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Newspapers Try To Stop Ad-blocking Browser Brave From 'Stealing Content'
New reader DarkLordBelial writes: The newspaper Association of America (NAA) has sent a letter to Brave Software, makers of the Brave browser, detailing how little they think of Brave's proposed solution. In the letter, NAA says Brave Software "should be viewed as illegal and deceptive by the courts." The letter suggests that replacing adverts with their own selected ads is no different to republishing the content and therefore copyright infringement. In response, Brave Software says all such assertions are false and that the NAA has misunderstood their business model. Founded by Mozilla's co-founder, Brave pays its users in bitcoin to watch ads. According to the company's plan, a website gets 55 percent of the money, whereas rest is distributed among users and Brave.
How about an add blocker with the following properties... 1: It only accepts adds on the right ( or left, user selectable ) margin, and 2: it only accepts adds up to a user selectable total size. A web site could send down 5 small adds or one big add or get blocked part way through a really big add. This would give the advertisers an incentive to create less irritating and smaller adds and the web site could charge more for being one of the first adds to be sent to the user.
NAA says Brave Software "should be viewed as illegal and deceptive by the courts."
Lol, wat?
Seriously, is this grasping at imaginary straws, or what? Let's be clear here: what I do with MY browser on MY internet connection is MY business, not yours. If I choose not to display certain content or (GASP) swap it for other content, that's MY choice and is not reason to try and drag anyone into court.
Then:
Users: hey can you give us less intrusive and annoying ads
Advertisers: screw you here is your ad
Now:
Advertisers: hey please don't block our ads thanks
Users: screw you
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Secondly: We really don't want your shitty content that much, either.
Third: You're like dinosaurs stuck in a tarpit; all these wailings, whingings, and whinings about your 'ad revenue' and how us ad-blocker users are 'stealing your content' is just your death-song.
Do you want to survive? Stop saturating us with shitty ads. Get a sense of scale and apropriateness. We're not going to pay attention to your ads anyway, but at least we won't block them if they're not playing video, flashing, doing shitty animations, popping up in our faces, or otherwise being annoying to the point where we want to punch the screen.
Also, while I've got your attention: Stop tracking us. We hate that shit. It's at least half the reason we block your shitty ads in the first place.
Get correct, or get extinct. Choice is yours.
Sincerely,
The Internet
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I agree, and adblockers are necessary to avoid my bandwidth being stolen by ads and the risk of malicious ads intruding on my computer.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else.
They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. FUCK THAT. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe then any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.
-- Banksy
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Forbes straight up admits that it treats Firefox's "Open Link in New Private Window" as an ad blocker. Because Forbes doesn't do privacy, I don't do Forbes.