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Mozilla Sets Out Its Proposed Principles For Content Blocking (mozilla.org)

Posted by timothy on from the block-everything-but-pinyin dept.

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.

2 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. Content Blocking is wrong on principle by Kisai · · Score: 0, Troll

    Let's face it, if you're blocking any of the content, you're not viewing the content in the form it's intended.

    It's unfortunate that some content production (eg newspaper sites and blogs) try to shove as many ads down the readers throat, it's a down right evil when they intercept the reader from the content.

    How this needs to be solved:
    1) Ads need to be served inside sandboxed iframes that has no access to the parent page save for knowing what page it is on.
    2) Ads need to be prevented from "chaining" ads via document.write, exec, and innerHTML. They should only chain to another ad via another iframe.
    3) Ad "depth" on ad chains need to be shallow before returning back to the content. eg website -> website's ad server ->Third party ad server ->website's end of chain ad placeholder. The current environment is a lot like the mortgage-backed securities, in which bundles of good and toxic ads are being sent to websites, eroding the trust of the website, and thus making more people block all ads.

    How the web browser can help:
    1) Hold iframes and XHR when the content does not originate from the same subdomain. If the web browser is to query a blocking plugin, it must have a fallback solution to tell the user that content is missing from the website. When some scripts are blocked, sometimes the functionality is missing, which the user is quick to blame on the browser or website, and not the fact that they haven modified the website.
    2) The default operation of the web browser should be to not block anything, and the user should be reminded to whitelist sites before blacklisting content, and sites that have blocked content need an indication that objects have been blocked (see Ghostery as a good example.)
    3) The web browser should suggest what content to block based on what scripts and content (eg video ads) are interrupted by the user with the stop/reload button and closing/navigating away.

    On mobile devices we should go one step further and have mobile devices by default block all third-party scripts and content when not connected over WiFi and plugged into the mains.

    Ads were never an issue before bandwidth limits started being imposed by ISP's. The last "ad crisis" was due to pop-ups/pop-unders which was an abuse of the "new window" function, and popup blocking continues to this day because of that. Some pop-ups were endless chains. This is the problem we are seeing under some circumstances with the iframe chains and document.write/innerHTML/exec chains. The web browser should add "chained iframes" to popup blocking, whereby an iframe is loaded by another iframe from a third party domain. It should never be the case where an ad chain continues for more than 3 seconds before dropping to the end-of-chain.

    I have seen video ads constantly loop, as in not just go back to the beginning of the video, but reload the video entirely. I've seen websites that had "refresh" set to as short as 5 seconds on their ads. This kind of garbage should be blocked because it wastes the user's bandwidth.

  2. And this is what that means: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    You'll block every ad they "force" down your throat?

    First off, no one is forcing you to access their content or their web server. You're there because you want something from them.

    Second, you are pushing for a non-sustainable approach which ultimately destroys that thing you obviously want.

    Third, the meteoric rise of AdBlock countermeasures like http://blockadblock.com is exactly what your approach begets: An arms race.

    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.