Salon Magazine Mines Monero On Your Computer If You Use an Ad Blocker (bbc.com)

dryriver shares a report from BBC: News organizations have tried many novel ways to make readers pay -- but this idea is possibly the most audacious yet. If a reader chooses to block its advertising, U.S. publication Salon will use that person's computer to mine for Monero, a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin. Creating new tokens of a cryptocurrency typically requires complex calculations that use up a lot of computing power. Salon told readers: "We intend to use a small percentage of your spare processing power to contribute to the advancement of technological discovery, evolution and innovation." The site is making use of CoinHive, a controversial mining tool that was recently used in an attack involving government websites in the UK, U.S. and elsewhere. However, unlike that incident, where hackers took control of visitors' computers to mine cryptocurrency, Salon notifies users and requires them to agree before the tool begins mining.

Comments

Yet another terrible financial model

[shanen]

Crypto-currency is just a gambling scam. I certainly regard it as a good reason to avoid any website, and they didn't need the bad press.

So let me focus on the solution I keep advocating: SELL ME THE SOLUTIONS. I'm sick and tired of all the problems. I want to do something to help SOLVE the problems.

The articles or videos about various problems should be followed by links to projects related to solutions for those problems. The journalism part could be supported directly with internal projects, or via tithes on the external projects.

AtAJG, DAUPR.

Re:And they prove it

[Kokuyo]

News outlets have just no grasp of the reality of internet existing.

Seriously, I wanted to have some better news sources than the free papers they keep on train stations. So I paid over 200 bucks for a subscription, digital mind you, to Neue Zuercher Zeitung.

They still showed me ads and paid content even when logged in. My subscription has now run out. I see no difference in the content.

I mean what the hell?

This is sort of fair actually.

[Qbertino]

Go ahead, mine something on my box. If the code is sandboxed - as should be the case with JS - and it doesn't slow to a grinding halt, I'm actually ok with that. But don't show me you annoying ads!

In fact, make it the default! And give me the option to choose ads over mining. That would actually be a huge improvement IMHO. No joke.

Re:This is sort of fair actually.

[Freischutz]

Go ahead, mine something on my box. If the code is sandboxed - as should be the case with JS - and it doesn't slow to a grinding halt, I'm actually ok with that. But don't show me you annoying ads!

In fact, make it the default! And give me the option to choose ads over mining. That would actually be a huge improvement IMHO. No joke.

I’d have to agree with that and if people don’t want ads and they won’t pay for a subscription I’m OK with mining as long as they don’t use too many resources and don’t do anything malicious. It costs money to run a paper and no amount of hysterical shrieking from people who feel entitled to get everything for free is going to change that.

Re:And they prove it

[JaredOfEuropa]

I love how advertising agencies talk about "improving the reader experience" and "serve ads that are relevant to you", yet the result inavriably seems to be ads that are harder to ignore and annoy the reader to the point where they will leave the site.

Dear advertisers: if you are serious about improving the reader experience, think about how your ad impresses on a reader who is not interested in whatever it is you're selling. Good ads provide info to people who are interested in your products, entice people who might be interested, and are easily ignored by people who have no interest. Of course many advertisers seem to think that there is no such thing as bad publicity, and believe that the population of people who are not and will never be interested in the product is zero. The result of that thinking is the immense popularity of ad blockers, and declining readership of sites who successfully lock out people using such blockers. If people go out of their way to avoid looking at your ad, that should be telling you something...

Re: Wannabet!

[fisted]

WHAT? I COULDN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE NOISE OF MY CPU, CASE AND PSU FANS!

Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

BUT I MEAN TO BE YELLING

Re:I use a privacy plugin, not an ad-blocker

[mentil]

Also if you use Firefox, turn first-party cookie isolation on (about:config->privacy.firstparty.isolate)
I've noticed no problems on any of the sites I use.

Re:And they prove it

[Cederic]

Advertising is about selling you shit you don't need. Selling you shit you do need is easy

I need toilet paper. Advertising has raised my awareness of the brands available and the attributes of their product. It does influence my purchasing decision, thus advertising is helping sell something I do need, disproving your first point.

So someone trying to sell me shit that I need without advertising is not succeeding, thus disproving your second point.

Marketing is not sales.

"failed"?

[DogDude]

"failed"? You sound like the Shithole in Chief. Calling a popular comedian with a their own HBO show as a "failure" really just tells me that you, in fact, are an actual failure, just like the Orange Asshole.

Re:And they prove it

[ArchieBunker]

I used to subscribe to the paper version of Wired and let my subscription lapse. They sent me to a collection agency for failure to renew a $12 subscription! How is not renewing a subscription the same as buying something and not paying for it?