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

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.

Comments

Isn't this a no brainer?

[iapetus]

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

Re:Isn't this a no brainer?

[Mashiki]

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.

Re:Isn't this a no brainer?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Isn't this a no brainer?

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly, adblock has become more important that antivirus

Re:Isn't this a no brainer?

[aaarrrgggh]

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.

Re:Isn't this a no brainer?

[Gr8Apes]

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.

Re:Isn't this a no brainer?

[Grishnakh]

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.

Re:Isn't this a no brainer?

[myowntrueself]

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.

Re:Isn't this a no brainer?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Isn't this a no brainer?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

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! :)

Dear Advertisers,

[Scutter]

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

Re:The first domino has tipped

[serviscope_minor]

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.

Re:Ads are fine

[AmiMoJo]

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!

Re:Undetectable adblocker

[gstoddart]

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.

Malware-blocking

[simplypeachy]

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.