.
9. Enjoy your 2% market share.
For me, the issue is safety. The rest of the issues, while not unimportant, are secondary.
I won't allow some third-party advertisement company to run arbitrary scripting on my machine - or more accurately, allow them to run scripting that allows someone else who allows some criminal to run scripting on my machine. Until these ad-serving companies can make firm guarantees about the safety of the ads they serve, I'm not going to allow them. This point is simply non-negotiable to me.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Mozilla, remember when you transitioned to requiring all addons to be signed, and then assured everyone you wouldn't use this as a mechanism to set policy on what addons can and cannot do? Well, you'd better have meant it, because this blog post looks very suspicious coming so soon after that transition.
Also, Mozilla, since when are advertisements called content? The content is what we're trying to get to. The ads are in the way of the content, sometimes literally.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I'll stop blocking everything when they stop tracking me, using ads that break the layout of the webpage, popups that take 10 seconds before you can close them, autoplaying audio and video, etc.
Like somebody else said in the last article about adblocking:
Users: Please don't track us
Companies: Fuck off
Companies: Please don't block our ads
Users: Fuck off
Listen the last few SecurityNow podcasts. They've been debating tracking, advertising on sites, and content blocking off and on. They've had good talking points from both sides of the issue. Basically it comes down to the good sites who provide service needing ads to help pay the bills, and users not wanting to be tracked and preventing obnoxious, terrible, or even malicious content. It all makes sense, however right now the only way users can safely protect themselves ends up being content blocking.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
What's wrong with what we have today?
It's a battle rather than an agreement.
I don't mind some advertising, but I do mind scripting and video and bandwidth consumption. The state of the ad-supported web as it exists currently is a battle between the consumers who don't want to see advertising and businesses who want the consumers to see it anyway. What we have today is companies who insert their programming into pages coming from their own servers with little or zero oversight to make sure that what consumers get is safe or desirable, even tolerable. Consumers use Ad-Blocking software to filter out things that come from sites outside of the content desired. Advertisers can still get their advertisements to show, and I'm surprised more aren't by having the ads injected directly by content directors and by using URLs within the desired content providers' resources which are indistinguishable from the desired content. I'm surprised more aren't; it isn't that hard.
What we really want isn't the battle we have today. We want the benefits of cheap content, and we're willing to view safe and unobtrusive advertising or pay micro amounts to support our desired content but the way the ad-supported web is built today doesn't allow us to do that simply and reliably, so it's far easier to just block stuff and far easier to load web pages with crap. The problem with what we have today is that it isn't a long term sustainable solution.
There are two solutions that I think we're headed toward. The first is direct support. Google and others are recognizing there is money to be made in suppressing advertising, and the natural development of that is either paying consumers to allow ads or to consolidate enough advertisers who are willing to take payment in lieu of actual advertising. The other is building advertising systems that make it impossible to avoid and building better adblocking software to avoid what was previously impossible. One is a war, the other is a cooperative system. I don't know which will win, but I'm rooting for cooperation.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
If you've ever visited any porn site, you'll know Mozilla can't even block popups and pop unders. They can't even get the basic features to work.
So who cares what Mozilla thinks they should block. BECAUSE THEY'VE LOST THE PLOT!
They can't deliver a popup blocker, they think there is a debate to be had as to whether adverts should be blocked or not.... THIS IS UP TO ME! I am the surfer, if I choose to block adverts then that IS MY CHOICE and MY CHOICE ALONE.
It's not a negotiation, and if my browser decides that it knows better than me, then it will be quickly replaced.
Mozilla dudes, you've really lost the plot here, and its clear from the market share you've long lost the plot. You keep putting 'CLOUD' features in when the basic privacy/speed/control principles that underlined Firefox are being weakened. pocket lists? sync? Unwanted features that were available as addons now get forced in the browser?
"Publishers and other content providers should be given ways to participate in an open Web ecosystem, instead of being placed in a permanent penalty box that closes off the Web to their products and services."
It's UP TO ME, if I decide I've had enough of Googles spyware, and I decide to block their ads, PERMANENTLY, that's MY choice. Get with the plot or fuck off Mozilla.
So if you want a content limited, pay-walled, countermeasure-riddled web -- just stick with that childish attitude. But if you want a sustainable, awesome web ecosystem -- then start proposing acceptable limitations that nurture the publishers we all love.
I remember the horrible, awful, web before advertising brought us to the Brave New World of 'content' that exists solely to make money from ads.
I'd like it back, please.
Can I use it to block these annoying posts? Or is it not capable of that?
Such as?
I'm asking a genuine question - people love to bash Internet advertising (and with VERY good reason) but then they state that a site should find a different business model to stay afloat, they very rarely suggestion what this business model could be. If they do, it's something like subscriptions which a site like ArsTechnica has but isn't enough to sustain it for the level of quality of its articles.
No-one has a good answer for an alternate business model. If there was one, most of the Internet would probably have switched to it by now, given the available and commonness of adblocking. But they haven't, because as far as a business model for supporting a site and paying the bills, nothing works as well as ads.
SO SHUT THE FUCK UP IF YOU CAN'T PROVIDE ALTERNATIVES!!! /sysadmin of major tech site... not ArsTechnica
that you don't like. Not sure I see the problem. You decide what's fair. If it's not fair don't go to those sites. You don't have to participate. It's not like anyone (outside of malware authors) is forcing you. If a site does things you don't like, stop typing their addy into your URL bar...
It appears to me that that is what advertisers are actually complaining about - 1) we block their ads, 2) they attempt to bypass our blocks, 3) we move on to a different site, 4) the site complains about freeloaders.
It's really very simply - if buzzfeed and co. went away the world would be a better place. They know it. We know it. They know we know it. So now they're engaging in a PR war rather than the technology war to get us to view their ads.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Content Neutrality: Content blocking software should focus on addressing potential user needs (such as on performance, security, and privacy) instead of blocking specific types of content (such as advertising).
Seriously?
Have you been on the Internet lately, like in the last five years? Have you been outside lately? Have you watched TV in the last 10 years?
Advertisement is not neutral content, so it doesn't deserve content neutrality. Advertisement is the heroin of communication. It is intentionally designed to attract, bind and consume as much of your attention as possible, and attention is a limited resource. Both in time and in total your attention is limited. If it is tied up by roadside advertisement, you cannot focus on driving as well. If it is busy processing the ad messages on the train, you cannot focus on the conversation with your lover as good. If by repetition it has entered your long-term memory, it impacts you whenever it is triggered, not just when it is present itself.
And we all know that if you have to focus for a long time, you feel exhausted. That is your mental battery running low.
This shit does not come for free. Advertisement, by its very nature, burns user resources and violates user needs. Anyone who doesn't understand that has no place writing rules about content blocking. Go back and take at least the 101 class before you write a textbook on the subject matter.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
So if you want a content limited, pay-walled, countermeasure-riddled web -- just stick with that childish attitude. But if you want a sustainable, awesome web ecosystem -- then start proposing acceptable limitations that nurture the publishers we all love.
I remember the horrible, awful, web before advertising brought us to the Brave New World of 'content' that exists solely to make money from ads.
I'd like it back, please.
+1
I absolutely agree. Give me back the good old web where you didn't have to wade through tons of shovelsites full of bullshit "slideshows" made entirely to milk as much ad revenue as possible, and seriously annoy the users in the process.
My PC, my OS, my internet connection, my decision on how many ads I want to see (exactly none).
Eat the rich.