Slashdot Mirror
Google, Yahoo Cry About Ad-Blocking (cnbc.com)
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: Google and Yahoo have accused ad-blocking software Shine of "destroying the relationship" between advertisers and consumers, after an executive from the company called its solution a "nuclear weapon" threatening the industry. Ad blocking software use grew 41 percent in the 12 months to August 2015 and there are now 198 million active adblock users around the world, according PageFair. Benjamin Faes, managing director of media and platforms at Google, called Shine's technology a "blunt" solution that punishes users and good advertisers, and said, "Blocking all ads I think it's diminishing my experience of advertising and in that case we see an issue for the user themselves." It appears that these advertising executives still don't "get it", and are disingenuously tone-deaf to the legitimate complaints raised about ads.
Here's a tip, Ben : "good advertiser" is an oxymoron.
Is a two way street. I wonder how many businesses and business models that bit the dust over the last 15 years felt the same way about Google?
I don't recall adverts getting that much more annoying in 2015. Is this just more users or did something happen to make folks install more ad blockers (or more likely get an entire new class of user interested in ad blockers)?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Advertisers have several blind spots.
1. They don't care about user security and malware-exclusion. ("It's not OUR content after all.")
2. They don't care that WE are paying for any bandwidth usage they suck up on our end. (2MB pages with 10K the content the user wanted. Rest is advertising.)
3. For those systems where advertisers bid the suppliers for who gets displayed, the end user can sit doing nothing while the site owners wait for some "optimum" bid.
4. Most advertising is utterly irrelevant as far as the viewer is concerned.
For all of the above reasons, ad-blockers are our friends, and advertisers are the enemy.
I wonder if Shine blocks that article, because it is a great advertisement for their product.
Ad companies are routinely doing drive by malware infections. It's precisely this lack or review and certification of ads that is their problem. Until they are willing to pay editors to review and approve ads they will continue to be abused by ad companies and the only solution the consumer has at that point is the nuclear option. The very existence of autoplay video advertising and malware loaded ad's is direct evidence of their problem.
When the ad's go back to editorial approved ad's hosted and run by the companies providing the content no on will be able to block the ads. But this will mean the companies accepting the advertising have to take responsibility for the crap advertising they accept.
Until then, you can self-abort. I see your sneakiness and raise you 2 sneakies.
.
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
It used to be that Google Ads were relevant to the page they were on, and they were text. There was a time when I'd occasionally click on a Google text ad because it was actually something relevant and interesting to me. But then they started pushing graphical ads heavily, and much of the relevance faded. And now... you see Google Ads featuring Buzzfeed-like teasers (e.g. "The Government Hates This Guy and his Simple Tax Trick"), and worse. Heck, I remember one Google-placed ad that was something about itching and bloating, with graphics of a spotted tongue and a guy sitting on a toilet. Who in their right mind wants to see that kind of garbage?
#DeleteChrome
The whole point of adblockers is to 'disrupt the relationship between advertisers and consumers'; because that 'relationship' is inherently somewhere between 'adversarial' and 'cold war'. We don't go to varying levels of hassle just for fun; we do so because we fucking hate you and your 'product'.
The problem with the current incarnation of ads is that they follow you everywhere. I didn't realize how bad it was until I forgot to re-install all of my cookie blockers. Search for something on Amazon? See the ads in Facebook and Google. Search for something on Google? See ads for that everywhere else.
Ads used to be targeted to the user base of a website. The 'targeting' wasn't based on what I knew I already wanted but based on what I was interested in. I didn't mind some old ads because they were relevant to the site I was going to.
google et al seem to be living in another reality. There is no relationship to consumers, there is a WAR between consumers and arsehole companies like google. Ads have become more intrusive and obnoxious, ads that have video and or sound, dynamic windows that increase to cover the page if you accidentally scroll over them, ads positioned and made to look like search results or news items. They then wonder why Ad blocking is increasing and blame those that are trying to help the consumers, Googles lack of security/privacy awareness is just mindboggling, you want people to stop using ad blocking, then you need to stop acting like totally obnoxious pricks.
punishes [...] good advertisers
Good, then nobody is harmed. There are no "good" advertisers in the world.
Oliver.
Like any sane web user, I use a ton of browser extensions that warn me about requests to questionable third-party hosts.
When I browse Slashdot, requests are attempted to "Taboola" and "Janrain" and "ScoreCard" and "NTV" and "rpxnow" and "StackSocial".
Now I don't know what the fuck any of those are, and TBH I don't care to know.
So let's say I made an HTTP request to slashdot.org. As far as I'm concerned, the page served up by slashdot.org doesn't need to require requests be made to any other host to show me the stories and comments here.
whipslash, can you give us more information about what these questionable third-party hosts are doing, and why the pages served up by Slashdot try to trigger requests to these questionable hosts?
More importantly, when will slashdot.org stop trying to get my browser to make requests to them?
The relationship between advertisers an consumers has been abused by advertisers that spy on us and compromise our security. Advertisers made themselves something that any sensible person needs to protect themselves against.
Ads allowing drive by infections with malware became common over the last decade. The big advertisers did little to protect consumers and continued to accept these ads without the necessary safeguards. Ads that interfere with our ability to view a page are more common, whether that is flashing images, auto playing video or audio, or ads that cover content. This ruins the experience for the consumer visiting those sites and ad blocking solves that problem.
Ad companies are collecting private data and tracking our online activities, ignoring our right to privacy. If they abuse our rights then it is only fair that we block them and deny them any right to dump their garbage on us.
If ad companies were not evil, fewer people would decide it is necessary to block them but there is no indication that they are prepared to improve their behaviour.
If you didn't know what was special about Shine compared to ublock or adblock like me then Shine is an ISP level blocking system. It's not something that gets installed on end users machines but further upstream. This is why people like google and yahoo are so disturbed by this. It means that even completely clueless users will have ads blocked.
I can absolutely see why the network providers would want this as well. Talk about a way of dramatically decreasing your network utilisation without any negative impacts on consumers.
From Shine's website it looks like they have just signed up 3 europe which means 300 million mobile users just installed ad blocking software.....
https://www.getshine.com/three...
Legitimate complains that I can think of:
1. Not vetting the sources to check for malware
2. Obnoxious autoplays, pop unders and noisy stuff
Eset AV takes care of the former but I don't get much exposure to the latter, might be Ghostery doing its job. Annoying and deceiving ads are aimed mostly to the common folk, say, the first half of the bell curve so I always have wondered how slashdotters get so many of them. Oh right, they don't get tracked so the delivery system assumes it's the average Joe Sixpack and delivers accordingly.
The only solution is to increase even more the adblocking usage so the CLIENTS ask to their agencies and media buyers to step up and not commission the design to the first guy that spread the legs in fiver.
Please also note that most of those clickbait and "article" like ads are mostly from clickfraud campaigns that Google don`t care to track. So yeah, they are pissing in their own pool.
I didn't realize large, monolithic corporations we capable of crying. Doesn't go well with greed, lack of compassion and disdain for anyone who disagrees with you mantra that most of them seem to employ. ;)
For the most part I don't use ad blockers as I understand the need for some sites to make money that way. I just won't go to a website that inundates me with bullshit ads or slows down loading while the site is loading ads from the Super Garbage Ad Network, powered by P4s and a token ring network running in a shanty town somewhere in Mumbai.
I agree somewhat with both sides of the story in TFA, but more with Shine in this case. Bringing a hammer down on everything is the only way to get Googles and Yahoos to wake up to the issue. We are tired of the garbage guys, do something about it.
Where can I file for divorce? I want to destroy any and all relationships I have with advertisers. The sooner and quicker the better. Abusive relationships are nothing you should endure longer than absolutely necessary.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I hadn't heard about this particular adblocker. I'll go check it out.
Thanks for the tip, Google and Yahoo!
You want your bits of information, your advertising channel to be worth more money. We get that.
But don't pretend that this is some sacred relationship. It isn't. It's a rancid soup of parasites running the show, and now the programmers who've always known how to filter the stream of data are feeling more and more free to give everyone else the tools to filter out the bits they don't like.
Your bits will still be worth money. Seriously guys - put some MAJOR effort into policing your business relationships - if your adverts are in any way annoying to anyone, it is your fault for being willing to push that on your audience.
Here's a crazy idea... put some buttons on each advert, to allow folks to reject the advert, and charge the ones getting the most down-votes more money for any interaction going forward. Give anyone who shows any solid evidence of tracking or bad scripting say, 10 million downvotes on their record per incidence. Same thing for evidence of suspicious bot activity by any company, or for using shell companies. Boom - you get money, you shame the offenders, you make positive news, and get your adverts competing with eachother for COMMON DECENCY.
I am a rational shopper who uses search engines to get the big picture on what is on offer across the entire market and to determine what is most appropriate for the budget I have allowed. I do not buy on impulse and will wait months for a cheaper item on a slow boat because I do plan that far in advance.
I block advertising because it just makes me annoyed and clutters up my screen, MY SCREEN.
On the rare occasion that I do see an advert for a new product or service idea that gets my interest I will notice the new product in the ad, but then still go and use my normal survey method to find what I really need. So unless you have the only one of a given product your ad is just as likely to help your competition as it is you. If you do have a monopoly I am not likely to buy your product at all because of the lack of competition.
Poor (metaphorically speaking) little parasites complaining that users can deservedly cut off their blood supply. This is what happens when an industry accrues too much power and hubris over many, many decades, and then a paradigm shift happens and they expect to hapily maintain their status quo.
Too bad there's no practical way to kill ad networks that serve up annoying or malicious pseudo-content. Punch the monkey? Yeah, now we're finally able to land knockout blows.
These were all on the site when we acquired it. We are in the process of cleaning up all requests and scripts like this.
can you give us more information about what these questionable third-party hosts are doing
But you just said you didn't care to know. They are "market research" or whatever else, they make money by profiling your browsing habits and selling that data. If you don't like it, block them, there are many extensions that will block trackers like that.
More importantly, when will slashdot.org stop trying to get my browser to make requests to them?
Probably when they either start charging people for accounts, or start asking everyone for donations like Wikipedia.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Destroying the relationship between advertisers and consumers, is like destroying the relationship between parasites and their hosts. The sooner and the more decisively it's done, the better it is for all of the parties that really matter.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Google and Yahoo have accused ad-blocking software Shine of "destroying the relationship" between advertisers and consumers...
No. Advertisers destroyed the relationship between themselves and consumers, ad-blocking software has just given us the means to share our voice.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
"destroying the relationship" between advertisers and consumers"
This is like saying "destroying the relationship between rapists and their victims".
There's freedom of speech, but we should also have a right to 'freedom from speech' - it shouldn't be allowed to yell "fire! fire!" in a crowded movie theater just as someone advertising their business by shouting through a bullhorn outside someone's house at 3AM should also not be allowed. If someone wants to speak, there's a reasonable level of unobtrusiveness that they should not be able to exceed but many ads on the web do just that. Inventions have come and gone (VCR's, TiVO, anyone?) that could have just as conceivably "[destroyed] the relationship between advertises and consumers" (and were subjected to exactly these arguments when they started to become popular) and yet both advertisers, consumers and the relationship between them (for better or worse) is very much alive and kicking.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
Kinda. Ad-Blocking was awesome when a tiny percentage of us used it to have a much better internet experience.
Now, as usage and awareness expands, I am see warnings, popups and outright refusal to serve me content if my ad blocking software is enabled.
This is the next frontier... sites will (legitimately, it's perfectly OK) stop serving you content, if you're not seeing their ads. Other sites will choose to make their money in more nefarious ways - and this one worries me - by using product placement / paid reviews / sponsored content, and blurring the lines between content and advertising. At least when I see an advert I *know* they paid for the ad. When Jonny Reviewer says "The new film, Badderass is awesome" is he really saying it's awesome, or is he saying "I can put bread on the family table now that the Badderass producers have paid me to shill for them"?
Personally, I think I'd rather have the ads back.
Probably when they either start charging people for accounts, or start asking everyone for donations like Wikipedia.
I would do an automatic $1 a month donation to slashdot, I read it enough...
I do the same for Wikipedia...
I've noticed that many of the comments refer to the advertising suppliers as not caring about the customers. That is simply not true. They care deeply about the customers.
The problem is that we the vict... er... recipients of their largess and viewers of the ads are not their customers.
Their customers are the companies who pay them to display the ads. They're selling OUR bandwith and eyeballs to those companies and they will use any means they can to make sure the precious revenue-generating message goes through, whether we want it to or not.
"diminishing my experience of advertising" is not something the average user concerns themselves with. The users are not going to sites to view their ads, they are going to view the site's actual content. Ads are at best mildly interesting but are increasingly considered an annoyance or even dangerous. So the users have responded by saying their best "experience of advertising" is to block it and not experience it at all. The advertisers should be taking this as a lesson but apparently they are still deluding themselves thinking people want to see their ads. They will listen sooner or later or their industry will come crashing down around them.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
Yes we are looking at reviving the subscription option so that you can do something like this
The jerks will have to learn the hard way and eat dirt at the end.
The machine I am looking on is in my house, I own it and it is my right to determine who pisses on my screen and kick them off!
Every popup demanding an email gets one - IHatePoputs@yyy.me.com, I need to use a real domain, some check for it.
Those piss-brain idiots need to have their firmware reflashed!
They are easily one of the biggest, of not the biggest, attack vectors. Because of this I block ads and literally won't white list anyone, because there have been tons of cases of 'respectable' ad hosts being cracked and hosting malware through their ads. Often without the company knowing for months!
So no, I'd rather not have my systems infected because someone wants me to view ads that I won't actually click on anyways. I can count on one hand how many times I clicked on an ad before ad-blockers were a thing. Combine these two things together and they stay blocked. Forever.
Want me to unblock your ads? Step #1: Make them passive enough it's nearly impossible to use their ads to infect my system. We can talk about Step #2 once the first is done.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
What fucking "relationship"?
There is no relationship, there are the annoying parasites on the internet who want to inject themselves into what we do. I have never said "gee, I wonder what the assholes over at Double Click are up to these days".
But let's not pretend I gain anything from being tracked by a bunch of idiots who want to sell me something.
On behalf of those of us who have aggressively blocked ads for years, don't pretend there's some "relationship" here. And let's stop pretending that internet exists for the ad companies.
Do this shit without tracking me everywhere and violating my privacy, and I might have less of a problem. Expect me to allow 15 third parties to run scripts and set cookies, and you can fuck off.
You might as well say a guard dog is spoiling your "relationship" with a peeping Tom. Sorry, don't care.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It seems I posted a comment here within the last few days about Google's dependence on advertising as their main source of revenue. Here is what I don't understand: they seriously didn't have a backup plan? I am speaking strictly of Google here. Yahoo, is well... Yahoo. It is not a dark secret that you adapt or die in technology. The bigger you are, the harder you fall. So Google honestly has an expectation that advertising as a main source of revenue was going to continue indefinitely? Of course it won't. Things change far to fast, far to often, and to great extremes. I am disappointed that Google is whining about this. A major technology company can only project multiple probabilities for the future of their business and stand ready to pounce in whatever direction comes to be before someone else does. The one thing that can be rest assured is that what a technology company that size is rest assuring on at any given moment will not last and will disappear over the course of an unknown amount of time - fast, slow, other. What's next? In two-years is Zuckerburg going to be complaining his business is being hurt because his user base started to wake up, grew a brain cell and developed a partial soul? Google: for fucks sake. I thought better.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
I'd be sympathetic if it weren't for the fact that this "relationship" has turned into something similar to the "relationship" enjoyed between a serial rapist and their victim. They are trying to jam ads up our ass whether we want them or not, without lube. The "relationship" is being destroyed for a reason. "NO" means "NO".
And many people who are out on the web aren't "consumers". They're "users" - they are merely looking for certain content. Forcing ads on people who aren't even shopping is a nuisance and counter-productive.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
The thing is, right now, in today's environment, a good adblocker is almost more important than a good antivirus. Adds are a very commonly used attack vector. Therefore, an adblocker is by definition acting as a type of firewall. All it takes is one lazy or greedy person in the advertising chain to compromise an unprotected system. And I am sorry, but my enjoyment of the content and wanting them to do well does not extend to wanting to risk reformatting my computer to get rid of something an add did to it.
CEOs should be happy that I don't view many ads. Often the ads are so abusive that I think I could go to the Board of Directors and get the CEO fired.
A serious problem for Google and Yahoo is Windows 10. Apparently, from what I've read, Microsoft uses the forced installation of Windows 10 to collect data to sell. Microsoft calls that "telemetry"; others call it spyware.
There's a huge amount of money in selling customer data. That's apparently why Windows 10 is "free".
Another issue: There is no way to stop ad blockers. They could, for example, download the ads, but not display them. There would apparently be no way to stop that.
Then I guess we'll do it for you.
When I browse Slashdot, requests are attempted to "Taboola"
My first encounter with those guys was when something broke and every time I visited the slashdot I got redirected to some taboola sponsored job offerings webpage (completely different domain). On the plus side, it also made me aware that adblock doesn't block taboola, so I was able to add that filter in pretty quickly to get slashdot working again.
is non-consensual. That's not usually called "a relationship."
I've used ad blockers in the past, but I currently don't use one. Eventually if these companies keep bitching and griping about it, I will start remembering to always use one. Not that it will make much difference to them anyway, since I've very good at avoiding ads with my eyes.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
after an executive from the company called its solution a "nuclear weapon" threatening the industry.
In other news, burglars complain that locks on houses are a nuclear weapon, threatening the industry.
I think it's diminishing my experience of advertising
How on Earth can you diminish advertising even further than it already is?
" "destroying the relationship" between advertisers and consumers"
Yes, please.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Good to hear, I don't think the Slashdot user base is the "One weird trick" kind of crowd.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
Until Google and Yahoo clean up the cesspool that is the ad's I'm not only blocking on every machine in my home, but adding blocking to every PC I can touch.
Allowing ad's right now are a huge security hole and until they get off their lazy asses and clean up the mess I am helping as many people as I can to block any and all ads on their computers.
Boo Fucking Hoo, Google and Yahoo created this mess.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you don't pay for internet services with your attention, you will end up paying with your wallet, while the poor will lose meaningful internet access altogether. That, or the sites will only be accessible if you install an equivalent of Steam VAC to make sure you are not using any adblockers.
What other alternatives are there? People will not create or host content for free.
Would doing that remove the "Slashdot Newsletters" and "Slashdot Top Deals" images/links?
I get those, DESPITE having "Ads Disabled" checked, due to my up votes.
Yes, I realize they are "slashdot originated", but they're still effectively the same as any third party ad, to me.
It would be interesting to know if these trackers were active on Slashdot *before* Dice took over.
Having said that, no commercial web site can exist without income, and for a site like Slashdot, that means ads.
By the way, did ThinkGeek come with the deal? Probably not...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
To be frank I'd be willing to pay a subscription to Slashdot. I do so for other sites I value. I get a lot of value from the site in the form of entertainment and have for a long time. It would be nice if a subscription got you some real value added features but I'd be willing to pay something less for what I get for free now.
I'm fairly militant however about my ad blocking. It is HIGHLY unlikely any advertiser on slashdot is going to dangle something in front of me that I care about enough to buy. But more importantly I value my privacy and since advertising networks can help themselves in trying to track my every click and search I am forced to take pretty harsh steps to maintain my privacy. This is not going to change. Ever.
1. How do you propose funding websites, if not with ads?
Provide enough value I'm willing to pay for it directly. I do that with several websites I frequent. If people aren't willing to pay for what you are doing directly then it probably isn't worth all that much to them.
Speaking for myself I value my privacy FAR more than any random article you could possibly entice me to read. I have NO interest in being tracked by advertising networks and I will take harsh measures to ensure it doesn't happen. If their crappy business model can't handle that then too bad. Your bad business model is not my problem.
They told you ads are good for you? Think about it. I once google for "MILF" (really, I didn't know what the hell was it and I was JUST looking for its meaning), turn out it referred to something disgusting and I didn't even dare clicking into the search result. Immediate after that, the right side of my facebook were filled with dating services with senior women, and everyday they recommended me of pages of senior women. Even my subsequent search results were topped with similar ads. My coworkers now stayed away from me.
I wanted to call Google telling them that I AM NOT INTERESTED IN HAVING CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH OLD WOMEN PLEASE STOP...or I just go get an adblocker.
... Better pay for every single other viewpoint ...
Believe it or not, it is entirely possible for a single source to offer multiple perspectives on an issue. Once upon a time this was known as journalism.
Not a problem. Once upon a time people bought newspapers. They were generally also available at the library but it was more convenient to have them delivered to your home.
**If** our current two decade'ish experiment with web based ad supported news fails its not the end of the world. We had a system that worked well for centuries. That old system's economic model may work with pixels as well as it worked with dead trees.
Wired has just told me when visiting their site to disable my ad blocker. Fuck that, i just wont ever visit that site ever again. They will never learn i guess.
I've had the Disable Advertising button on /. for years. You know what? I only turned it on once just to see what the difference would be. The difference wasn't that big so I turned it off. I am quite happy supporting sites/services that are of benefit to me. I no longer visit sites I used to love because they enabled IN YOUR FACE ads that get in the way of the reason I'm there. I couldn't go to Forbes at work anymore even if I wanted to because they flag our proxy as an ad blocker and won't even let me past the ad banner until I turn the proxy off! If you want an example of a site with ads that don't bug me /. is a pretty good one.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I don't have a problem with static ads. I sometimes even click on them. Especially the T-shirt ads with pretty girls.
But pop-overs, pop-unders, those "cute" little ads that float across content, any ads that make noise, video ads that play without me asking them to, and *anything* that covers up the content, *THAT'S* the problem. It's THOSE guys who are ruining things for all the other advertisers, by making adblockers necessary. It's not the adblocking companies. They're just filling a need. It's undisciplined advertisers that *create* the need. And this is not even counting the trojan horses ("your flash version it out of date!!!") and scareware popups.
Sure, if there were only two or three static ads per page, there are some geeks out there that would block them on a matter of principle. But the point is, most of us wouldn't bother. It's when ads become intrusive that adblockers become interesting to the masses.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
... web based ad supported news ...
Hmmm ... I wasn't very clear, apologies. I should have specified "web based 3rd party / targeted ad supported news". I am referring only to ads delivered by third parties, i.e. google, most likely targeted ads. Basically two channels, one for content, one for ads. That is the newish and possibly failing model.
There would of course still be ads, as there was in print newspapers, but there would be a single channel for both content and ads. No third party such a google. Advertisers would contract directly with the publisher who would lay out ads amongst content as they did in the days of paper. That is the centuries old proven model. Hopefully one less likely to watch you and engaged in targeted ads.
I've never _once_ intentionally clicked on an ad, so advertisers shouldn't give a fuck about me anyways, unless they think that flooding me with their junk frequently enough will subliminally trick me into buying their stuff. People who install ad-blockers typically are not the people who click on or pay attention to ads.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Yes. Relying on advertising is clearly a poor business model and deserves extinction.
What is failing is only 3rd party targeted advertising, where a 3rd party like google tracks you and inserts targeted ads into a publisher's content. The old model where the publisher was paid directly by advertisers to insert ads into their content is a well proven business model.
and consumers'.
It is a good thing when abusive relationships end.
How to make advertising I won't block:
It can't have any movement (graphics, video, the frames, etc), it can't make any sound, it can't appear over, or obscure any content, it can't obscure or interfere with page navigation, and it can't take over 15% of my total screen real-estate regardless of device.
I won't block ads that conform to these rules.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Dear advertisers... It's not you, it's me. I no longer find you attractive, but I can't say that because then I'll feel guilty. Oh, by the way, good riddance.
Seriously you stupid moronic retarded as swipe cancerous STD ridden canker sore fuckheads. YOU! destroyed the relationship between advertisers and consumers. I don't want to blow my cap on my smartphone so I can download 40 megabytes of shitty advertisements and malware graciously provided by you assholes.
I don't want to have to pay ransomware just so I can get stupid ads. Your paradigm is broken, fix it.
FUCK you very much - you brought this shitstorm upon yourselves, by making 80 percent of the data advertising http://www.munichre.com/en/gro..., and now you are upset because we don't want you ramming your utter shit the wrong way up our asses?
Go fuck yourself. I'll stop using the internet before I turn my adblocker off.
Other than that I have no strong thoughts on the issue.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I started ad blocking because ads were just too intrusive. I'm not a zealot, I understand how things work and sites need to make money some how. However advertisers online are the laziest fuckers ever. In print or on TV ads are curated. There is a conversation between the media company and the ad company, money changes hands, and an ad is run in an agreed upon format for an agreed upon amount of times. On the Internet the advertisers just want you to directly embed their shit and to let them go hog fucking wild.
This then just lead to too many problem. Malware is one, though I have stuff on my computer that'll generally stop that. However just plain annoying shit is what really got me. Ads that auto-play sound, ads that block the whole site, ads that try to force you to go to another page, etc. Advertisers somehow fees that more annoying is the way to go.
Well I finally had enough, and adblocking goes on. I'll turn it off for select sites, though in general I don't have to since the good sites run their own ads, and those being on their own servers the adblocker doesn't notice.
I'll turn it off when the ad industry starts behaving, or when sites start making them. If that doesn't happen, well too fucking bad. I realize that will mean some sites will go under and I don't want that, but I will not put up with the completely shit experience that is the unfiltered web.
My relationship with advertisers was doomed from the start. It's better this way. It's like the response TV advertisers have to DVRs and people downloading illegal copies of content to avoid commercials.... add more commercials! Yeah! That'll help!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
In addition, sites - including news - should NOT autoplay video.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Except that people aren't paying for content, they're just blocking what would be considered the form of payment.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
When ads are delivered over the air you don't pay for their delivery. That's the difference. Sure, most people are getting a large enough chunk of data from providers for a flat rate that it's not a big deal, but not everyone is like that. It was the case that ad based games, like the ad based Angry Birds, ended up costing customers MORE in the long run.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Reminds me of the "contract" viewers supposedly had with TV networks to watch the commercials (Jamie Kellner, former CEO of Turner Broadcasting).
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I have to say, I just added /. to the AdBlock exclusion list, just to see what ads I'll get, and I'm impressed.
I'm seeing two ads at the top of the page, both of which are relevant to my interests - guns and hiking gear. The latter is, in fact, specifically for a product that I wanted to buy for a while, and was looking for a good deal for, and it offers a discount. No sale this time because they don't have the desired size/color, but still, this gets my nod of approval (and a bit of unease because of how accurate it is).
So, thumbs up from this Slashdot user, and I think I'll keep the exclusion.
You know the whole Ad Business relies on a trusted client security model. The client is trusted to be looking at your ads and not clicking on them if it's not interested. Now that someone has started to do wide scale hacking of that client it's no longer trusted. It's amazing they made it this far with the whole thing.hanging together.
Any good fisherman will tell you, there's a certain point where the bait's not big enough for the hook; crying because the fish are uninterested in the hook isn't going to get you more fish.
Stop being irredeemably greedy, you're far, far past the point of diminishing returns.
-Styopa
Soon I will block all text. Screw you, internet.
Thank you my friend
It would remove the deals. Have to investigate the newsletter more before I had an answer on that
Haha no argument there
Dear Advertisers,
Want my to take off my adblock? Return to the simple single banner ad per page, with no audio, video, animation or other things that deliberately distract me from the content I'm trying to look at. I promise if you return to this simple advertising of the 90's WWW, I'll turn off adblock. BTW, you're still welcomed to serve me targeted advertising, I actually like seeing advertisements for things either already have, or might actually be interested in. Thank you.
In all truth, I don't really even mind the animated ones. Really quite frankly, it's when my browser starts opening new pages, playing sound and/or popping up an advertisement that I have to click to get rid of that got me interested in tools like Privoxy, Squid and AdBlock+ to put a stop to your disrupting my usage of my browser.
In short, advertise in a non-annoying fashion and I'll allow it. Kind of sucks for you that the power is on my end, rather than yours, doesn't it?
Lastly, the advertisements before playing a YouTube video (I get these on my phone, not on my PC.) are REALLY obnoxious, I vow to never buy a product or service I see advertised in that manner. Not only are you wasting both our time, you're alienating me to outright boycott and you're wasting my limited mobile broadband data usage.
Now of course, will an advertiser ever see this? Probably not, since the game goes both ways, we only see what we want to see on the internet. Deal with it.
fake download buttons are one of the reason why it's good to use ad block.
I block em.
I've saved the advertiser a 'Fuck them'
Shouldn't everyone pay me
for saving bandwidth and honesty?
They rape the shit out our privacy, working on ML and AI tools that will violate it even better, then when we say, "Hello, how about no?" they get all pissed off. I love the endless analogies that people are making with robbers being pissed off with locks, peeping toms pissed off with curtains, bank robbers being angered by bank guards, polio being dissed by Jonas Salk, etc.
It boils down to a simple pairing. Anything that makes our lives worse such as egregious privacy violations and annoying marketing, is bad. Anything that makes our lives better is good.
But the above pairing is even better because one happens to be the cure for the other. What is even more ironic is that Google will yell things such as adblockers will drive quality content behind paywalls. Paywalls that keep them from stealing things like news and reviews to aggregate on their site.
I have a feeling that when this chapter of the history of the internet is written people will call it the great google pause; the time when google held everyone to their narrow and ever obsolete view of how the internet should be structured. When someone crushes google's search engine dominance and google suddenly can't afford to bully anymore, it will be a good day.
Think about what kind of world it would be if somehow intel and microsoft had continued their dominance into mobile technology.
How about this:
1. Ads should have no dynamic content to them. No HTML5, no javascript, no java. If the ad requires the user's computer to run any code that is supplied by the advertising agency then the website needs to design an effective way for the user to identify when they are infected by the ad and a straightforward path to financial recovery for all users who were served such an ad (class action without going to court). Barring that - no dynamic content.
2. Ads should not alter the user's computer state. In particular, no cookies. The website should make every effort to protect user privacy and prevent user tracking.
3. Ads should not interfere with site usage. In particular, no interstitials or ads that alter or delay user access to the website.
4. Ads should not be distracting the user from content. It is OK for the ad to present information in a way that has a chance to catch their attention but if the user makes a decision that the ad is of no interest then it should be trivial for the user to tune the ad out. For example, no blinking ads, no strobe effect, no sound.
And for mobile:
1. The ads should be small enough to allow easy website navigation. No ads which span more than 75% of overall width or height.
2. The ads should be small enough to present negligible load on the bandwidth consumption. That means that ads need to scale by locale. The typical monthly allowances for users can vary greatly across the globe and the internet is global. It is likely that 10 KB is a good upper limit for each ad though this may change by locale. The number of ads and their refresh rate need to be tuned by locale.
---
The final requirement which would be ideal but is likely unrealistic: the ads need to be designed to fit the aesthetic of the website. For example, contrast between the ad color scheme and the website color scheme can be jarring to the user. At the very least, the websites should saturate/desaturate ad colors automatically to better match the site design.
Good ads do exist ... but yes, 99%+ would not fit the term,
... but this discussion isn't about ancient web browsers.
Back when Opera web browser had for pay licenses (which is to say, before 9.50) you could use the browser for free if you didn't mind an ad banner in the top-right corner. And in the later of the pre-9.50 versions you could choose whether to see the standard random ads or contextual ads - the latter were provided by Google based on the page you were looking ad and were text only. (Only for non-secure pages, they weren't going to tell Google what secure pages you visited.) We had a number of users who would pay for the license but then not enter the code so they could continue to see the contextual ads, and of course since the ads were consistently placed and unobtrusive if you weren't interested they were easy to ignore as well.
Mind you, we had reports of some websites specifically blocking Opera because in their minds Opera's ads were reducing the value of their own ads
A good ad is one that is interesting to the people who see it (as much as possible anyway), that is unobtrusive to those who aren't interested, and advertises something they are likely to be interested in. (The ad I'm seeing below this box for a local financial institution is not particularly good as financial institutions are not something you're looking for that often, and it isn't really unobtrusive either.) These websites where half the page is ads - forget it. Video ads? Only embedded in other video content, and even then not usually. Ads that jump up when you move your mouse over something? Never. Click on perhaps, as the user indicated interest, but not move over.
And if you're Google (or any other ad network), the ads should be governed by interest to the user rather than how much the advertiser is paying (well, as much as feasible anyway). People won't click on it - and are more likely to block it - if it isn't something they want, so it doesn't matter how much they are paying. Doesn't matter that they bought some keyword if it isn't appropriate.
Is that really so hard to understand?
They started putting ads with sound in them. It got to the point that if I forgot to turn off my speakers I'd get woken up in the night by an left in a tab I didn't bother closing.
Then the ads that would force the browser to a specific location on the page (breaking the website, but making it so you could see the ad).
They have no-one to blame but themselves. I honestly truthfully didn't give two shits about ads until they started talking and hijacking normally respectable websites. I mean - I do understand - that's how a lot of sites generate revenue so I feel bad, but my health and well being comes first - and talking ads that wake me up at 2 am are not healthy.
If some executive personally promised me no more sneaky backhanded, noisy ads - I would turn it off and try again for a while.
So you can't survive with me blocking your annoying, intrusive, malware laden advertising? Tough. If you can't compete, then die. It's free enterprise, bitch!
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Adblocker companies should do more ads for adblockers, after all only potential new clients will see them.
But Google and Yahoo are doing it for them for free as I see.
Websites grow on trees. Wait, lemme check... they definitely don't.
So if the site owner does not get paid by leeches like yourself, there is no point in developing and operating a website. So yes, in a way, it is your problem. In the near term, expect adblockers to be blocked from accessing ad-based websites.
These were all on the site when we acquired it. We are in the process of cleaning up all requests and scripts like this.
I hope you guys are taking notes on this process and can share what you aren't prohibited by terms of sale to share.
The changes, plus the results of the changes showed to the world might knock some of the blockheaded site owners elsewhere to clean up their act.
Any subscription service we would provide would have zero ads
The problem with that as a business proposition unfortunately is that I already can block ads. I have no fine grained way to permit ads from a party I trust because I don't trust the ad networks. There really is no way for slashdot to put ads in front of me that I am willing to trust. It isn't slashdot's fault, it's just the world we live in.
For a subscription service to work I need actual value added features, not just removal of annoyances that I can already handle myself. For an illustrative example (not an actual suggestion) something like giving subscribers 3 mod points per day that they can use even on articles they have commented on would be a value add. Give people something they cannot get otherwise. Maybe some special moderation categories (-1 idiotic or +1 clever troll). You get the idea. Nothing too extreme but something valuable to people in the slashdot community.
First of all, ISP based ad blocking goes against net neutrality.
Additionally there is this small thing called https. When https is used, the only thing the ISP sees is that a connection to an IP is made. Which means there is no way to know if what is transferred is an ad or not.
The only way to effectively block ads when https is used is to do man in the middle, an egregious privacy violation. There are other solutions like DNS poisoning and IP based blocking but these can be worked around by the likes of Google. And again, this is not something I want my ISP to mess with.
The subject says it all really. If you are using an ad blocker it is because someone is giving you something for free IN EXCHANGE for serving you ads, instead of you having to pay money for it. You are ruining that by blocking all ads. 1) Stop pretending this is a one sided thing of the big mean companies being unreasonable. (They are in some ways, but the /. comments to this point are myopic as fuck.)
2) Don't say companies are "crying" about the receivers of their free content leeching it.
3) Remember that if you weren't sucking on the teat of their free content, you wouldn't have needed to install an ad blocker in the first place, you outrageous, over-entitled twits!
You are going to need about another 900 shills to help you out today, idiot.
We don't want ads, especially not full page, colorful, loud, video/audio ads, ads laden with malware, et al.
We are SICK AND TIRED of being sold at...
Google and Yahoo have accused ad-blocking software Shine of "destroying the relationship" between advertisers and consumers
If by relationship you mean an endless barrage of dick pics, then sure.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
Advertisers think they know better than myself what I'm interested in, they keep adding "interests" even if I look at a website only once for some unrelated reason.
You've seen one website that talks about industrial 3D printers but that website also talks about other topics? That means you should be interested in industrial CNC mills, farm equipment, paintball and camping!
I can't even access my Google ads preferences anymore, I used to be able to get a page where I could at least uncheck all that crap. Then it stopped working and all I got was a bunch of redirects to end up at an invalid YouTube URL for some reason. And today all I get for dismissing an ad is a useless "Thanks for the feedback! We’ll review this ad to improve the experience in the future."
And I don't mind text ads or static images but animated GIFs, dynamic HTML and auto-playing videos ads are just the worst on top of not even being able to decide what I'm interested in.
So fuck you Google and all the other advertisers.
Soooo, for instance a site where some guy writes about how to fix a common transmission problem on 1996-2002 Honda Civics or something similar, isn't just made out of the goodness of his heart, because he wants to help other people?
Those propagandists are getting really crafty by offering actual helpful advice!
Eat the rich.
..."destroying the relationship" between advertisers and consumers,...
It actually said that - I had to read it again just to make sure. I'm afraid that horse bolted long ago, shortly after people realised that you can hardly move on the internet for insultingly stupid, wheedling, lying scumbags trying to take money off you for worthless crap. As soon as the first email was sent, we had SPAM; as soon as the first website came online, we had to fight our way through more advertising. Every time a new technology was intrduced, it turned out that the main, or even othe only, purpose was advertising and, more recently, collecting data about us. The relationsship between advertisers and consumers has only ever been the relationship between predator/parasite and prey; if we can destroy that relationship for ever, then the sooner the better. The real victims are not advertisers, but the consumers, who have to keep vigilant to fight off advertising and other scams, and the real businesses out there, who can't reach their customers, because the advertisers have so massively failed to keep their "business" clean.
From the users' point of view, this entire article is how FUCKING AWESOME Shine is. Previously, I had never heard of Shine, but here, Yahoo and Google are screaming that Shine is the best thing ever.
Shine must have paid these whores a lot for that.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
The ironic part is that - if anyone - Google has the most potential to become as close to a "good" advertiser that anyone could be. Realistically, I think that "good" advertising would
* Show stuff that people want, or would likely be interested in
* In moderation
* In in a fairly unobtrusive way
* For shit I want, not shit I bought
* In a safe and honest manner
Slashdot has, traditionally, done a fairly good job of the first one by me. Of course since their demographic is fairly well known (Geeks/Nerds), it's not that hard. I can't say I'm thrilled with some of the ad choices, especially videos (autoplay videos=spawn of hell), but overall most of them have been acceptable.
Now a lot of sites prefer to use pump out ads in a volume that simply makes them noise. Any of the general-consumption headliner sites are like this, ESPECIALLY for mobile (and yes, the slashdot mobile site is worse than desktop too) with short blurbs surrounded by or encasing ads... and a bunch of a "Next' buttons to drive clicks through the ads. No moderation there
Unobtrusive follows moderation, but it's also about placement and not volume. Again, I don't mind an ad for some cool geek stuff in the top-right corner, and it's even gotten some clicks or purchases from me in the past. But a page peppered with ads is like a lawn peppered with dog-sh*t, it might be a very nice lawn but all you notice is the sh*t.
Also, how f***ing hard is it to NOT try and sell me a pair of boots based on the fact that I went to Amazon/eBay and already bought... a pair of boots (ok, in my case it's probably a USB device or a video game, but hey). I don't need two pairs of the same damn boots. I bought it already. It's like buying a coke from a vending machine and then as you walk away drinking your coke, a giant billboard pops up and says, "Hey Phorm, you'd probably enjoy a nice cold coke". I mean, no sh*t, that's why I bought one and/or am drinking it right f***ing now.
Safe and honest. Well pretty much everyone has FAILED big time here. Google is definitely included:
* Ads faked to look like legit elements of a page (e.g. Download buttons).
* Ads containing drive-by malware.
* Ads linking to malware (usually with said fake button).
* Ads that go to redirect loops.
* Ads with a city Geotag (pretty much any "[your location] guy makes a $8,000/week from home and you can do" or "doctors hate [your location] mom who discovered this one great trick"). Anything with a geotag is likely trash
* Legit software bundled with stuff that makes your PC pop out ads (*cough* sourceforge *cough*, at least that's getting fixed)
* Legit software with pre-checked boxes for other shit (Flash/Java are big culprits here)
So why could Google do better? Well frankly, if their mining and profiling haven't f***ing figured what I want (or at least something close), then they have FAILED. Not stuff I already just bought. Not a fake button to malware on the page of something I actually wanted to download. Not a diet, a retirement kit, skin treatment, or feminine hygiene products. This isn't f***ing TV where you throw an ad for some dreck on near the Superbowl and hope that 5% of the millions of people watching happen to be in your target demographic (unless your selling natchos or something, then you're probably doing pretty good there). You CAN individualize the advertising experience and profit without massively pissing people off. You've GOT the bloody data. Use it properly! Frankly if I'm still seeing ads for f***ing Viagra or old-people's lube products, then whatever you've been doing obviously has nothing to do with ads and I can only assume that you're really collecting my data for the NSA or something.
Beyond that... Google has the power to run massive analytics, maps, and many more hugely intensive endeavours, but they can't weed out the malware and fake downloads buttons? Either they're failing because your software is built on a broken platform, or they're failing because they just don't f***ing try.
Oh
Privacy Badger will block the tracking, by learning which sites track you. It will block the cookies or entire sites outright if they're bad enough.
I already use Privacy Badger. And Adblock. And uBlock Origin. Plus some other counter measures.
But it will not act like an adblocker. So you'll see the ads, without being tracked.
I don't want to see the ads. My biggest problem with ad networks is the tracking but it's not my only problem with them. They slow things down. They are malware vectors. If I don't allow tracking the ads will have even less relevance to me and I don't want to be tracked. Etc. Even without cookies there are other means of being tracked, some clever and others not so much. Short version is that there is no real upside for me because I cannot trust the advertisers to behave themselves.
You guys do realize that Shine is not an end-user ad-blocker? That it's something ISPs run so they can decide what content is approved and what should be blocked? In other words, something that violates any sensible net-neutrality principles?
No - if you ad block, then there might be a few bites that were included in web pages that referenced the ads, but they weren't loaded. In the case of the ad sponsored version of games for smartphones, as far as I know, you can't block them. In any event, the point is not to block them - why should you be entitled to a "free" game? The point is that, at least a few years ago, when bandwidth was more expensive and people weren't getting such huge monthly buckets of data, if you played a game a lot, it was cheaper to pay the one or two dollars for the game, because at some point you were paying more than that for bandwidth for the ads.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
...However, Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) and many, many, other talented artists, photographers, musicians, and writers
If you define "many many" as meaning "very few".
Basically, you're saying "give away your work on the internet, and if people like it enough maybe they'll buy t-shirts." Yeah, right.
(by the way, you seem unaware of it, but Scott Adams is mostly famous because his strip is syndicated in 2,000 newspapers, not because of his internet presence. Slashdot readers are probably unaware of this, but actual physical newspapers still exist.)
ThinkGeek was sold to Gamestop.
We all know advertisers pay sites to display ads. When are they going to pay me to look at their ads?
For my attention? - for bandwidth I have to pay for? - for the wasted time as idiotic unwanted content slows everything down?
Pay me!
Don't step on the baby.
What "relationship"?
Back during the first huge 'Net scam, Cantor & Siegel, they "defended" themselves by, among other things, asserting that there was no "community", it was all one big advertising venue.
Hey, guy, you want a "relationship"? Look me up, and I'll shove your head through a wall, and while you're in there, I'll take your wallet. That is what you think of as a "relationship", right? You show it to us, and we have to buy it, never mind whether we want it or not?
mark
Boo Fucking Hooo
Paul E. Bahre
I don't like deceivers. When fake download buttons and drive by malvertising become prevalent, they are no longer advertisers they are deceivers or worse outright thieves. The industry has now shown that they incapable of regulating themselves and their response is to pull the little girl shaming tactics. Cry me a river. We are not blind to their manipulative tactics.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Replace "advertisers" by "rapists" and "consumers" by "victims" or "bystanders" (your choice).
That's how I understand the article.
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
I have been a television view, radio listener and newspaper/magazine reader for more than 60 years, and a Internet user since before the World Wide Web existed. Hell yes--I use AdBlock+ on Firefox, and I will continue to do so! The advertising industry is second only to politics as a corrupting industry; they try to con people into buying things they don't want with money they don't have. To hell with advertising!
Okay, since there appears to be goodwill going on here, I'm unblocking. Thank you.
Just another day in Paradise
Thanks!
I don't use ad-blocker software (but seriously consider it at least 3 times a week!) I'm not opposed to ads - content has to be paid for. However, most of the current model is badly broken. What works for me: static ads (like we saw back in the days of print), with links. I click links on static ads several times a day and occasionally purchase. However, the rest of the current on-line advertising model is bad, and often dangerous. Pop-ups are annoying, intrusive and a waste of time and bandwidth. I personally hate animated, noisy and almost impossible to close ads for stuff (even stuff I'm looking to buy), blocking the content I was looking for. When it comes time to buy something, I avoid (if possible) any company I saw a pop-up for. Dealing with infected ads, click and bait, false-flag, spam, and an endless stream of 'you looked at this so you should be interested in" along with 'you bought this, buy it again' (thanks a lot Google, Amazon and others) should not be part of the cost of being connected. I will pay for content, if quality and reasonably priced. Too many content providers fail that test. For example: newspapers and magazines usually charge as much, or even more, than their print subscription prices for electronic. The best price for an electronic subscription for print is to wait for a good deal on the dead tree version, as the electronic is usually included. Unfortunately, paying for content does not guarantee no third-party pops-ups! Had discussions with a few publishers about the insanity of such a pricing structure. They claimed to be sympathetic, but, no change to policy. Again, we need to pay for content, but, we don't deserve or need the garbage we are getting today.
Dear Advertisers, I'm so sorry your tracking cookies aren't able to glean more data from me and my network so you can invade the privacy of me and my family more. My heart aches for you. I'm sorry your profits are down from 1.5 billion to 1.48 billion. Hard times, guys, but you'll get through. Oh yeah, tell those Syrian kids that they just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Since most of them can't even afford food, they don't have much time to worry about adblock, so you should be able to get through to them, they'll be alright soon enough.
It's ironic that one of the biggest bitches people had about Flash was THE POPUPS, THE ADS!!! FUCKING FLASH!!!!! IF ONLY IT WEREN'T FOR FLASH WE WOULD HAVE THIS FUCKING PROBLEM!!!! Oh well. Sorry guys, it wasn't Flash after all. NOW IT's FUCKING JAVASCRIPT!!!! KILL IT!!!! IT'S EVIL!!!!
The problem with subscription services is that they don't scale.
That's demonstrably not true as long as you can get to a minimum viable number of subscribers. Not necessarily easy but it's certainly scalable. Slashdot's costs are a good approximation of fixed so as long as the subscription fee X number of subscribers is sufficiently large they will be fine. Might not be the next Google but it can be a solidly profitable little business. Magazines take the model of charging low subscription fees and make their real money on advertising. I question that model in the face of ad blocking software.
There are sites that I frequent, and in some cases pay money to in order to do so. In these cases, I'm willing to pay enough money that the site can make a profit after transaction fees. There's a lot of other sites that I like to use once in a while, or when Google sends me there, and while I'd be willing to pay them a very small amount of money there's no practical way to do it.
You're talking about scaling down transaction size but I don't think that's really a relevant concern for Slashdot. They aren't likely to do anything involving micro-transactions.
I'm seeing two ads at the top of the page, both of which are relevant to my interests - guns and hiking gear.
... but still, this gets my nod of approval (and a bit of unease because of how accurate it is).
So, thumbs up from this Slashdot user, and I think I'll keep the exclusion.
Personally, I would feel less like a parasite-ridden host and more like a respected human being if I was able to know more about how it's done. I feel I have the right to know: 1. who is collecting my personal browsing patterns and 2. how the ads are selected.
I am curious if many others on Slashdot feel the same way. Can I suggest a poll on this topic?
Oh, never existed: the advertiser has no contract with the user using Shine.
No contract, no tort interference.
The one between the advertiser and ad server as well as tye website and ad server Shine and the ISP are the thurd parties interfering with the contracts.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I cancelled cable and only subscribe to streaming services that don't have ads (e.g. Netflix, Amazon)
Which don't carry live news and political commentary or live sports.
or I buy DVDs outright (for the cost that I save in cable fees, I can buy at least one disk a week and still come out ahead).
Then you have to violate anti-circumvention law (17 USC 1201 and foreign counterparts) to skip the forced previews.
500+ posts about ad-blocking software and policies and not one APK post.
Aaah, the blessed quiet. Thank you whiplash.
Too bad it's windows only. :\
Thanks for the support. I appreciate it
Thanks. We will only improve it from here
True, but that would still require me to have easy access to a Windows machine, which I don't when I'm not at work. I avoid Windows where at all possible.
Interesting! I just took a look at the Embarcadero page, and Delphi does look pretty awesome.
Unfortunately, I then went to their online store, looked at their prices, and damn near shit myself. I'll definitely give FreePascal a look though! Thanks for the tip!
When the ad's go back to editorial approved ad's hosted and run by the companies providing the content
Then you'll start seeing a lot more "inventory" (ad spaces) occupied by "Your ad here" ads, followed by sites going out of business when not enough would-be advertisers click through. As I understand it, the major brands prefer to deal with established ad networks rather than tiny sites that can't be trusted not to inflate the reach (view and click) statistics that are provided to advertisers. So how should a site operator get advertisers to actually fill out the form to place an ad?
I'm not a hunter, actually. But when I hike somewhere that is 50 miles away from the nearest human settlement, and where I have two miles of the trail all to myself, I prefer to do so with a bear spray and a .357 revolver. Because the wildlife isn't fond of you sometimes. That's why they have claws and teeth. And I don't, because my species have sacrificed that for the sake of technological process - and so I use the products of said progress as a substitute when I'm in an environment where they might be needed.
But feel free to keep stereotyping. You forgot to speculate on which state I live in, what my religion is, whom I vote for, and which organizations I am a member of, so there's plenty more to cover.
Oh, and that whole "peaceful serene nature" thing is largely urban hippie bullshit, anyway. Go look at your local zoo and watch them feed the cougars. Then realize that the same thing is what's happening every day in "peaceful serene nature", except they chase down and kill the prey first, so it's a lot messier. Nature is majestic and beautiful, yes, and as such, deserves respect. And misrepresenting it is disrespecting it.
APK, get back to me when a host file solution can block the ads that you post on Slashdot without blocking the rest of Slashdot. Browser extensions can remove those from the DOM, a host file can't. Until then, your claim about blocking all ads is demonstrably false, ironically disproven by your own ads.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
If I am forced to turn ad blocking off I get ads for stuff I already own or stuff I would never buy or cannot afford. With all the data collected from who knows where the advertisers should know that I am in for inexpensive beer, inexpensive HDDs and SSDs, and looking for flights to Europe that do not cost a month's salary. If you blast me with ads at least make them useful. Stop the carpet bombing of ads which is proven not to work. And no, not looking for a new carpet.
Here's what you said:
As it actually BLOCKS ALL ADS
Can it block your ads? No, it can't. Therefore, your claim is false. It's another in the long line of APK lies and half-truths.
I see you're still posting as other people, so you're still the same old lying spamming APK. No one should believe any of your claims when you can't even be honest with people here by identifying yourself. You know all of the posts that I make, because I put my username on them due to the fact that I'm logged in, but you're still trying to lie to everyone here by representing yourself as someone else posting on your behalf. It's pathetic. You're still a liar, because that's just "how you roll". On that other thread you linked to, Lotana was correct: you have no goodwill here. Do not confuse a few people who use your software with goodwill, it's not nearly the same. There are a few people on Slashdot who are happy to install the software of a lying spammer, just like there are plenty of old people who click links in spam email. Those are your users. It's nothing to be proud of, but you still quote those people to try and show that you have some sort of following here. You don't, people don't like you here. For every 1 of those people that you quote saying that they use your software, there are thousands more who will never install it just because of the fact that you are a lying spammer. That's about the same success rate as any other lowlife spammer, send out 1000 spam emails and maybe you'll get a bite or two, that's what they live off and that's what you live off also. So go ahead, call out the handful of people among the millions of Slashdot users who say something good about your software, because that's all you have left. You have no goodwill here, and both the management and other users want you to leave. But, just like genital herpes, here you are. You are the herpes of the internet, APK.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Provide enough value I'm willing to pay for it directly. I do that with several websites I frequent.
Say you visit 100 websites in a month, and on many of them, you view one or two pages. How willing are you to pay $20 for a year's subscription to view only one or two pages?
If you do have a monopoly I am not likely to buy your product at all because of the lack of competition.
Say your local power company places public service announcements about avoiding power lines or advertises a heat pump, or your local high-speed Internet monopoly advertises about upgrading Internet speed or bundling the same company's land line or pay TV. Is that an excuse to, say, leave Slashdot and join the Amish?
APK, seriously, what is the point of making that post in the third person? Is there any purpose at all? You just want to point out again that you have multiple personalities? Is there any point?
whipslash said apk's free to post just not as much on his program but he never told apk to leave or stated he wants him to.
So saying "APK's days are numbered" means that he wants you to stick around for a while? When he implements filters to stop your incessant advertising, and you respond by personally trolling him, you're trying to make friends? You think people enjoy seeing that shit from you? You think that anyone at all sees that kind of embarrassing behavior from you and thinks "wow, I hope I get to see more of that"?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Then you have to violate anti-circumvention law (17 USC 1201 and foreign counterparts)
Only if i live under jurisdiction of that law. [...] In my country I ma allowed
First, where do you live that has not implemented the WIPO Copyright Treaty? Second, what should the average Slashdot user in the United States do to improve his own lot, especially when up against the power of DisneyPAC?
If he tells you that he doesn't want you to post any more, would you leave? I seriously doubt you would. You already claimed once that you were finished posting, but like a disease, here you are again.
And this topic is about ad-blocking. You're a spammer, so this is on topic.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Provide enough value I'm willing to pay for it directly.
That'd be fine if we had micropayments. But with the per-transaction fees of the payment processors we have right now, both credit cards and Bitcoin, it would more likely end up the case that each site would want a separate $10 per month or $20 per year subscription to the whole site in order to read past the abstract of even a single page. That'd make it often cost-prohibitive to search for multiple opinions about a particular topic, as reading all of the top ten results from a search engine would require a year's subscription to each of ten sites.
Would you find it a substantial loss if more than 90 percent of the sites you visited in a typical week chose not to serve you the content until you pony up $20 for a year's subscription?
That sounds suspiciously like "not my problem".
You posted this comment to Slashdot. Slashdot is ad-supported. Without ads, Slashdot would not have the money to continue taking posts such as yours. Therefore it is your problem. Or would you prefer that Slashdot instead be paywalled?
Answer the question, APK. If the management of the site tells you that they don't want you here, are you going to leave? I know the answer to that question, I just want you to say it.
The fact is that the management does in fact want you to stop posting your spam and your trolling bullshit, which is why they are implementing filters specifically to stop your posts, but that doesn't mean you're going to stop. You are generally unliked enough around here that people consistently mod your posts down (and, sorry, trotting out a few unlinked quotes of anonymous people saying "you know, his software really doesn't suck all that much" is not evidence that you are liked). You're not honorable enough to figure out when you're not wanted and move on, no, like a 13 year old kid you take it as a challenge and insist on some pissing contest. It's pathetic man, you seriously need to grow up and find a better way to spend your time. How about devoting your energy to finding someone who's going to love you for the next few decades? You think a better use of your time is to just kind of irritate and annoy people who don't really want you around? Have a little self-respect. Look at you, you are reduced to posting in a third-person voice still trying to insist that you've won something. PA-THE-TIC
You've already said you're done posting here. At least try to live up to your word on one goddamn thing.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
20% is forums like Something Awful and Slashdot which would effectively function fine as free newsgroups.
Who would sponsor the forum's NNTP server now that most home ISPs no longer provide Usenet access as a standard feature? And how could Slash-style crowd moderation be implemented on top of NNTP?
20% is sports scores/gambling stuff which would be online regardless of ads. The gambling sites have a real product to sell, and the sports scores sites exist to promote a real physical product.
Not being a user of either sort of site (nor pornography for that matter), all I can do is guess: Gambling sites are illegal in most of Slashdot's home country, and sites like DraftKings are specifically targeted. Sports score sites operated by cable television networks, such as CNN- and TBS-affiliated SI.com, might go paywalled to encourage users to subscribe to cable television. Sports score sites operated by leagues might go paywalled to encourage users to attend games in person or subscribe to the league's out-of-market cable package.
So yeah, I think if the news sites did real hard hitting journalism, I'd throw them my $20 for good reading. The rest pays for itself.
Until you discover that the articles you want to read are scattered across a dozen sites. Then it balloons from $20 to $240.
The guy who refuses to even post as himself, and instead tries to act like someone else supporting him, is telling me that I lose. That is funny as hell.
Learn how to read APK, this is not speaking in absolutes:
You are generally unliked enough around here
I phrased it that way for a reason. Now live up to your word and go away.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
No, "many" do not support or like you. You are able to write a handful of quotes out of a userbase of 4.5 million plus, that is not "many". That is "a few". Very few. "Many" people want you to take your spam and shove it up your ass, that's the difference between "many" and "a few". "A few" people still find it amusing that you post as a third party. "Many" people think you're pathetic. Are you understanding the difference?
If you want to prove me wrong, then put a poll on Slashdot asking what people think about you and your posts. I'll wait to watch it appear so that you can show me how much I fail. Continuing to link to a post where you trot out "a few" people saying something vaguely non-negative about you continues to be pathetic, and you are not proving me wrong in any way by doing that. That post you continue to link to, which you think proves some point of yours, is not evidence of anything, is not embarrassing for me or anything like that, it does not prove me wrong on anything that I've said (including the quote from me you included), and only shows how pathetic you actually are. You've got 4.5 million people here and you can produce 8 quotes of people saying something that is not completely negative about either your software or using hosts files in general. Yeah, some of those people are just saying the equivalent of "hosts files work", which I've never even argued against, but you're trying to use it as evidence that I'm wrong. You're an idiot, APK, admit it. Stop with the pathetic third party posting, it's embarrassing for you at this point. Hopefully at least one of your personalities can realize that and try to spread that information around the hive in your mind. Your "many" personalities are apparently completely unaware of how pathetic you look to everyone else when you keep up this stupid charade, as if any AC is watching this story from 2 weeks ago. I suspect you might be aware a little bit, which is why you refuse to post as yourself (or did those filters catch up to you?), so take a hint, live up to your word, and go away.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black