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Adblock Plus Comes (Somewhat) Clean About How Acceptable Ads Work (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson writes: The Acceptable Ads program from Adblock Plus has proven slightly controversial. The company behind the ad blocking tool, Eyeo, has already revealed a little about how it makes money from the program - despite the fact that no money changes hands in most whitelisting cases - and today it has opened up further about how is makes its money.
Whilst recognizing that people do want to block ads, Eyeo is also aware that sites do need to benefit from ad revenue - hence Acceptable Ads, non-intrusive ads that it is hoped are less irritating and therefore easier to stomach. But Eyeo itself also wants to make money. How does it decide which company to charge to Acceptable Ads whitelisting, and which to charge? If you're expecting full transparency, you might be disappointed, but we are given a glimpse into how the financial side of things works.
Whilst recognizing that people do want to block ads, Eyeo is also aware that sites do need to benefit from ad revenue - hence Acceptable Ads, non-intrusive ads that it is hoped are less irritating and therefore easier to stomach. But Eyeo itself also wants to make money. How does it decide which company to charge to Acceptable Ads whitelisting, and which to charge? If you're expecting full transparency, you might be disappointed, but we are given a glimpse into how the financial side of things works.
It's colored differently and has an 'ad' flag.... At any rate the "Acceptable Ad" thing just sounds too much like the kind of stuff Yelp is accused of, which sounds like what the Mafioso used to do... I know it's popular to hate on advertisers but I'm kinda with them on this. You know. Nice web site ya got heres. Be a shame if anything happened to it...
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Let's chat about this after ad revenue has dropped far enough for the advertising networks to fully understand how much our satisfaction is a factor in their success.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Any entity that implements an acceptable advertising policy as is specified on the Adblock Plus web site can request to get added to the Adblock Plus white list. The caveat is that if you are a large commercial entity not only do you have to follow the acceptable adds policy, but you also have to pay for the privilege. Paying alone is not sufficient to get white listed if your a large company. Smaller companies and projects don't have to pay to get white listed- they merely need to comply with the acceptable adds policy and request to get white listed.
This is actually the free market at work here and a totally reason solution. There are some companies that may choose not to pay up and some may even block Adblock Plus users in turn. That is the choice of these web sites and it's my choice whether or not I want to utilize these sites on those terms. Adblock Plus gives me the choice to decline to utilize web sites with poor privacy, security, and add policies. I'll continue to decline to utilize sites that implement a policy of blocking Adblock Plus users rather than implement a reasonable adds policy.
I am also an advertiser on the Linux Mint web site. I own a small company that pays Linux Mint directly to have an advertisement on the site. I also use Adblock Plus. I wish Clem (lead developer) would implement the acceptable adds policy as 60% of the visitors don't see our advertisement. I *still* support Adblock's policy and have encouraged Clem numerous times to stop with the flashy advertising so that we can request to have the site white listed. Unfortunately due to one advertiser we lose 60% of the eyeballs visiting the site. I have recently cancelled our advertising for other reasons, but pointed out this issue, alongside a note saying we'd probably return and that the cancellation (many years we've advertised with them) had nothing to do with this. None-the-less I encouraged him to implement the policy.
I stuck with ABP for years - it had always worked well for me so why change? It was only when they started with this white-listing that I looked around for an alternative. uBlock has worked well ever since.
We're now getting into a war similar to the spam war. The advertisers are going to shout louder and louder. The technical experts are going to block harder and harder. We're already at the stage of having adblock-block-blockers. The advertisers will soon try to get laws to make these illegal, if they haven't already. This will get nasty for the normal users and cause a collapse similar to the collapse of News Net. We will be able to use the internet but new users will be stuck on particular closed sites like Facebook.
The path out of here needs someone independent of the advertisers to agree on criteria for safe, accetpable, reasonable advertising (no tracking, no popping up, no taking over the whole page, no active elements). It can't be done by people like the IAB or government advertising agencies who are in the pockets of the worst elements of the advertising industry. It won't work to completely ban advertising except, possibly, by having your teleco provide control it which is almost more scary.
Right now Eyeo's Acceptable Advertising program seems to be the only game in town. Google and the new ad replacing browser are the alternatives. It needs our support until something better comes along.
I leave the Slashdot 'Disable Advertising' box unchecked. Becuase I am not bothered by the ads, and maybe now and then something might catch my eye, and I'll give it a click....supporting Slashdot as I do. Bills have to be paid after all. However, if the ads were in the face 'YOUR PC IS AT RISK FROM VIRUS' etc, then this is unacceptable..... This is what AdBlock is for, to get rid of these crappy fear-ware ads. I honestly don't mind seeing ads that don't get in my face.
If it doesn't block all the ads, it's not an ad blocker. It's just an ad filter. That's not what I want.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
How in shit did you get modded up for your bitchwhining? You can turn off acceptable ads with one checkbox which is respected by the addon. It's not broken, you just don't know how to use it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"