Does Adblock Violate A Social Contract? 1043
almondjoy writes "Newsforge is currently running a story on Firefox extensions where the author states the following regarding use of the AdBlock extension: 'If you use this tool ... there are those who would assert you are not holding up your end of a 'social contract' between yourself and the Web site that you are browsing' Would you be volating a social contract hitting the 30sec skip button on Tivo? Or putting a strip of paper across the bottom of our TV screen to block out those super annoying scrolling banners? I have found that using the combination of AdBlock and FlashBlock extensions in Firefox has greatly enhanced my browsing experience. Has acceptance of web sites crammed with advertising content become part of my social contract with society?"
OH YEAH? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why don't all the website owners that feel cheated by those who use Adblock put a clear, visible banner that says it's illegal to view this website with advertising stripped off?
As soon as I see one of those, I will put their hostname in the proxy's blacklist forever. Problem solved.
If the webmasters think they can force people to read their website in one particular way that's most benefitting to them, I'll be among the ones glad to remind the webmasters that I, too, have a choice of throwing their website into a blacklist and advise other people on not using it.
I don't care if it violates any social contract. I don't even agree that there is any contract. As long as the website is
publically available, I can do whatever the fuck I please to its contents on my own machine. The website owners should shut the fuck up and be grateful I spared a minute of my time to even pay attention to their little shitty website, and sure as hell I don't feel indebted to them for anything. Unless they're paying ME to have it their way, I'm going to strip their ads, block their cookies, apply my stylesheets to make their shit readable, and if they're uncomfortable with that, why don't they just let me know so that I can continue ignoring them some more and care even less?
If they feel deprived of revenue, perhaps they should reconsider the field of businness they're in, because I'm most certainly not here to pay their bills.
So here's how Internet works: when you put something into a place where everyone can have a copy, it's none of your business what people do with their copies. For those of you cretins who still have the brick-and-mortar mentality, I dont owe you anything at all and you should thank me for even considering your shitty website.
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
popup blockers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Until websites trying to enforce ad-views, it won't matter.
Any website who tries to aggressively force ad-views will be left alone in the dust, so I don't think it's much of a problem
More like free markets... (Score:2, Interesting)
I used to use adblock (Score:3, Interesting)
My blocking philosophy (Score:2, Interesting)
popup, popunder: My popup blocker handles these. It's my broswer and desktop. You don't get to pick what's displayed, I do.
audio, animated, layer ads: These are distractions for me. I simply can't read a web page with an animated ad moving around off to the side, or wedged into the article, or some sliding ad box covering the text. I can usually tune my junkbuster file to get all of these.
IntelliTxt: This is not only annoying, it's almost criminally wasteful of bandwidth. I block this with junkbuster, so the requests to the IntelliTxt servers never happen.
Interstitals: Most sites are designed such that I get a JunkBuster display before moving to the main content. Sites that don't work that way, I simply ignore.
Basically, if I find something annoying enough, I block it. I won't spend more than a minute or so setting up my blocks, though. If it takes longer than that, I just won't go to that site anymore. There's too much content available from too many sources for any one site to command my attention.
Adblock feature request !? (Score:1, Interesting)
But, what if (conigurable of course) adblock would do:
1) hide/remove those annoying things
2) "click" on every one, as if I would click on it
3) throw away what those "clicks" would produce.
This would
a) fullfill this "social contract" (means : clicked on ads)
b) keep away the ads from my eyes
c) produce a bunch of bandwitdh (social contract to the provider)
point a) + c) has to step back if surfing via low bandwith (when configured the "click on everything" (uf
just my 2ç
Re:Doesn't matter, Adblock is dying (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Balderdash, Codswallop, etc. etc. (Score:4, Interesting)
Cooperation and trust are used for all those thousands of little "transactions" we perform every day with the people around us and for the sake of efficiency and because the stakes are rarely high we almost never break out formal contracts.
You don't have to be a cooperative or trustworthy person, but society runs a lot smoother when the majority of people exhibit these characteristics.
Re:Hard to justify (Score:3, Interesting)
It's entirely possible for websites to not serve up content unless you've viewed ads. The webserver serves up a page along with ads. If your ad blocker isn't loading the ads, the next page will say "Hey, here's some in-your-face ads since you won't view the ones we show you." Then, of course, your ad blocker will download the ads in the background but just not display them. Eventually, the advertising arms race gets to the point where the site has done all it can do technically and it doesn't know if you actually are seeing the ads or if they're invisible. When it gets there, I don't think the site cares one way or the other. It still counts as an impression, only their click-through rates suffer. Maybe, after time, the ad blocker will simulate click-throughs as well and then everybody but the advertisers will be happy. So it'll get to the point where you drink a refreshing Sprite because the advertisements have to be embedded directly in the content you're viewing on Amazon.com, the world's greatest bookstore, thereby ruining the notion of free websites.
Re:Annoying People != $$$ (Score:5, Interesting)
But of course the advertisers target the averages, so indeed, while you may take the time and download and install the blocker the average visitor will not do that. The big question then is "what is the chance that the average user/consumer will be able to block the ad?" I think it is called something like "reachability" in marketing.
Imagine that Microsoft will issue an autoamtic upgrade to its its next browser with the ad-blocking options and all turned "on". That would be a huge problem because now you have the average consumer that is not reachable anymore by traditional web marketing channel. Then MS can expect a large law suit filed by all the adevertisers since it made its target audience un-reachable. Then Microsoft will agree to get paid by the advertisers to disable their company from the list of "banned" ad sites, or it might argue that it was a user request and if the users pay for the product they should get what they want. So, the corollary is that ... lawers make a lot of money.
Re:Annoying People != $$$ (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the advertising agencies I've worked with beleive that banner ads and intrusive advertising simply do not work. The craze over exposure (how many eyeballs can I get in front of, regardless of the experience) has been replaced with an emphasis on targetted and uesful advertising.
However, it is the companies doing the advertising themselves that are really keeping these ads going. I've heard multiple stories of product managers demanding obtrusive ads. A rather common quote is something along the lines of "If I'm paying for it, I expect people to see it". There is still a strong belief by non-experts (and a very natural one if you think about it) that advertising is all about volume (how many 'views') as opposed to the quality of the ad itself.
It's fascinating stuff really.
Re:Pure BS (Score:2, Interesting)
I think advertising - and modern business in general - creates a new social contract.
I bought some stuff from a friend. I offered him a certain amount of cash. I knew he would accept less, and I was willing to pay more, but I gave him a fair price. This was a social relationship between friends. It was a social contract that I'd give him a fair price, and he'd accept it.
If I was a business, I'd have tried to maximise my profit. He would have tried to maximise his profits, I would have tried to minimise my cost. The simplest way to do this would be to haggle. It's still a fair system, and the end result will be about the same, but there's no longer a social contract. It's a business relationship where we both try to get the best for ourselves.
Re:Social Contract in the real world (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly.
How sad is this ? When a very, very tiny (insignificant in terms of numbers) part of the internet population use a tool to get rid of advertisment and corporate junk, big words like "breaking social contract" are written... but when advertisers shove their corporate propaganda on a massive scale in schools... everything is ok, it's just business as usual.... How nice !
Re:Annoying People != $$$ (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not a fault or evilness on the side of ablock author (or authors of many other ad filtering products). It's the fault of some marketers who could not, and still don't, understand that above certain level advertising becomes too much of a distraction. People are not surfing to see ads. If ads distract to much from the content, things happen. Things like ad blocking, ad server blocklists, etc...
Overzealous marketers overdid it, exactly the same way it happened with email and spam and now every marketing effort is hit by a backlash. What can I say... They wanted war, they got war! Too bad some decent sites will die as a collateral damage.
Re:Balderdash, Codswallop, etc. etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's clear that you are correct, and that social contracts are necesarry and desirable.
However I don't see how that immedately translates to advertisers. How am I obligated to put money in their pockets?
Re:Yes, it does (Score:3, Interesting)
No, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. If this were true, then I shouldn't be watching UHF television if I walk to the bathroom during each and every five minute commercial break (that comes up every five minutes), and that simly is not the case.
Websites (and TV shows etc) are supported by ad revenue, but they are paid for (and expected to be paid for) by the owner, not the consumer. The ad revenue assists in paying for their website, but is NOT anything that is gauranteed, nor is it expected that a user sit there and start at it (then purchase something to make it work).
People bypassing these are excercising their individual right to not purchase something.
Your argument is like saying we all shouldn't enter a store without purchasing anything we look at, as "browsing" violates the store's social contract to sell us crap.
The second I have to sit in the sanctity of my own home and listen to a door-to-door salesman because it is "his right" to hock is crap at me is the day I purchase a shotgun.
Re:Yes, it does (Score:2, Interesting)
Another part of our law is called Contact law, which states that no mutual obligations can exist between two people without being formed explicitly (written or verbal). I have made no such arrangements with any websites I visit.
I did not sign a document or even click an "I Agree" button to terms of service obligating me to look at their advertisements in exchange for their content. Therefore, it is my right and privilege not to look at their advertising; yes, I can modify their website in any way before viewing it. No laws or contracts prevent me from doing otherwise.
If website authors began switching to such systems, where users must agree to Terms of Service in order to view the site (which includes agreeing to download advertisements), I would sympathize with you. But that is not the situation. I am free to do what I want.
Re:Hard to justify (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes, it does (Score:3, Interesting)
The page authors chose to put those ads there.
Good for them. And I choose not to view them. Isn't choice fun?
Reading the content of a web page is not a right, it is a privilege afforded to you by the website's author
Yes. And the author afforded me that privilege by placing the site on a publicly available server. The author could have set up a subscription system, but chose not to. Instead, he's hoping that I will view the ads, but that hope imposes no obligation on me whatsoever. It's the same business model as a store selling a specific product as a loss leader to get you in the door, hoping you'll buy more expensive stuff as well. It is certainly not immoral or unethical to only buy the cheap stuff.
Re:Annoying People != $$$ (Score:5, Interesting)
I use provoxy at home on the network, we use firefox only on all pc's, I have an asterisk server that directs all telephone calls that are from outside my local dialing to voicemail and we have replay tv units at eact Television.
After 9 months of this, my daughter went to a friends house for a weekend. she came back horrified.. she said their internet was unuseable because of all the ad's and she could not stand watching television without having a 30 second skip, and she could not believe how many times they get interrupted with sales phonecalls.
she said and I do qoute... "having to deal with all those advertisments made me feel dirty."
and that really is what happens when you give yourself control over advertising in your home. you end up getting rid of the numbness of getting ablated with it constantly to the point that you actually notice it and become annoyed by it.
They can cry and throw hissy-fits all they want. There never EVER was a "social contract" to accept advertising, espically the crap-tasticular advertising they use today.
Re:Yes, it does (Score:3, Interesting)
As I walk down the street, I can look at billboards or I can purposefully ignore them. That is my right. The ad company decided to put the billboard there in the hopes that they would make money... but they put the billboard in a public location.
In the event that the companies in question decide that they are not making enough money off the ads (that people are not looking at the ads), they are free to change their business model, take the webpage off the net, start charging for access, or whatever they want.
If you don't want to see the ads, then you have no right to view the content.
I disagree. Again, the webpage is purposefully made easy-access to encourage people to access it... but there is no guarantee that people will look at the ads. If the company doesn't like it, then they can tune their advertising methods (or business model in general) until a useful compromise is reached. The onus lies with the company to come up with a viable business model, not with the consumers to play by the implicit rules of a particular advertising scheme.
I've got a simpler solution... (Score:1, Interesting)
The terminology gets people fouled up, I think, using words like "contract," which has a specific legal definition. This leads to all sorts of hair-splitting legalese by people trying to argue their way out of their own moral discomfort.
Bottom line, if you use something of value that costs somebody else something to create and maintain, you ought to pay for it. Payment can be by subscription, for sites that offer that, but subscription-based sites generally haven't done well on the web. If not by subscription, there are two other main ways that sites earn money to keep the lights on, namely advertising or shopping clicks on price-comparison pages. (The latter just another form of advertising, but the business model is different enough to warrant a separate category.) If sites aren't supported by one of these three sources of income, they stop existing. (And yes, of course, people can always publish information for free, but that places significant limits on what can be accomplished, and would result in a whole lot less information being available on the web.)
No, there's no contract, but if someone sets up a site with revenue based at least in part on advertising, and you use the site while disabling the ads, there's no question that you're not supporting them in exchange for your usage. If you don't like their ads, the solution is easy - Don't visit their site. If you're feeling magnanimous, drop the site publisher a line saying you were turned off by the ads and so won't be visiting again. Believe me, it wouldn't take very many emails like that for any halfway intelligent site publisher to wake up. If you use a site's content without accepting their ads though, you're just freeloading off the other readers who aren't blocking.
People seem to think that because something is electronically based, it's subject to a different moral code. What do you do when you come across a hotel that you think charges too much for its rooms? Stay there anyway, and then write them a bad check? I suspect not. The same principle applies for any other product or service you avail yourself of, the web included. The only thing that's different about the web is that there's not an explicit contract, and nobody will come knocking on your door if you disable ads.
As you might guess from my comments, all this hits pretty close to home for me. - I run a site about digital cameras [imaging-resource.com], and advertising is a pretty important part of how I keep my family fed and the people who work for me paid. The site is a huge amount of work, my typical work week is 70+ hours (try it yourself sometime, for say, 7 years or so), and the people who work on the site with me all work hard in exchange for their pay as well. I'd naturally love for every last digital camera buyer on the planet to pass through our portals, but if they don't want to, that's fine too. But people who think they're somehow entitled to spend hours browsing the site without supporting us in any way, shape, or form really raise my hackles.
The big problem in all this of course, is that a relative minority of sites are spoiling things for the rest of us. Popunders are a case in point. Used appropriately, they can be a very good thing, as they can communicate much more information than a simple tower or banner ad can. Ad content that's related to the topic of a site is very likely going to be of interest to a reader, so more information in a more concentrated package (a well-designed popunder) would be a good thing. Popunders also work extremely well for the advertiser and site publisher, as the response rates from them are often literally 10x that of conventional baners or towers. The problem comes when sites throw up dozens of these things, advertising products or services of virtually zero interest to their readers. People have very rightly gotten tired of this sort of thing.
On our site, we set a cookie, so
Re:Annoying People != $$$ (Score:4, Interesting)
I work at a fairly major web-based social software company (posting anonymously, but you've seen our ads) and pop-unders outproduced all other ad channels by so much we stopped using anything else. It was a smack-down.
Now, did it help our brand doing this? No. Did it drive new paid signups? Vastly. Which is more important depends on what industry you're in, and what your planning horizon is. But man, do pop-unders work.
Funny timing... (Score:2, Interesting)
Much as I can opt out of using their service if I am unwilling to put up with ads, the service provider should be able to opt out of providing me with a service if I am unwilling to accept their terms. It's no different than a a fancy restaurant with a dress code that requires a jacket and tie. If you want to wear a t-shirt and sandals while you eat, go somewhere else.
However, unless they notify me of these terms, there is and should be no rule that says I must view every bit of data they throw at my web browser. If they do notify me, then I should respect their wishes. I don't see it as a "social contract" so much as common sense and courtesy.
Adblock detection scripts (Score:2, Interesting)
The other end of the "Social Contract" (Score:5, Interesting)
This is where Adblock type technologies fulfill the other end of the "Social Contract" - letting me control my computer. If you don't want me viewing your content unless I view the ad also, fine, then give me a way to decline both. Come up with a way to deny the content if I don't view the advert, and instead just return a generic page stating, "This site uses {insert ad-type here}. In order to view the content, you must allow this type of advertising."
Then I can choose whether to accept the popup, or browse on to someone else.
The problem with this "social contract" theory is, I never *agreed* to this social contract. One can argue that by viewing the content, I am implicitly agreeing to it. But the problem is, until I actually go to a site, and either get a popup, or block it, I don't know what the 'terms' of this social contract are.
It's like saying you have to accept the terms of any contract, without even knowing those terms ahead of time.
I REFUSE to give up control over my computer to any site on the internet just because I followed a link to them.
Re:the answer is.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I would be much more accepting of ads if they weren't so horrible. Screaming strobe images do not encourage me to buy anything. What they do is encourage me to note what's being advertised, so I can make damned sure I NEVER buy it. Some ads are so bad, they're effective in that they don't chase me away from the product; I'm out o' there before I can tell what's being advertised.
As for commercials on DVDs, I buy very few, but not being able to skip past the FBI warning on rented DVDs encourages me to make my own copies - so I can eliminate such obnoxious stuff. Or look for the tiny number still on video-cassettes.
Commercials at movie theaters? They're not just annoying, they arouse rage in me. I will not go into a movie until the commercials are over. How do I know? The pulsing audio assault, heard clearly through two or more walls, drops off to just annoyingly loud. (Want to guess how often I go to movies these days? Not much).
Polite ads are fine. I have even gone out of my way to watch some ads; the VW New Orleans commercial, a Gallo champagne commercial with glorious classical music, a few others. But thug ads are not, and that's what almost all ads are today; bullies assaulting millions of people.
Social contract, my ass.
Re:There is no contract. (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, I'm still looking at your ads. But your ad has no hope of influencing me in any particular whatsoever. Am I violating your "social contract"?
Furthermore, suppose I have formed a powerful political party, the NAIPle (Nonviolent Advertising-Ignoring People), one million members strong, who all have made the same solemn vows that I have. We're not doing anything illegal. But our presence in the system seriously degrades the value of advertising. Are you going to say that we should be thrown off the internet, merely because we make a certain way of making money unprofitable?
Re:the answer is.. (Score:2, Interesting)
You're not part of the solution... you're part of the protest committee that's bent on prolonging the problem into a lifelong feud.
Re:There is no contract. (Score:1, Interesting)
What about a spoon? (Score:1, Interesting)
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Re:There is no contract. (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope. An oral contract would involve the customer verbally promising to pay for the food recieved.
There is a kind of contract made in a restaurant, which is neither oral nor written: an implicit/traditional one. You have to pay in the restaurant, because everyone knows you do- it is conventional and understood by all.
In some jurisdictions, the government has formalized it even further, by creating specific laws criminalizing nonpayment in a restaurant.