Online Ad Czar Berates Adblockers As Freedom-Hating 'Mafia' (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Randall Rothenburg, the president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has made a speech branding the creators of Adblock Plus (who were banned from the conference where he made this keynote) as "rich and self-righteous," and accused adblockers of subverting freedom of the press. Speaking at the IAB's annual conference, Rothenburg characterized the Adblock Plus team as "operating a business model predicated on censorship of content."

Comments

If AdBlocking is freedom-hating...

[Foxhoundz]

...then I must a sadistic communist, as I have a suite of self-made chrome addons that will identify Analytics platforms and trigger false events, among blocking specific ads. :-)

Re:If AdBlocking is freedom-hating...

[taustin]

When the web page contains ads that include malware, in fact, yes, the web page does visit you. In much the same way diarrhea visits you after you visit the wrong hotel in Mexico.

And since distributing malware is a very serious crime, the visiting public is entirely justified in protecting itself.

Only an accomplice would argue otherwise. Since arguing otherwise makes one an accomplice.

Re:One question

[amicusNYCL]

You really think the ad companies saying "boo hoo, we're being censored" don't know every trick in the book the lie, manipulate, and skew the response their way all the while knowing damned well they're full of shit??

Yeah, I realize that he's probably slightly more self-aware than he projects. I do really enjoy seeing these stories though. I have never been a fan of advertisers, on any medium, and seeing these people start to fight back, and seeing places like Forbes block people using ad-blockers, it just shows that our efforts are being noticed. We're finally eating into their bottom line enough that they've decided they need to fight back, and I love that. Advertisers have seemed so tone-deaf and obstinate that it's been so frustrating trying to deal with ads, so the fact that they're feeling it in their pocketbook means that we're finally getting through to them, finally forcing them to pay attention. Especially the name-calling of the ABP folks, I enjoyed that part especially:

Now, you may be aware of a kerfuffle that began about 10 days ago, when an unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes at a for-profit German company called AdBlock-Plus took to the digisphere to complain over and over that IAB had "disinvited" them to this convention.

Ooooh yes, more name-calling! Nothing says "I'm about to make a fantastic argument" like some grade-school-level name calling. And why are they "techie wannabes", of all things? Because they're beating him at every opportunity. He's in an arms race against people who are on a level that he doesn't even understand, so he specifically picks that as the way to insult them. I love it, he's admitting that he's getting beaten at the technical arms race. Instead of trying to figure out new ways to get around the filters, their solution is to just block people using the filters. Here's what I love even more: he's going to realize that their only solution is to end up paying ABP for inclusion on their whitelist, and as soon as that check is written he's going to wake up and realize that ABP just failed after everyone left and now there are 5 other blockers that people are using that don't have a whitelist. Who is he going to call names then?

On another note, I noticed this question in his speech:

But since you are here, I want to take the opportunity to ask you a personal question - a question that may make you uncomfortable.

Go on.....

Sure, $50 billion in revenue is a great thing - for the businesses taking it in. But how will we create - and how will you, personally, contribute to creating - the next $50 billion in value... value to society, value to the culture, value to your family, value to your friends and neighbors?

Yeeeesssss... considering the fact that your work is not valuable to any culture, and that your friends and neighbors probably secretly hate you and the work you're doing, how are you going to personally create that ... ahem... "value"?

But if money is your only goal, then you risk falling into relativism - a pernicious trap, for you begin weighing all potential returns based on the single metric of how much more money you can make. Truth, beauty, fairness, justice, honesty, civic pride, neighborliness - they become means to an end, rather than ends in themselves. That is debilitating, and ultimately deadens the soul.

There you go, Ad Guy, THAT was the message you should have been spreading 20 years ago when you started. Now it's a bit late to try and get everyone "on board" with doing things the right way. You've spent the last 20 years treating things like truth, beauty, fairness, justice, and honesty as means to a profitable end, and now I'd like to invite you to Sit'n'Spin while you think about how you've spent those last 20 years. Welcome to your funeral.

Re:One question

[phantomfive]

Videos, pictures, and text advertisements are all referred to by the advertising industry as "creatives." Which makes sense in a way, because some artist or writer worked to make them.

Want to know something else? You, the reader and user of the website, are referred to as "supply." Websites try to build up supply so they can fill the "demands" of advertisers. No joke. This sort of stuff is why I left the advertising industry and am never working there again.