Google, Yahoo Cry About Ad-Blocking (cnbc.com) 707
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.
Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a tip, Ben : "good advertiser" is an oxymoron.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Depends. Add a "dead" somewhere and it is no longer.
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Interesting)
There actually is good advertizing. I mean, actually good and not merely unobtrusive. It's very rare but it exists. Here's how to see if any particular ad is an example:
Are people better off for having seen the ad than if they hadn't?
This comes in a few forms:
Reminders for something they wanted to do but forgot, or didn't think about. (People who bought X also bought Y.)
Coordination issues. (Eg cellphone networks, or electric cars, or something else that needs multiple people buying it at the same time)
Bargains (actual ones, not fake sales)
Fundamentally new items
Of course, pretty much everyone will think that their pet product is worthy of everyone's attention, which is why basically all advertizing is equivalent to V!@GRA spam, only more deceitful.
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Interesting)
"There actually is good advertizing. I mean, actually good and not merely unobtrusive. It's very rare but it exists."
Yes, there is some. For example, I just typed "Toyota Camry tie rod ends" into Google. The search page comes back in three or four seconds and near the top there is a box that says sponsored, and has half a dozen images of tie rod ends from various suppliers ... with prices .. in USD. I wonder if I lived in Canada if the prices would be in Canadian dollars.
No problem there, really. Google is trying to be helpful as well as trying to make money. And they are succeeding. That's fine. I wouldn't block those ads even if I could.
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:4, Interesting)
(People who bought X also bought Y.
That is actually the main reason I used to buy connectors from Farnell. Because none of the usual suspects (Farnell, RS, Mouser, DigiKey, etc) ever thought to link the connectors and specific crimp pins that you really need together. They were usually hell to find.
Farnell however had a "people also bought X" feature and 99% of the time, X was the correct, unique crimp pin which went with the shell. The crimp tool would also be in the list if I felt like shelling out an extra $500[*].
I've not been buying these recently so I don't know if they've all got a clue now.
[*]If you've never used a proper $500 crimp tool and you've had to crimp stuff then you are missing out.
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Funny)
Next story:
TV manufacturers whine about "mute button" and "off button".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If these marketing guys ever figure out a way for their commercial to climb out of your screen and dry hump you, we'll all be in trouble.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If these marketing guys ever figure out a way for their commercial to climb out of your screen and dry hump you, we'll all be in trouble.
You didn't think Amazon was just going to have that drone drop off a package, did you???
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Informative)
It's bad advertisers that destroyed the relationship, ad blocking is just a natural reaction to that... It was the most intrusive ads (ie popups) that got blocked first, and it's the really intrusive ones (eg with sound) that cause people to install adblockers.
Personally i installed an adblocker after i had a large number of tabs open and suddenly one of them started playing an ad with sound, it took me ages to hunt down and close the tab making noise so the anger triggered a response.
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll make em a deal. If they will serve up ads that use minimal bandwidth, don't obscure content, do not make me wait for some stupid site in Botswana to respond, do not use javascript, do not expose me to malware, and do not try to use my audio or to display video, I'll delete my hosts file.
And a suggestion to advertisers. Pissing off your audience probably is a less than optimal tactic.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the advertisers that destroyed the relationship. Their dancing snakes and popups, popunders have necessitated adblocking.
Ads quickly became obnoxious and were easily blocked. Then they became sneaky and required a bit of effort to block, but they were blocked.
Now that we block ads, it's a war. Since the advertisers continue to go over the top, I now look at pages with 50% white space because their divs are whited out
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if they mean the love/hate relationship, where the advertisers LOVE us, and we HATE them?
This is like saying security guards are ruining the robbers' relationships with the banks.
And yes, agree 100%, quit annoying the piss out of us and we'll stop blocking the ads. There's a few easy gimmies right off the blocks, the animated ads that start talking to you or the popover ads, those are just a few asshats really dragging the advertisers' images thorugh the mud. Things get only slightly better from there, going to a page to read a short 4 paragraph article that has been carved into 9 pieces across 9 pages, and displayed in the middle of each page, surrounded by ads. I don't have much pity for them either.
Beyond that, the most bothersom thing I think are the animated banners, and the recent surge in huge clickables on mobile pages. There's a few sites I'm probably going to stop going to simply because it's getting difficult to scroll to navigate the content without accidentally clicking one of the full-page ads every other screen. Each time, I have to stop, pull up a tab list, close the popover, and go back to the artice tab again. Over and over and over. Gets tiresome.
(TV is also essentially unwatchable at this point, I've already given up completely on it, I'll get my content online or buy the discs, a total failure by the advertisers there for me, I'd be happy to watch some ads for your content, but you've made it a completely inequitable exchange at this point)
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Insightful)
There is also the fact that malvertising is a significant method of attacking systems. With little to no curation by the ad servers about this, they have pretty much become accessories to the bad guys. To boot, they at best don't give a rat's ass, and at worst, seem to be doing the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" game with the ransomware writers.
It isn't about annoyances; it is about security. I can easily run a computer without an AV and not get it infected. Running it without an ad blocker... it will be pwned in minutes.
The real life equivalent are door to door vacuum bed selespeople. If one in every 10 pulled out a 12 gauge and robbed the place, it will be no wonder why they will not find anyone to show off their products to. This is how it is with ads.
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Insightful)
If you actually bought the discs, you'd know you have these pleasures waiting for you:
* Unskippable trailers
* BD-Live!, which uses your Bluray player's internet connection (if you have a streaming service on it or a PS3/PS4/Xbone, likely) to download NEW TRAILERS FOR AWESOME MOVIES YOU SHOULD WATCH AT HIGH VOLUME.
Very few places are safe from advertising. We haven't quite gotten random pages in our eBooks replaces with ads, but give it time.
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:4, Interesting)
This is why I rip all my DVDs and Blurays. I just want a directory .mkv files. No messing with physical media, trailers, or any such nonsense.
Yes, it would be easier to torrent, but it just feels off to torrent something that I'm holding the disc for. Plus I like the quality of my rips (e.g., I like English subs for all my movies, so I can watch in a noisy environment if I need to, but not turned on by default) .
fake download buttons are one of the reason why (Score:5, Insightful)
fake download buttons are one of the reason why it's good to use ad block.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Advertisers have always been lame, but what's newer is that today's web site operators don't seem to care how trashed up their sites look. Pop-overs are so common now it's becoming unbearable, but oftentimes they're not even ads. It's enter your email because every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a newsletter now. Or wouldn't you like to take a survey.
And videos that auto-play. That shrink down and position to always being visible when you scroll past the full-size player. Because they're sure you didn't real
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So, why should any advertiser do what you tell them to do?
Because the most popular ad-blocker[s] will be amenable to adding them to the acceptable advertisers list, for a small fee of course. But it is just a small fee, so who cares?
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Insightful)
I turn off my ad-blocker for all sites that I user regularly, as they are obviously providing content I value and deserve what income they can get.
When I get sucked into hitting some click-bait link and go to a site I am not familiar with, I don't think they deserve to use me as an advertising platform, until at least I determine if they have provided me with useful and intelligent content.
When a web site has a passive text note at the top saying, hey, we noticed you are blocking our ads, and we have hungry kittens to feed, and it would be really nice if you allowed our ads so that we can keep our site going.... etc... then I will usually turn off the ad-blocker for that site, and refresh, if they had content that wasn't total garbage.
If I am halfway thru reading an article and a popup gets shoved over the top of what I am looking at, bitching about ad-blockers ruining the internet, then I close that site down and look elsewhere for the subject I was just reading about (cos it prolly wasn't their own original story to start with) so those annoying sites don't get a second chance.
Judicious use of ad-blockers is my way of showing appreciation for intelligent, entertaining or informative web sites that deserve to be supported. Advertisers will just have to learn to live with the fact that a certain percentage of the internet using population are not dick-wits waiting to suck up more of their crap at every mouse click.
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I have had an ad blocker in my browser for years. I cancelled cable and only subscribe to streaming services that don't have ads (e.g. Netflix, Amazon) 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). I haven't read a printed magazine in decades. I literally are pretty much unaware of all current ads.
Having said that, whenever my ad blocker is misconfigured and blocks the text ads from Google searches, I quickly notice and fix thin
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As far as I can tell, the only way writers and artists are able to make money from content on the internet is by putting up a kickstarter and basically saying "send me money".
The term "struggling artist" was invented long before the internet. However, Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) and many, many, other talented artists, photographers, musicians, and writers, make a very respectable living from selling their content in physical form via the net. Giving away digital content and selling high quality physical versions of it go hand in glove for the arts. News is harder to sell, it spreads whether you want it to or not.
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Insightful)
When I open Slashdot, the site isn't obscured by a large graphic selling shit.
There isn't shit crawling around the margins.
There isn't any bullshit where random clicking somewhere takes you to an ad page.
The page doesn't jump up and down as it loads various ads of unknown dimensions.
In fact, Slashdot is doing the Ads correctly.
Re:Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Interesting)
I have yet to visit a paid (or free) mainstream media news site that had anything -- and I do mean anything -- on it that was worth the time it took to read it.
What you get from these organizations is prop and, in some cases, agitprop. Often with an obvious left wing or right wing or other wing (as with reason.com) bias driving the whole mess. Not to mention (he mentioned) the business with... So, science says this, let's "balance" it with some bewildered superstitious malfuckery...
We have had decades of drug war propaganda, save the children propaganda, terrorist propaganda, outright censorship, FCC keeping the airwaves completely out of the people's hands, superstitious pandering... and for this, they think they've done something deserving of my earning them money. Fuck the lot of them.
Is it so bad if you fund your blog out of your pocket? I do it. It's not all that horrific an expense. Of course, I don't load my pages down with flash and videos and deeply multi-linked ads (or hardly any ads for that matter) and other crap; it's basically HTML and CSS and so my bandwidth usage is rational. I offer tshirts on the sidebar. They don't jump around, they don't suck content from anywhere but my domain, and if you don't actually click on them, they do nothing but sit there. I sell a few. Enough to fund the blog, anyway.
I'm not going to make any real money from it, but so what? I have an actual occupation, you know, something that produces social value (which, I seriously assert, is NOT something news outlets do, nor advertisers.)
Seriously, there's no more a guarantee, nor should there be, for advertising driven web pages than there was for buggy whip manufacturers.
We have widespread communications now. We -- well, at least I -- don't need some talking head to tell me what to think.
Yes, and if Google died a horrible death tomorrow? I'd just have to change my email around a bit. Mediocre search results designed to appeal to the average-and-lower user; search ranking by popularity. That essentially means that Google's search results are the Kardassians and Donald Trumps of content. Like it? More like "run screaming from it."
Links get around without the need for search engines. I can't help it if the special butterflies don't know how to do that. They can learn. A nice web directory beats the hell out of a search engine any day, anyway. Curated links.
So to return to my original thesis, I have no obligation to tolerate anyone's advertising. Period. You don't want to provide (whatever), then don't. I will not miss you. Not even a little bit. Likewise, no one has to come to my websites. Fine. Perfect, in fact.
If I want to buy something, I go to the actual source and I look around there. I do not now, and will never again, click on web page ads. Those people have abused the privilege of consuming my computer's CPU cycles and monitor pixels and network bandwidth far too often and far too egregiously. Word of mouth (and its net equivalent, word-of-keyboard) is more trustworthy anyway.
Anyone else remember Google's text ads? You know, back when Google was actually responsible about advertising? Before they changed from "never do evil" to "never not be greedy fucks and btw here's this huge animated twitchy pile of shite for you to enjoy"?
The whole idea that the money-for-propaganda news model is sacred is repellent to me; you must eat the advertising because we're a big money operation thing... just as bad.
Maybe the day of the advertiser and the news organization is over. It certainly should be over, as far as I'm concerned.
I don't give a microfuck about what happens to them. Because they never gave a microfuck what happened to me and mine. And they lie and distort and lead the gullible around by the nose. Let them hide behind their paywalls. Let them suffocate and die there, too. /rant
Paid news worked for centuries ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... 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.
Re: Punishes users and good advertisers (Score:5, Informative)
That's not how www works -- it's incumbent on the server owner to block my traffic if they don't want to serve me the content. All I'm doing is making HTTP requests and rendering the content in my browser as I see fit -- same as its been for 20+ years
disruption (Score:2, Insightful)
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?
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It absolutely blows my mind that the online advertisers haven't figured out how to defeat ad-blocking. It's actually retarded simple to do. All the advertisers have to do is proxy their ads through the site the users are trying to access.
It's dead simple, but they won't do it, because then they would be paying for the bandwidth to serve all those ads! They'd prefer to keep offloading that expense.
Re: (Score:3)
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?
It absolutely blows my mind that the online advertisers haven't figured out how to defeat ad-blocking. It's actually retarded simple to do. All the advertisers have to do is proxy their ads through the site the users are trying to access. If www.forbes.com is directly serving the ads from their own domain, no adblocker in the world will prevent the user from seeing it, as blocking forbes.com will shut out the whole site, and the user wont get anything.
Talk about not "getting it", This really is a no-brainer from a technical standpoint.
It's actually an amusing symptom of the problem. There is just a huge disconnect between advertisers and the sites they're advertising on. Which is really part of the problem. Maybe if the disconnect between advertiser and media was erased, sites would take a more proactive stance on serving sane advertising that isn't obnoxious and completely irrelevant to the site itself. Sadly, the '3rd party' advertising engine that connects sites to advertisers is a huge problem. The answer isn't easy IMHO.. make
Re: (Score:3)
Why the steep climb (Score:2)
Re:Why the steep climb (Score:4, Informative)
Why does Slashdot use a "Taboola" or a "Janrain"? (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Why does Slashdot use a "Taboola" or a "Janrain (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why does Slashdot use a "Taboola" or a "Janrain (Score:5, Insightful)
Good to hear, I don't think the Slashdot user base is the "One weird trick" kind of crowd.
Re:Why does Slashdot use a "Taboola" or a "Janrain (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Why does Slashdot use a "Taboola" or a "Janrain (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
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.
I'd pay a subscription (Score:3)
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
Re: (Score:3)
Also the company this article mentions, Shine, which provides carrier-level mobile ad blocking. Their product isn't a browser extension like uBlock Origin, it's more of an ad-blocking proxy server that they're currently rolling out on the Three mobile network. Advertisers are particularly annoyed about that because it rolls out to everyone, even the non-tech-savvy, vs. people having to install browser extensions.
Re: (Score:3)
I think it's just that the annoyance threshold for the average Joe has been reached. That and adblockers have been put into the limelight by so many ad companies trying to sue them out of existence.
Even Joe Randomsurfer noticed that, and he noticed that those ad-blockathingamajig are somehow the enemy of those noisy, obnoxious nuisances. Good enough a reason to take a look. Enemy of my enemy and all that.
Re:Why the steep climb (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that mainstream users are just starting to wake up to the fact that ad blockers exist. Ads may be getting more and more prevalent and annoying, but frankly I don't think many of us here would know if they are.
Google and Yahoo have accused ad-blocking software Shine of "destroying the relationship" between advertisers and consumers
That's funny, because no one forces anyone to install and use an ad blocker (compare this with advertisers wanting to force people to "consume" ads). People make the choice of installing an ad blocker because the so-called "relationship" between advertisers and consumers essentially consists of advertisers wanting consumers to bend over and accept anything that gets shoveled at them. Maybe that relationship was doomed to fail from the start, and maybe most people are just waking up to the fact that they don't have to be in that relationship any more. This is like an abusive relationship where the person getting abused realizes that this isn't a normal productive healthy relationship, and they don't have to put up with it any more.
Benjamin Faes, managing director of media and platforms at Google, called Shine's technology a "blunt" solution that punishes users and good advertisers
If advertisers aren't going to police their own industry then, yeah, count on other people to create a blunt solution. It may not solve the problem the way that advertisers would like the problem to be solved, but then again advertisers have had a good 2 decades to figure out a workable relationship for online advertising. So far their solution has been to abuse people and not call each other out when they notice other bad actors. Thankfully we don't need to count on them for a solution, but it's not going to be the solution they want.
Blocking all ads I think it's diminishing my experience of advertising
Of course it's diminishing your experience of advertising, you're an advertiser. Blocking all ads actually improves my experience of advertising, by a lot. If only I could extend it to the physical world.
Re:Why the steep climb (Score:5, Funny)
So far their solution has been to abuse people and not call each other out when they notice other bad actors
I like how we're calling them bad actors. Like we're eventually going to discover that Nicolas Cage was behind the whole thing.
Re: (Score:3)
That's funny, because no one forces anyone to install and use an ad blocker
Shine blocks ads at the network level - individual users couldn't opt out, even if they wanted to. This is different than adblocking browser extensions, in that users are forced into it.
Not that I'm against it. I use a similar system on my home network, and love it.
Re: (Score:3)
Benjamin Faes, managing director of media and platforms at Google, called Shine's technology a "blunt" solution that punishes users and good advertisers
If advertisers aren't going to police their own industry then, yeah, count on other people to create a blunt solution.
I've often felt the same way, but now I'm idly wondering - how would they police themselves? Nothing short of the FTC has such power in the USA, and that's just for the USA.
They have trade groups but seem unable to force bad actors to desist.
It's like, how would the 0.0001% of responsible telemarketers stop the rest from spamming us via telephone?
I guess I'm just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how this could be implemented.
Blocking all ads I think it's diminishing my experience of advertising
Of course it's diminishing your experience of advertising, you're an advertiser. Blocking all ads actually improves my experience of advertising, by a lot. If only I could extend it to the physical world.
I just cannot agree with this more; well put.
Re:Why the steep climb (Score:5, Insightful)
But, ads have become incrementally more annoying, and seem to have passed a threshold.
* I don't mind advertising. Advertising lets me find things that I might want or need.
* I don't mind sites showing me advertising.
* I don't mind advertisers knowing that their ad appeared on a page that was viewed.
* I don't mind advertisers knowing that someone clicked on that ad.
* I do object to the presence of ads making the page slow to load.
* I object very much to the presence of ads making the page extremely slow to load.
* I object to the presence of ads consuming lots of my bandwidth (I resource that I pay for).
* I object very much to the presence of ads making the page unusable (pop-overs, unsolicited audio, etc.)
* I do not cede my privacy to the advertiser.
- - you do not have permission to track me
- - you do not have permission to sell information (surreptitiously) gathered about me to 3rd parties
Stop treating me with contempt, stop treating me as a resource to be pillaged. If I tell you not to track me, do not ignore my instruction, and especially do not bleat that it's OK for you to ignore my instruction but it's not OK to for me to ignore your ads.
As your advertising becomes increasingly indistinguishable from malware, do not be surprised when a market springs up to counter it.
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I agree 100%! A few more points:
--Advertisers did not pay for my computer. I am the ONLY one that gets to decide what gets downloaded and displayed on MY computer.
-- Recently Advertisers have called those of us who block their ads thieves, and the authors of ad-blocking software criminals.
-- I consider that the advertisers are the criminals, trying to steal the (capped) bandwidth that we pay for,
-- They try to steal private information to target ads to us, and if thats not creepy enough, sell that informa
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Part of it is probably the distribution of malware through the ad networks.
Ads == Malware Delivery and Nuisance Content (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Ads == Malware Delivery and Nuisance Content (Score:5, Insightful)
5. You shouldn't need a quad-core CPU to process a web page.
If a site puts my computer in a death throttle for 10 seconds processing random JavaScript, I'll close the tab.
Re:Ads == Malware Delivery and Nuisance Content (Score:4, Insightful)
> I'll close the tab
hahaha you'll TRY to close the tab- maybe it'll listen
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Yes those pricks that pop up "are you sure you want to leave this site?" are damned annoying.
Re:Ads == Malware Delivery and Nuisance Content (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite correct.
On my Linux box, web pages load instantly without any problems.
On my iPhone, web pages load
reloading
On my iPhone, web pages load
reloading
On my
Full page ad loads.
Can I close the ad? Oops. Now I'm at the App Store looking at the app for that site.
Close the app store.
Try to start the process again.
On my iPhone, web pages load
reloading
On my
back to the top of the page
On my iPhone, web pages load
Script loads ALL the social media links. No thanks. Not going to "share" this.
back to the top of the page
Fuck it. If it is important I'll remember to look at it on my PC.
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6. To get one's attention, ads often feature grotesque fungus-infected toenails, giant hairy bellies, and that #@&% possessed androgynous redneck kid with the big gums.
7. They are often repetitious. I'm sick and tired of the psychedelic IBM ads on slashdot, for example. The 60's are dead, Jim. Youtube also runs the same ads over and over.
If they don't want us to block ads, then stop making them stupid in the 7 different ways.
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Re:Ads == Malware Delivery and Nuisance Content (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mind unobtrusive ads.
I hate when ads cover 90% of the page (linkbeef, etc. I am glaring at you fuckers)
I hate it when Ads autoplay audio and/or video (die in a fire, fuckers!)
I hate it when ads display this ginormous layer over the page, with the close button rendering off screen, and if I try to zoom out, the image increases in size, regardless of smartphone browser (Chrome, Firefox, Dolphin). Safari is the same - I had to go back to my stone-age iPhone 4 for a few days after an OTA update soft-bricked my Galaxy. This is of course in reference to mobile sites... which tells me the fuckers don't ever test their web sites on smartphones.
Stupid fuckers. Die in a fire.
Bring back the unobtrusive text and banner ads.
Re:Ads == Malware Delivery and Nuisance Content (Score:5, Informative)
The irony is: unobtrusive ads are what made Google big. I remember when actual punch-the-monkey banners were common, and Google made its big breakout, by realizing the value of unobtrusive ads. The ads Google placed around search results didn't suck. The ads Google sold to place on other websites didn't suck. They were mostly text only, and there was no reason to block them. Times have changed.
Re:Ads == Malware Delivery and Nuisance Content (Score:4, Insightful)
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The benefit is less shitty sites like Buzzfeed. Good riddance.
Provde adequate value for me to subscribe (Score:3)
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.
Re:Ads == Malware Delivery and Nuisance Content (Score:5, Funny)
not because they were trying to suck money out of every click.
Wow, totally misread this at first glance. That's why kerning is so important in a font.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
The webpage is literally sitting there hanging because some random ad website is not responding now. If that doesn't show how little companies care about users, I don't know what does.
I remember a period when Blockbuster.com page used to stop dead for 5-10 seconds trying to contact some Facebook sub-domain, and it drove me crazy every time.
Re:Ads == Malware Delivery and Nuisance Content (Score:5, Insightful)
Advertising is nothing but visual spam. It places non-relevant crap in place of information you actually look for, and in the best case is a waste of time.
Thus, there's no such thing as "good" ads. As with all spam, if I wanted penis enlargement, I'd search for it.
Re: (Score:2)
5. They waste real walltime, when trying to view YouTube videos for example and those horrible inline non-skippable ads appear. Time is money and all that.
They seem to be playing a leapfrog game with AdBlock Plus, as every few weeks the video ads come back for a while before ABP gets an update.
Great Ad for Shine (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if Shine blocks that article, because it is a great advertisement for their product.
If they don't police their ads we will (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Not only that, but the ads might actually then be somewhat relevant to the site you're on, particularly if it's a smaller site run by someone or a group of people who actually agree to endorse a particular product.
Right now, unless you run a bunch of cookie and script blockers, the experience is this strange echo chamber on much of the internet. "Why do I keep seeing ads for the same exact product I just bought on Amazon two weeks ago? I already bought one: I don't need more. But they keep showing me t
Pay For My Internet And We Will Talk (Score:2)
Worth repeating once again... (Score:2)
.
http://slashdot.org/comments.p... [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
You think they finally learn that it is probably NOT a good way to get attention by shoving crap into the face of the people they try to woo?
One really has to wonder whether advertisers are human beings. I mean, even to a 3 year old it's obvious that having something shoved into your face is a surefire way to NOT like it. Seems the average 3 year old is smarter than the average advertiser.
I wouldn't mind Google's ads so much, IF (Score:2)
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 itch
Re: (Score:3)
Hey dumbass! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hey dumbass! (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. It "disrupts the relationship" in the same way mosquito netting "disrupts the relationship" between mosquitoes and mammal flesh.
Stop following me everywhere. (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't mind that to be honest. If I am looking to purchase something, e.g. a new battery for my old laptop recently then passive research is better than the random crap they usually show.
Re: (Score:3)
typical! blame someone else (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
"Good advertisers" == null set (Score:3)
punishes [...] good advertisers
Good, then nobody is harmed. There are no "good" advertisers in the world.
For those who didn't know about shine. (Score:5, Informative)
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... [getshine.com]
Re:For those who didn't know about shine. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
As much as I dislike the plethora of ads websites serve up, Shine's approach strikes at the concept of net neutrality. The ISP is deciding what traffic to deliver to the end user; while it may be the blocking Amy be desirable to users it still means teh ISP is favoring some traffic over other traffic. The next step is offer to selectively deliver, for a small fee, some ads.I can decide quite nicely for myself what sites I want to let deliver ads, based on my assessment of the site's value. There are a number of sites that I whitelist because their content is of value and I want them to be able to make mone and keep delivering content; and I don't want my ISP unilaterally deciding I don't need to see those ads and thus depriving teh site of revenue.
If you value net neutrality you can't say "don't prioritize any traffic" and then say "go ahead and block ads." Ads may be junk traffic but it still traffic.
It would not surprise me if they implement it in the US, Stripe, and an ISP, get sued for tortious interference, since they are interfering with a lawful contract between two parties; the question would be is it improper interference or an acceptable business practice.
Google and Yahoo Am Cry? (Score:2)
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 runni
Destroying the relationship? (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
you cannot get divorce according to shariah law
Thank you! (Score:4, Insightful)
I hadn't heard about this particular adblocker. I'll go check it out.
Thanks for the tip, Google and Yahoo!
Conjecture and Lies... (Score:2)
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 relationship
I am a rational shopper and ads just annoy me. (Score:2)
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 no
The Tragedy Of The Commons (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Why I block Ads (Score:3)
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.
Yeah, right ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Disable advertising (Score:4)
Re: (Score:3)
Funny you mentioned that, /. is one of the very few sites I actually allow advertisements from, because they never serve annoying ads. Just simple banners. Return to simple banners, and you may join this website as a site I'll allow advertising from.
the basics (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I honestly didn't start blocking ads until... (Score:3)
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.
It's free enterprise, bitch! (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
How much did Shine pay Google+Yahoo for this ad? (Score:3)
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.