
IAB Starts Publicity and Engineering Battle Against Ad Blocking - gyardley
http://adage.com/article/100-leading-media-companies/iab-escalates-publicity-engineering-war-ad-blockers/300645/
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npongratz
My emphasis:

> The IAB's new group working on the problem will convene its first meeting
> next week, aiming to study and experiment with responses including a more
> clutter-free web experience, _strict guidelines for the data that ads
> traffic in_...

Even were the IAB to strictly prohibit trafficking in all tracking data, I
would never trust any policy that says, in effect, "trust us, we're IAB and we
won't track you, wink, wink". First, only a small subset of all Internet
advertisers will hold themselves to IAB's standards (and like any cartel or
wannabe cartel, members will defect). More importantly, advertisers and ad
networks have proven themselves to be completely untrustworthy.

The Internet is a wild place, and ad networks carry the most dangerous threats
the average user will encounter. Ad blocking is, most importantly, a means to
protect ourselves. The superior user experience is a nice side effect.

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navbaker
I don't understand the mentality that says "the person I'm trying to reach has
blocked me, so I will subvert the method they are using to force them to view
my ad." Isn't the whole point of an ad to persuade someone to buy your
product? Why would anyone think this hostile approach would achieve that?

~~~
bduerst
It's more like movie theaters politely asking patrons to not sneak candy in,
except they are only asking when they know someone is doing it.

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gorhill
> we have gone a little bit overboard on the advertising

Quite an understatement.

I will repeat myself: visible ads are the tip of the tracking/data-mining
iceberg. Not seeing ads is not a sign that a site is more respectful of its
visitors.

Found a pretty good example of this earlier today. See how there are no
visible ads on the page, it looks rather clean, and yet see the amount of 3rd
parties being pulled into the page[1]:

[https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/585534/10198746/6...](https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/585534/10198746/6008afec-676b-11e5-98a4-e89ad6b67048.png)

[1] this is the result of temporarily whitelisting the site to be able to see
what it pulls in without a blocker.

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meeper16
The IAB will lose horrifically. It will be worse than wack-a-mole, similar to
the music industry's futile attempts to keep its jurassic-world business
models on life support, like battling unsophisticated malware or like the
battle social networks have with keeping bots and fake profiles from taking
over their MAU numbers.

What the Ad industry needs is a completely new and innovative business/revenue
model, one that has not been thought of before. On the bright side, it's the
dawn of a AdAge!

~~~
ganeumann
Let me fix that for you:

The Adblockers will lose horrifically. It will be worse than wack-a-mole,
similar to the file-sharing industry's futile attempts to keep music free and
shareable...

I now pay more per month for music than I did at any other time in my life,
and I am becoming locked in to paying more per month _forever_. The _music
industry_ has won, they've replaced their old business model with one that
costs us more while they take less risk.

Some people really dislike the idea of ads. They install adblockers.
Publishers who make their living from ads respond. Who has more motivation,
those who are vaguely annoyed, or those who lose their jobs and companies if
they fail? The latter, of course. They will find a way around this because
they have everything to lose.

I dislike the IAB, it's a force against progress within the ad business. But
they're not going to lose horrifically, and even if they lose slightly it
won't mean that _you_ have won, just like with music.

~~~
explorer666
By your logic, people starving or being bombed could stop famine and wars
because they have more motivation. What actually happens: whoever has more
power wins.

I have the power over my browser. I won't consume ads.

~~~
bduerst
Doesn't matter.

Following that same hypothetical, you alone can dodge the bombs but most
people can't, because let's face it - you're not colluding with others.

And unless you're up to date on bomb tech, even you are eventually going to
get hit by a smart "ad".

~~~
vitd
The problem for content produces is that if I end up in a situation where I
can't get your content without ads (I'm willing to pay), then I'm eventually
going to not view your content, and I'm going to not share your content, and
others will do the same, and you'll see readership drop. When readership
drops, any revenue you had from ads will also drop because some of the people
I shared your articles with viewed your ads, even if I didn't.

Furthermore, when the OS vendors are putting ad blocking tech into their
browsers, I no longer worry about the ad producers having the better tech.
When smart bomb detection is built-in to the OS, all I need is an update and
mom and pop can avoid the bombs as well as anyone.

~~~
bduerst
> I'm going to not share your content, and others will do the same, and you'll
> see readership drop

The point is that you're extrapolating your intent and level of control to the
rest of the internet audience, which you're not colluding with.

The ad-blocking at OS level is arguably even _easier_ to detect than browser-
based. It also doesn't stop advertising in apps, which is an example of how
Apple is incentivized to keep advertising for it's own platform (i.e. Apple is
looking out for #1 when it comes to blocking ads, not you).

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Animats
From the article: _" Part of the problem is as an industry we have gone a
little bit overboard on the advertising," said Rick Jaworski, CEO at
JoyOfBaking.com, during a main-stage session with Mr. Rothenberg designed to
publicize the plight of publishers. "For myself, when I go to a lot of sites
these days, i'm irritated and I want an ad blocker."_

So even people who speak at ad exec conferences use ad blockers.

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yummybear
"... renewed promotion of the industry's AdChoices program, which aims to give
consumers some control over their digital experience."

The site says:

"Welcome to Your AdChoices, where you're in control of your Internet
experience with interest-based advertising—ads that are intended for you,
based on what you do online."

This isn't an alternative to adblocking - it's pretty much the opposite og
adblocking.

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cwkoss
I want to write a browser extension that automatically clicks all ads seen,
loads the page in a hidden tab, and closes it.

It would be pretty painful for the online ad markets, as their effectiveness
rates could easily be cut in half with a dozen people on their site that click
every ad without viewing the results. So few people interact with ads, that a
small cohort of 100% active users would overwhelm data with noise.

But, in the short term, you'd be supporting all the websites you browse until
advertisers discover a way to filter out your false clicks.

~~~
greglindahl
There are so many "click bots" out there already that your extension probably
wouldn't change much!

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Hypothetically: if I were to create a random website with ads and then have
clickbots click those ads, would that make me money?

~~~
logfromblammo
To avoid accusations of fraud, you should have your clickbots randomly click
ads on every site they can find _except_ those that you control.

If enough people do the same, without any formal agreements or informal
collusion, you would all be able to get ad revenue without any one person
having fraudulent intent.

The only way for an ad-provider to counter would be to insert in your
agreement that you are not allowed to click on _any_ ads, not just those that
appear on your own sites. And then ad-blocking would become an ethical
obligation for you.

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nomadlogic
Pretty sure that when you have to wadge a battle against obvious technology to
justify your business model, your industry is going to end up on the wrong
side of history.

------
Hoasi
The old guard dies, it does not surrender.

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rdunham3
May the odds never be in their favor.

Also, an ad never knowingly requested by a user constitutes theft of
(Internet) service, so the whole ad industry by definition are law-breakers.

