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German Publisher Axel Springer Bans Adblocking Users From Bild Website (axelspringer.de)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the durft-nicht dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Major European publishing house Axel Springer has instituted countermeasures against users who employ adblocking software on its Bild news outlet, which represents a daily publication with a print circulation of 2.5 million. The website now presents readers with a request to either turn off the adblocking or pay a €2.99 monthly subscription fee. In a statement the company insists that online journalism must be funded by one of the 'two known revenue pillars' — advertising or sales.

21 of 474 comments (clear)

  1. Isn't this a no brainer? by iapetus · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's why I don't use ad blocking software or disable ads on Slashdot.

    --
    ++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
    Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
    1. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's why I don't use ad blocking software or disable ads on Slashdot.

      Most people wouldn't use ad blocking if the advertisers didn't allow malware laden ads be served to their PC's turning them into mindless drones for a botnet. They could fix that problem easily by turning around and vetting ads. Or if the ads weren't so obtrusive and annoying either. Bet we'll see within 3 months that they're reversing this stance, or within a year it shuts down.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    2. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's a no brainer to block all ads and adblock-detecting scripts as well. I went there and could access all normal content with uBlock + noscript.

    3. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by tiberus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not using an ad-blocker but, I have noticed that the ads have become much more intrusive lately, so I happily disable ads whenever I can. As the disable feature was instituted by /. and a user must contribute (in what the community deems) in a positive manner, I have no qualms about using the feature. I can't imagine the "Good Folks (tm)" at /. biting the hand that feeds them. I strongly suspect that the positive effect of those users posts far outweighs any 'lost' revenue.

    4. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      exactly, adblock has become more important that antivirus

    5. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To be honest, I think it has more to do with page load times for most. The ads might be intrusive, but now with adblocking on my iPad pages load quickly, even with spotty Internet. The bidding game the advertisers were playing is a big part of their downfall.

      The tracking does have its "creepy" factor, with ads following you from site to site... Despite having already made whatever purchase was under consideration.

    6. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by Gr8Apes · · Score: 5, Informative

      The biggest issue with their ads is that I don't ever click on them even if I see them. I'm the "don't look for something until I need it, then I buy it" kind of person. So, let's say I'm looking for a chair. I'll do my research, and likely purchase a chair in a day. That's before the ad network gets updated. What's hilarious is the ads are showing me the chair I bought (creepy yes) but that chair is no longer of interest to me for purchase. And it continues doing so for the next month or more. Almost all my purchases are done this way, as that allows for strong budgeting.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    7. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not trying to be a Google shill here, but this is exactly why I like Google's ads (or rather, liked, back when they were more obviously ads on the right side of the search results). If I'm looking for something, I might do a Google search for it; if one of the AdWords ads shows up, as a small text-only ad, and it's exactly the thing I'm looking for, that's a good thing IMO. I guess this is called "targeted advertising", and IMO it's the best kind. If I'm explicitly searching for something, or have some kind of problem I'm Googling for an answer to, having a small,text-only ad pop up with a product that solves my problem is a big help.

    8. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by myowntrueself · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's why I don't use ad blocking software or disable ads on Slashdot.

      Imagine if, as you walk along a street in downtown the small shops, which depend on advertising (right?) have these little boards outside their shops with some advertising. Actually this is pretty normal in most places.

      Now imagine you have to pay to walk down the street in downtown, a small fee which goes toward maintaining these advertising boards.
      Now imagine if you accidentally touch one of these advertising boards theres a chance you'll get infected with the flu.
      Now imagine instead of flu sometimes its zombie plague.

      Thats what Internet advertising is like.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    9. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The internet wasn't devised as a revenue generating platform, just because you usurped it so doesn't give you a right to my eyeballs nor to demand payola for your content. Don't like it, tough shit.

    10. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yep, you'll be sitting in that chair for weeks or months while they're still trying to sell you one.

      Personally I find it hilarious. I sometimes go to Amazon and browse the infant stuff (formula, highchairs, strollers, cribs, etc) and then sit back and watch as the ads for that stuff follows me around the web for a month or two. Lol, it must really confound their metrics and ad data. And I've never even bought a child! :)

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    11. Re:Isn't this a no brainer? by jfengel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Most ads aren't aimed at getting you to click on them and make a purchase. The goal of an ad is to put a concept in your mind. The purest form of this are the political yard signs. Nobody thinks, "I saw 90 signs for Bob and 110 signs for Mike; therefore I will vote for Mike." But people do respond to pressures like that; it creates biases and impressions that they don't even realize.

      Even when you do your research, you are influenced by these. Most of the time, your research is going to be inconclusive. There isn't any "best chair"; at best, it's a matter of personal taste. Most products, from canned peaches to computers, will end up having similar specifications, but you'll have a preference because you like the flavor of this brand or the you had a good experience with that computer in the past.

      Advertising helps put those ideas in your head. Just seeing it in the ads will give you a positive feeling toward the brand, if the advertising is well done. A lot of advertising is poorly done, of course, but a well-done ad can influence preferences in very subtle ways. That subtlety means it's aggravatingly hard to tell which ads work and which ads won't, but advertising continues to exist for a reason: it steers consumer preferences during the phase where they don't know what they want and end up trusting their instincts. Which applies to more purchasing decisions than most people realize.

      Stupid advertisers want ads that they measure working by clicks, so they optimize the ads to attract clicks, but that doesn't drive purchasing. The best ads are the ones that consumers don't even realize they've seen, but just develop a cumulative effect of exposure. That's hard to do, and requires a lot of time, money, and effort to get right. Even then it's a crapshoot, like trying to write a popular song. But in the end, there's a market for so many chairs and so many peaches and so many computers, and advertising can steer enough purchases towards yours and away from somebody else's equivalent one in a way that merely improving the specifications can't do.

  2. Ads are fine by dmgxmichael · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Viruses not so much. Way too much of that going around to make it safe to browse without adblocking - too many ad carriers do not audit the ads that are displayed, leading to all sorts of click bait and virus crap being displayed.

    1. Re:Ads are fine by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

      So I decided to give them a try and comply with their request. Disabled uBlock and visited the site. To be fair there don't seem to be animated or noisy ads on there. The page was pretty slow to load due to the ad servers taking several seconds to respond. The site itself seems be be a "tabloid" style paper (I don't read German), with some soft porn on the front page (scroll down a bit) and crappy looking content.

      Then I tried to read an article, and it displayed the first few lines and then demand â0.99 for the rest. Fuck you Bild, I accepted your ads and shitty Javascript and you still want me to pay for your content? I already paid!

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. The first domino has tipped by rmdingler · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I've been seeing more requests than ever recently to "please turn off Adblocker" while browsing.

    If a site is important enough to me, I'll pay a nominal fee rather than slow loading times with what is often intrusive hogwash.

    If it's not, the information I seek is probably available elsewhere.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:The first domino has tipped by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've been seeing more requests than ever recently to "please turn off Adblocker" while browsing.

      Funnily enough, I see them too. I don't run an adblocker, though. I do however run noscript. I have no objection to ads in principle. However, I'm not running scripts unless I have a compelling reason to do so. So, if you want to show me ads, serve them up without Javascript.

      If you want to hog my CPU and eat my battery... well, tough.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  4. Fuck you by DogDude · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dear publisher: Fuck you. I'm happy with either paying for journalism or viewing YOUR ads. I'm not going to allow your web site to shove somebody else's ads in my face. If you want to sell ads, then sell ads. Including some piece of code from an ad wholesaler isn't going to fly, in the same way I wouldn't accept an unknown package wrapped in brown paper from other random people trying to sell me shit along with my paper newspaper or paper magazine.

    Sell your own ads, publishers. That's part of your job. If you can't be bothered to do that, then I can't be bothered to help you get paid.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  5. Dear Advertisers, by Scutter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dear Advertisers,

    We had a social contract. In exchange for our attention, you agreed to fund our entertainment. But you squandered that agreement and broke our contract. Simply getting our attention wasn't enough for you. In your zeal to make your ads stand out over the others, you started using insecure technologies that exposed your customers to attack. When you realized that your customers were commodities to be bought and sold, you tried to monetize us. You started using tracking cookies. You sold us to your friends and partners. You violated our trust. And now you're asking us to trust you again but you haven't done a single thing to earn that trust back. Quite the contrary, in fact, you continue to abuse us over and over.

    Advertisers, you have asked us to return to the old model but have given us no reason to do so. I will continue to block your ads and your malignant tumors until you have proven without a shadow of a doubt that you have mended your ways. Until then, SCREW YOU.

    Sincerely,
    Your former customers

    --

    "Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
  6. Re:What happens when the content isn't worth it? by bws111 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The same thing that happens in the real world: you do without the product, and the seller does without the revenue. Quite simple.

  7. Re:Undetectable adblocker by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To counter the malware aspect of ads, if you do nothing with the downloaded binary data then your chances of getting any sort of infection from it is effectively zero.

    Except if I don't trust it, why the hell would I download it? Why would I waste bandwidth on crap I don't want or trust?

    The ad sources have already demonstrated themselves to be shady and not trustworthy.

    The average web site seems to think 20+ external sites all tracking what you do is OK. Sorry, but I am not here to support the business model of 20 tracking companies who have nothing to do with me.

    I won't click on the ads, and I sure as hell will keep blocking the hell out of them. If a website shows me the thing to turn on cookies, or enable javascript, or tells me that I can't see their site with an adblocker ... I'll simply leave.

    All those external entities on a website who want my data can fully expect that I will block them as much as I can.

    It's absolutely mind-boggling the sheer amount of CRAP in the average web-page, and once you start running the blockers and seeing just how much there is, the idea of turning off those blockers seems idiotic.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  8. Malware-blocking by simplypeachy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Christ, nearly 6MB in 642 URL requests just to load their home page once. Anyhoo, from two full fetches of their home page. Excepting the dozens of trackers and advert organisations that I haven't noted to be involved in malware, we have:

    smartclip.net: Party to LG "Smart TV" spying without consent.
    turn.com: Repeated malware advertisments to-date. Most recently infecting iPhones.
    ads.yahoo.com: Repeated malware advertisments to-date.
    serving-sys.com: Repeated malware advertisments to-date.
    advertising.com: Repeated malware advertisments to-date.
    adnxs.com: Repeated malware advertisments to-date, including Angler Exploit Kit via MSN.com
    adscale.de: Malware advertisements.
    adsrvr.org: Malware adverts, pushing virus-infected toolbars
    rubiconproject.com: Repeated malware bundlers, unwanted toolbars, search result injectors, home-page meddling
    mathtag.com: Malware advertisements.
    openx.net: Repeated malware advertisments to-date.
    bidswitch.net: Malware advertising. Most recently infecting iPhones.

    This isn't advert blocking. It's a crucial layer of system security.