
Adblocking: How about Nah? - dredmorbius
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah
======
wybiral
I don't actually want to block ads. If you want to put a small text or image
blurb anywhere on the page... Good for you. I'll gladly accept those on a
webpage so that the content creator can make a bit of cash.

But these companies are intentionally blurring the lines between advertisement
and digital surveillance. You don't need to collect everything about my
operating system, browser, monitors, GPU, every click I make on every website
I visit, etc.

That's crossing a line of what "advertisement" means. So the more these
"advertisers" work to blur those lines the more their "ads" will be blocked
under the umbrella of those who don't want this level of pervasive tracking
and surveillance.

~~~
deanclatworthy
Agree. I’d go as far as forbidding embedded JS altogether which removes the
attack vector for malware within advertising networks. The networks have
proved time and time again they are not able to prevent distribution of
malware, and this is the primary reason I use an adblocker.

Maybe a new <ad /> tag which points to a resource which can only serve an
image, video or text. Absolutely no scripting. Pass along only the advertiser
ID and the bare minimum.

The problem is it’s not in Google or Microsoft’s interest to implement this.
This has to come from legislation at US gov level. So it’ll never happen.

I’ll continue ad blocking.

~~~
jefftk
_> Maybe a new <ad /> tag which points to a resource which can only serve an
image, video or text. Absolutely no scripting. Pass along only the advertiser
ID and the bare minimum._

How would fraud detection work in this model? How do advertisers know the
requests are coming from real users and not bots? Without assurance there,
advertisers would pay much less, and publishers would earn much less.

(Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, speaking only for myself.)

~~~
jacobobryant
I don't really care if ads stop being profitable. If ads stopped being a good
source of revenue, the tech industry would adapt, and my guess is that the end
result would be much more favorable to society. I'm working on an early-stage
startup right now, and I'm certainly not going to use ads as part of my
revenue model.

Google might not be too happy about an outcome like that, but I'm not overly
concerned about Google's wellbeing. :)

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this since you work on ads: are ads
_actually_ essential in the software industry, or could we do just fine
without them?

~~~
air7
In recent years we, conscious consumers, shot down several viable business
models that could have replaced ads such as data collection for trend analysis
and crypto mining in the browser. They were met with outright hostility.

Perhaps justifiably so, but we have to keep in mind that any producable
"value" will have to "hurt" in some way. We have to give _something_ in
exchange for "free" services. Yet the focus is only on the price paid instead
of the fairness of the transaction (or lack thereof).

Either we give up the "free" model alltogether and shift back to paid services
only, or we choose the lesser evil and live with it.

~~~
majewsky
> data collection for trend analysis

Of course that's going to be met with the same hostility. It's 99.9% the same
thing.

> crypto mining in the browser

Of course that's going to be met with similar hostility. Climate change is
even more present in the public consciousness.

------
jedberg
For many many years I resisted installing an ad-blocker. As someone who worked
at a website that made the bulk of it's revenue from ads, it felt
hypocritical, and also, I wanted to make sure that the experience of our
website was bearable without ad blocking, by forcing myself to experience it
every day.

I gave up about two years ago. The web just go so bad I _had_ to install ad-
block. My computer would spin like a jet plane at least once an hour due to
insane advertising on a website consuming all the CPU.

I literally installed ad-block to save my computer hardware.

The ads don't even bother me that much. I used to always say, "my brain is my
ad-block". It was the slow loading, CPU heavy ads that got me to turn.

If advertisers want to advertise to me, that's fine. I understand they need to
make money. But how about not melting my computer in the process?

~~~
slang800
> If advertisers want to advertise to me, that's fine. I understand they need
> to make money.

I feel sad just reading that. Advertisers are paid to deliver targeted
psychological manipulation to you, and yet you feel ashamed for making their
work less profitable. It's like observing some kind of digital stockholm
syndrome.

~~~
lastpingstandin
> targeted psychological manipulation to you

This seems exceedingly hyperbolic. With advertising, we can enjoy many
services free of charge.

Using google as an example, google maps, search, android, etc all provide
tremendous value to their users while being ostensibly free. Without revenue,
they simply wouldn't be able to exist.

~~~
lazyjones
> _Without revenue, they simply wouldn 't be able to exist._

Nonsense. OSM exists, HN exists, Linux exists. And just because some services
need revenue to pay bills, it doesn't mean advertising or users paying is the
only way to get it. Google Maps gets revenue from businesses using it on their
websites, for example.

~~~
okr
I do not see your argument. That some projects are subsidized, because they
carry a value, that pays off manyfold somewhere else, no one denies.

------
xfs
I used to not use ad blockers as I'm not bothered by ads. But it's getting
increasingly difficult not to because the ads are making thousands of requests
downloading hundreds of mbs of who knows what quite often simply crashing the
tabs. It has got to the point that ads and analytics are being added so
mindlessly (I saw it first hand as random CPU hogging battery killing trackers
were pushed onto my single-page web app by product managers) that browsing
without an ad blocker isn't viable anymore performance-wise.

~~~
dwild
> the ads are making thousands of requests downloading hundreds of mbs of who
> knows what quite often simply crashing the tabs

Where are you going for that to happen? Not only does a tab crashing is
extremely rare for me, even on my low 8 GB of RAM which I got 8 years ago. It
seems a bit crazy that it happens quite often for you.

------
amelius
Did anyone ever investigate what benefits ads have to a population? It seems
like a net loss to me, because ads are used to make people consume more than
they need; ads make people buy the product with the biggest advertising budget
instead of the best product; and while ads may make the internet "free", we
are still paying for those ads indirectly.

Why then, doesn't the government bring advertising to a halt? At least they
could start with _targeted_ advertising as seen on the internet.

(Of course, if you measure the success of an economy by the GDP, then it might
seem that ads have a positive influence, but that seems a bit like a broken-
window fallacy to me).

~~~
elindbe2
IMO the first place to start implementing ad bans is in public spaces, which I
hear is common in Europe. I don't have to watch TV so I don't see TV ads. I
don't listen to the radio much so I don't listen to radio ads. I can use an ad
blocker on the web, yet for some reason the public spaces I inhabit (and help
pay for) are full of ads.

~~~
giobox
Not saying you are wrong, but which European states is this common in? I’ve
never noticed this, and many public spaces in Europe have a great deal of
poster/bill board style advertisements.

I remember reading Paris tried this, but that’s a long way from “common in
Europe”.

~~~
davidgay
There aren't any billboards along freeways in Switzerland, e.g.

~~~
giobox
There’s usually no shortage of public ads for Swiss watches at Zurich airport.
There is for sure no ban on advertisements in public places.

~~~
acollins1331
Airports are not public places, you literally have to pay for a ticket to get
past security.

~~~
giobox
Sigh. Aside from the fact this comment adds no value to the discussion, anyone
can walk into Zurich airport and buy a ticket.

By this logic, many public transport centres such as train stations wouldn't
be public spaces either (not unheard of for a train station to have a ticket
barrier too). There are adverts in places other than the airport too!

~~~
acollins1331
This is not true, you can't buy a ticket without identification and you can't
get past security unless you go through several other checks. Going into a
public area like out on the street is not even similar at all. Airports are
not public locations, they are much more similar to the interior walls of a
private business than a public location, which doesn't require you to pay to
enter and produce varying amounts of identification.

------
frou_dh
Remember that the formal name for a web browser is a _User Agent_.

This metaphor makes it clear that when there is a conflict of interest between
you the user and whatever the server on the other side wants, your Agent
should act in your interest.

~~~
s1k3s
Not when the User Agent is built by the world's largest online advertiser.

~~~
frou_dh
That's a
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_agent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_agent)

------
gergles
Regrettably, nobody bothers to mention that JavaScript is really what's to
blame for all of this. If unnecessary use of JavaScript earned the same sort
of derision that "best viewed in IE 6" banners did, we wouldn't be where we
are today.

That genie is too far gone to put back in the bottle, but that's the real
problem with the online advertising 'ecosystem'. JavaScript enabled pop-up
ads, it enables tracking, it enables coinminers and other malware.

~~~
codingdave
JavaScript enables functionality in the same way that cars enable
transportation. They aren't the only solution. And there would be far less
injury, death, and pollution if we all just didn't use automobiles. The world
would be a safer, cleaner place. And a small fraction of people would be happy
with it.

JavaScript is the same. We'd have a cleaner, safer web without it. And only a
small fraction of people would be happy with that.

~~~
kgwxd
If only using JavaScript required a license to operate and came with a set of
rules enforced by fines and jail time :)

If every browser had done the sane thing from day 1 (no third-party scripts
and no cross-domain communication) we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. Sites
could still use all the power that comes with scripting, ad networks just
wouldn't be feasible.

~~~
distances
Sites would collect the data with first-party scripts and tunnel through their
own servers to ad peddlers.

~~~
kgwxd
That's fine. Now the first-party and ad peddlers have to work with and trust
each other instead of using my machine, my ignorance and my disinterest in
their dealings as an intermediary.

------
catotheyoungest
I've been blocking ads ever since I learned that I could stop seeing
DoubleClick ads by blocking their domain in /etc/hosts.

I won't ever apologize for doing so. As far as I'm concerned, any
advertisement that depends on JavaScript is malware, and I think that my right
to protect myself online outweighs the need of publishers to turn a profit.

IMO, profits are like respect. They must be earned, and if the only way you
can turn a profit is by spying on people then maybe you shouldn't be in
business in the first place. If the only way you can get me to use your
product is by giving it away and selling my data, then maybe your product
shouldn't exist?

As far as I'm concerned, the data I generate by using a search engine should
be treated with the same care as my medical records. It should not be mined or
traded. It should not be kept longer than 30 days.

And if that breaks the internet, so be it. You brought this on yourselves.

~~~
person_of_color
Best way to block ads in 2019?

~~~
catotheyoungest
Are you asking about blocking ads on a smartphone? Or on a desktop/laptop? The
answer depends on your platform, you see.

~~~
person_of_color
Both?

~~~
grepthisab
Blokada on Android + PiHole on wifi. In the really occasional instances where
I'm away from wifi and Blokada is down, it's night and day.

------
XorNot
The great thing about getting older for me is realising that nothing is
indispensable. Everything eventually ends, we move on with our lives and do
something else.

So sure: maybe someday un-adblockable content will be a thing. Do I care about
that content? Turns out maybe I'll just walk away entirely. The internet has a
lot of utterly ad-ridden services with far too high an opinion of how
important they really are.

~~~
asark
There is _so much_ content. Great content, too. The miracle of over 100 years
of mass media recording tech. And, you know, 4000ish years of written word
records and storytelling. Ad-supported web trash is mostly just a distraction
from better things that can be had used for just a little money, or checked
out from a library. My life'd probably _improve_ if it all went away (Web
would have a better wheat/chaff ratio, I'd be less distracted by junk).

So sure, make your sites, services, and content so annoying that I stop using
them, and close copying loopholes, somehow. Or ban spyvertising and let it all
go down in the flames of the prophesied ad-pocalypse. I really don't care a
bit either way.

------
bobblywobbles
Firefox offers blocking you from "third-party tracking cookies" by default, so
if you are concerned - make the switch.

[https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-
availab...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-available-
with-enhanced-tracking-protection-by-default/?utm_campaign=firstrun)

~~~
amfsn
It's simply better to go to the options of your browser and disable third-
party cookies altogether. And at that point why not keep using Chrome, which
is faster, heh

~~~
ShinTakuya
Chrome isn't faster anymore in my experience. FF has made great advances in
performance.

------
jokoon
How is that still a debate?

I often use firefox reader mode just because websites use custom fonts, and to
remove all the clutter, even when there is no ads.

Also, it won't be long until reddit is sued and must remove comments where
people copy-paste the entire article because of pay walls and ad blockers.
Same for outline. I guess website will start findings ways to prevent copy
pasting, and maybe someone will create some app that just let their users
browse a PNG rendering of websites.

It's almost as if normal newspapers might be considered a good alternative.

~~~
mcbits
I think Reddit is largely protected from being sued (in the US) for copyright
infringement in comments/submissions as long as they comply with valid DMCA
notices. But yeah, that involves removing the content.

------
DoubleGlazing
I'm amazed that all the interested parties haven't got together to flesh out a
microtransaction standard. The whole ad-blocking debate would be moot if we
could pay a few cents to read an article free of distracting ads. If you
choose not to pay, you get the ads and don't get to complain about ad-blocker-
blockers because you were offered an alternative.

I know it has been attempted in the past with little success, but all those
attempts were just companies going it alone and hoping for the best. If the
W3C, browser makers, banks and publishers all got together a standard could be
developed. Something that would be core to web standards. It wouldn't be easy,
but it would solve a lot of problems.

~~~
manigandham
It's been tried countless times. We tried as well:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19038540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19038540)

The issue isn't the payment tech, it's human behavior. People don't want to or
can't pay for all the content they consume.

~~~
ohithereyou
I don't think this is down to human behavior. Some content has zero or
negative value.

~~~
manigandham
Who gets to judge the value of content? And how can it have "negative value"?

Regardless, the action of consuming the content itself means that it has
inherent value. I believe whether it's worth it is a decision for the user
instead of dictated by someone else.

~~~
minitech
> Who gets to judge the value of content?

The user. That’s the context – the user deciding who gets their money.

> And how can it have "negative value"?

Zero value, plus the time it took to find out that it had zero value.

> Regardless, the action of consuming the content itself means that it has
> inherent value.

Not really.

~~~
manigandham
I believe that's what I said, but to be clear: yes it should be up the
individual, however if you look at most people's actions then their demand and
willing consumption of content does not align with what they can or will pay
for.

For example, blocking ads (even though most know that is the trade-off for the
content) instead of refusing to visit the site. If the content has no value,
why visit the site at all? Surely not ever pageview has zero value?

------
beloch
A huge part of advertising is getting users to feel that they can _trust_ in a
product or service enough to spend their money on it. Spend a bit of time
watching TV commercials and see how many methods of establishing trust you can
spot.

This is why the way web ads are served is utterly farcical. How can you build
a person's trust by invading their privacy in a hundred different ways just so
you can be sure the ads they're seeing are a little bit more targeted than
what's on TV?

People often say that they would be happy to have reasonable ads that don't
interfere with website function and which respect their privacy, but it's been
so bad for so long that it would likely be very difficult for an ethical,
privacy respecting ad service to get off the ground. Many people have been
burned too many times to believe and unblock such an ad service. EME shows
that there is no interest in even trying this approach. They're just going to
continue escalating the arms war.

They're going to lose.

Companies advertising on the internet need to wake up to the fact you can't
support a war against the privacy of your potential customer base and expect
them to trust you. Yes, you've dug quite the hole for yourselves over the last
couple of decades. Why keep digging?

------
ori_b
Something is different in the arms race this time.

Browser development is almost exclusively funded by advertising. Chrome, in
the obvious way. Mozilla is funded entirely by Google. Safari is the only
surviving exception.

~~~
cblum
> Mozilla is funded entirely by Google.

Do you have a source for that?

~~~
jedberg
There isn't a source, because Mozilla doesn't break it down. They just say
that they get almost all their revenue from "search royalty payments", and
their two biggest deals are with Google and Baidu. You just have to guess how
much comes from Google (90% market share worldwide) vs Baidu (the biggest
search engine in China, which is also the largest single internet market but
not as well funded as the US market).

------
kgwxd
I've been browsing with EME disabled for years, most stuff still works, I just
leave sites that don't. If I accidentally hit a site with EME too much, I add
the domain to my link block list so I never see links to them ever again. If
most people would get on board with that for just a year, it could sway the
industry to stop using it.

~~~
thom
Same experience for me with sites that try to pull off GDPR shenanigans. If
you don’t make it easy for me I just close the site and never return, and
let’s be honest, my life is better for it. The more hostile the web becomes
the more likely I am to go for a walk in the park instead. Fine by me, really.

------
ilaksh
At the end he mentions EME (encrypted media extensions) which may be the real
front in the war. Actually the browser and video market consolidation with EME
could really slant the odds in the advertisers favor because and Google and
Netflix can make it really hard for people.

Eventually we may make a hard break from the old internet into a new one. I'm
looking for practical and scalable cryptocurrency and smart contract solutions
to become popular. After that you may see a new type of browser protocol that
does not have a full operating system in it and can be implemented by mere
mortals. It might depend on one or more decentralized protocols such as IPFS
or dat or even one of the many less popular academic content-oriented-
networking systems. There is a strong possibility it will not have any
JavaScript.

------
grenoire
In the end, it's an arms race, and I don't think either side is giving up on
it anytime soon. The only thing that concerns me is that one side has way too
much money, while the other side has way too much time.

Let's see who wins.

~~~
ggg3
the point of the article is that the wars is over.

money won by enlisting the corrupt law makers. from now on, content will have
DRM (e.g. netflix) and if any adblocker even tries to touch it, the creators
can be jailed.

now if you want to create/contribute an adblock, besides time, you must have
impeccable opSec or also be willing to do time in jail.

~~~
hnaccy
Why hasn't google used this on youtube?

~~~
tomaskafka
No idea - if you are a publisher AND the ad network, why not just serve ads
from first party domain, indistinguishable from content?

------
blackoil
IMO this war will lead to greater consolidation on publisher side. If only
FB/Google are left with ability to make money of the web, we'll be left with
hobbyist who do it for free or super platforms.

Right now Verge created a wordpress website put google ads on it and can
afford a team to right some content. If all third party ads are blocked option
left would be `paid content` or go to Google/FB platform to publish wherein
you'll have lesser control but more revenue as all ads are first party.

------
mlguy456
I can't use most of the sites at work because of ads and I can't install an
adblocker because it would have access to corp data. When I search for
something related to work, I know that most of the sites would display
inappropriate junk on half screen with my colleagues probably watching behind.
The solution I use us to search on stackoverflow only, but it too displays
some garbage, and I have to scroll the page so the ads won't be in view. It's
a hilarious situation.

~~~
samkxu
Have you thought about forking/compiling ublock origin and loading it
yourself?

------
butz
Google and other ad businesses need to create "AMP for ads". Ads should allow
only basic HTML elements without javascript. Figure out a way to track only
what's really necessary, maybe even get allowed tracking level set by user in
browser settings (an improved version of Do Not Track). That might be even
used to check if user agrees to have cookies set. It should solve the annoying
cookie banners issue too. Finally, let's add option for user to select "text
only" mode for ads to keep additional downloaded data to minimum and maybe
even make ads accessible. Update: And, of course, after a quick search I find
that AMP for Ads is an actual product from Google
[https://amp.dev/about/ads/](https://amp.dev/about/ads/) Sorry for not
researching before commenting.

~~~
zamadatix
> Google and other ad businesses need to create "AMP for ads".

Is that not what Google Ads is?

~~~
luckylion
No, Google Adsense allows javascript so advertisers can fingerprint and track
the user's browser. Occasionally, some advertiser will drop the charade and
just set top.location="[https://example.com/"](https://example.com/") and,
after too many user/publisher complaints and a few days, Google will manually
block them.

------
noisy_boy
I never click on ads. Never ever. I get that every ad doesn't need to be
clicked e.g. videos that mindlessly show you a product. But atleast there is
no direct feedback going back on those in terms of ad placement
effectiveness/click-rate etc. They can keep burning their money showing ads -
I just won't provide them any feedback on whether/where their money was wasted
vs well spent. Also the best way to kill them is for lesser and lesser people
to click on them.

~~~
elwell
Click frauders will always ensure a steady stream of 'conversions'.

------
on_and_off
What I find interesting about this post is that it only talks about blocking
ads but not about how to replace them as a source of revenue for websites.

I actually do pay for some websites, including for not seeing ads on Youtube
(with mixed results now that ads are just baked in the video, when the
entirety of the video itself is not an ad) and I want an easy way to do so : I
want to be able to access the content I want while its creator gets paid.

So far, ads have been a successful way to do micro payments (the only ?).

Instead of waging this increasing war between ads and ad blockers, I would
rather see organizations that try to find a better solution (with privacy
somewhere at the top of the checklist).

------
Fiahil
Ads are forbidden on my network. I'm running a strong pihole that forbid
advertising domains, obnoxious tracking and well known malware sites.
Sponsored search results do not work and some websites are inaccessible, but
it's fine, we don't need them. Ads are "The Great Evil" I will teach my
children to fight, in all their forms, before drugs and alcohol.

If you are running an ad-dependant website and struggle to make money as a
result of the campaign people like me are running, then you'll have to adapt.
If you fail to adapt and your website closes, it's fine : as a society, we
didn't need your services.

------
lukaa
Podcast ads are usually read by podcasters themseleves they don't track nobody
sometimes they are even funny and if they are not to long, I don't skip them.
So they are great example how all ads should be made.

------
crispsquirrel
Advertisements are one thing but most of these "ads" are actually gathering
more info than they advertise. JavaScript trackers are just awful if you care
about privacy, which I do. It's pi-hole and no-script all the way for me until
they stop with this rubbish.

Targeted ads are another kind of problem. I don't really want to be told or
suggested what I should or could buy, I can make up my own mind. I know some
people don't mind them and that's fine.

In all honesty I preferred the annoying pop ups.

------
teunispeters
I block ads because I don't want my computers to be hijacked, and sites that
sell ads do not do proper due diligence in protecting the public from hostile
advertisers.

------
tempodox
It's somewhat ironic that this page contains the most impressive procession of
banner ads that I've seen in a long while. And almost all of them keep
changing every thirty seconds or so. Apparently I've been successful in
systematically avoiding sites that would torture me like that. They may
succeed once but only at the price that they won't see me again.

~~~
hedora
The EFF site is full of ads on your machine?!? That doesn’t sound right (and
disabling ad block doesn’t cause it to serve any to me, unless you count the
mailing list signup form after the article).

I’d guess that you are looking at a different page or your machine is
compromised.

~~~
xeeeeeeeeeeenu
Originally the post was linking to boingboing.net, only later it was changed
to EFF.

------
fencepost
I don't block ads or set up adblockers for customers and family members
because I object to ads. I do it because it significantly cuts down on the
number of potential attacks on systems.

Between malicious code ending up on ad networks and ads that take people to
malicious sites, it only makes sense to block connections to things that are
not actually needed for the display of pages. Most people who get a take-over-
the-screen "We are Mikrosoft and have discovred that your computer infected
call us helpful people at Mikrosoft and we will fix your comptuer" messages
aren't getting it because they're visiting dodgy sites or even ones that have
been hacked - they're getting them because either someone got that into an ad
network or because they clicked on an ad that turned out to route them to one
of those.

I can't babysit everyone and really don't want to, but I can at least cut down
on some of the crap that hits their computers.

------
__MatrixMan__
I think the ad blocking arms race is unfortunate because it's converging on
recognizing/disguising ads so that they can be hidden/served despite what the
other side wants. That's lame. I don't have any need for a hyper evolved
system of coersion/rejection.

Wouldn't it be far better if instead we focused on identifying content and
finding ways to serve it more efficiently? Why download the whole page and
then hide 95% of the data?

I'd like to see a system where we crowd source the identification of content.
If 100 people all view a page and see 100 different ads but the same article
each time, a smart browser extension should be able to conclude that the uri
actually refers to the static text. Store that on ipfs or somesuch and when I
click the link, don't waste my bandwidth downloading the site, just serve up
what I wanted in the first place.

I'm not sure how such an approach would play out--but all we're getting out of
the current strategy is smarter and smarter ads. I can't imagine we're gonna
look back in 100 years and be glad we aligned our incentives in such a
direction, so I think trying something different would be worthwhile.

------
taf2
So there is a technical solution to ad delivery that is pretty hard to
impossible to block that is serve everything from the same domain. It’s very
possible today and even desirable with http/2\. You can configure this with
cloud front and multiple origins or using service workers with cloudflare...
I’d guess it’s only a matter of time before this becomes the more common way
to deliver content and ads as one origin...

~~~
dredmorbius
There are obstacles to this, for advertisers.

Tracking impressions (something advertisers seem to want) is facilitated by
third-party servers. Self-served ads defeat this and raise fraud concerns.

Standardised advertising units (display sizes) mean that blocking elements
strictly on dimensions is possible. One of my early userContent.css
stylesheets, borrowing from online souces, did just this, and was highly
effective, for a time.

Obfuscated content and JS can get around some of this, thou stylesheets
whitelisting elements would be yet another workaround.

~~~
taf2
That is why the edge computing - changes this trust issue... It's just a
matter of time before you have a advertising module you can install in cloud
flare as a service worker implementation that both parties can trust... this
with obfuscation could make it really hard to block and pretty viable for
advertisers... let alone the fact that you can shift the analytics into the
cloud edge servers... this both eliminates the argument of speed to access the
content and removes your ability to block it. I see this as the future of
adtech...

~~~
dredmorbius
What seems to happen in practice is that infrastrucure domains and hosts used
for advertisig are blocked by default. Amazon's aws & s3 domains come to mind,
and they're rather horribly abused (Bezos's own WashPo have covered this).
Which may be why generic buckets are going away.

------
butterNaN
Here in India you might have heard of this little service called Hotstar. To
start with, this is a paid subscription service, and I believe at the time I
purchased it it cost me something like ₹1000 a year. This would lead you to
expect that they aren't interested in Ads, wouldn't it?

No. This service is so adversarial to anyone who doesn't want to be tracked,
it doesn't even work in Private windows. It stops working itself when you open
the Browser's debug console. If this wasn't enough, this service stops working
when you have uBlock origin (which finds that there's a /track request going
out a hundred times every minute).

I responded by creating a new browser profile just for this website and
routing all tracking domains (mostly segment.io) to 127.0.0.0 in my local
hosts file.

I haven't used that service for a long time, but recently I heard they are now
showing in-content ads between programming! So basically they've taken cable
TV and put it on the internet with higher fees and shittier service.

------
TheKarateKid
Why is JavaScript even allowed in ads? Why can’t they be limited to images,
text, and/or looping HTML5 videos?

Could you imagine if cable companies could control your Smart TV when showing
ads and collect data about your viewing habits?

A minority of us have been saying this for years, WHEN will the tech industry
cry loud enough for change?

------
kweks
I still firmly believe that in-browser crypto mining could solve internet
advertising problems fairly for both parties.

1\. As a user, you set your preference: no mining - ads will show instead. No
ads, there will be some mining.

2\. The longer a user stays on a page, ie the more engaging the content is,
the more money the publisher earns. In theory, this would trigger a natural
correction for dark publishing patterns: click bait would diminish, articles
split over X pages would reduce. True, engaging content would win.

Hitherto all alternatives for remunerating publishers have flopped (an engaged
user has no easy way to remunerate aside from pulling out a credit card..) ..
so we have been stuck with ads.

I was truly sad to see in-browser crypto mining get banned. For a brief
moment, it seemed that pleasing everyone was going to be possible.

~~~
minitech
Gigantic waste of energy. Why drain my battery to not see ads when I can just
use an adblocker? Ignoring these, why reward longer content, content I happen
to keep in the background, or content I happen to leave in the foreground
while away over more valuable content?

Donating directly is a much nicer solution for me, and there’s so much room
for improvement there too in the areas of privacy, fees, and convenience. (In
a world where in-browser mining were a good idea, an out-of-browser miner
could provide the equivalent for this kind of manual donation.)

~~~
kweks
Because aside from insidious advertisements, it's the only compensation
mechanism that provides revenue to publishers without demanding a behavioral
change from users.

Obviously, there need to be intelligent structures in place - and these can be
enforced by the browser (as they already are today) - CPU limits for inactive
tabs, CPU limits based off the computer's power-mode. The ability to disable
mining at the cost of seeing advertisements.

~~~
distances
I'm not sure why you think people avoiding ads would accept mining. I find
mining environmentally unethical even when you're using your own resources;
it's mindboggling to me that distributing this to general population is even
an idea worth discussing.

------
TravisLS
Is it necessary that ad blockers be totally all-or-nothing in their approach?
Pop-up blockers didn't kill all ads. They just killed pop-ups. If it's really
the privacy violations that are the problem, and not the user experience of
seeing a bunch of ads, why not find a middle ground?

Make an ad blocker that just dishonors cookies, clears localStorage, etc for
the ad domains, rather than blocking the requests altogether. Publishers won't
make _as much_ money since advertisers won't be able to track you. But at
least you could give the publishers the ability to make _some_ money from ads
served to you.

If this approach gained adoption, you might see a growth in the market for
non-tracking ads (analogous to the growth in the market for non-popup ads
described in the article).

Why not?

~~~
ben509
Adblock Plus has their "acceptable ads" feature[1] so it's already a thing.
But there was some controversy around it, which I don't recall well enough to
give a fair hearing.

Also, Firefox has a good deal of tracker blocking[2] built in that tries to go
after browser signature recognition. I think the problem with that is it can
break some sites, though I have it on and don't see a lot of problems.

Beyond that, many ad blockers let you customize the lists, and there are
tracker blocking lists. But I think they all default to standard ad blocking,
so the hindrance is configuration.

[1]: [https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-
ads](https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads) [2]:
[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/content-
blocking](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/content-blocking)

~~~
catotheyoungest
> Adblock Plus has their "acceptable ads" feature[1] so it's already a thing.
> But there was some controversy around it, which I don't recall well enough
> to give a fair hearing.

You can pay the makers of Adblock Plus to have your ads declared "acceptable".
However, I do not want somebody else deciding for me which ads are
"acceptable".

------
dennisy
I love reading the views people have about digital advertising on HN, and as
someone who works in the space I often agree that they are not providing a
great experience and the tracking is too much, but what is the alternative for
monetisation of content on the web?

~~~
beefield
Paid subscriptions. Literally way more than 99% of "free" content is so bad
that world would be better without that.

------
Entangled
Show me just one ad per page, no scripts, no movement, no tracking and I'll be
fine with that.

~~~
dredmorbius
I counted _eleven_ interstitial "advertising" breaks within an article on some
site recently. I use adblock, so the label. was the only trace left, but
that's still absolutely ridiculous, and is precisely why I'm doing same.

------
jgeada
I think we’re going to need adclickers: similar to adblockers except they put
the ad in a sandbox and click it. As long as this registers as a click,
someone somewhere will want to be paid and sooner or later the whole ad
economy nightmare will implode.

~~~
marcosdumay
Like AdNauseam?

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/)

------
adjagu
Also found on EFF: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-
about-n...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah)

------
vinay_ys
The article kind of ended abruptly. The point about Encrypted Media Extensions
and DMCA and rise of encrypted video playback within browser is an interesting
point that needs more elaboration.

The story of how Internet grew and what made it valuable to users and what
threatens it – it is worth articulating and illustrating and repeating each
year as more and more people take Internet more seriously but don't know about
these happenings under the covers.

Also, for the business model innovation to happen, existing business models
need to be studied with care and deeper and broader understanding needs to
prevail over more and more users.

------
paulie_a
Everyone should click as many ads as possible. Fuck over the datasets. The ads
I get are now stupid and hilarious. I broke their algorithms and I cost every
crappy advertiser money.

------
saurik
The EFF very directly is trying to blame Do Not Track being useless on browser
vendors and media companies when the reality is that it was a dumb idea whose
existence likely does more harm than good (as it makes people think they can
avoid tracking by using it, when they have done literally nothing to people
who are tracking them by turning it on except provide one more bit of browser
setting variation that can be used to differentiate--and thereby track--
users). What the hell, EFF?

------
tehjoker
We need to move towards an economy where many essential internet services are
publicly funded and there are rational subsidies for journalism meeting very
minimal standards.

------
pixelrevision
I really wish there was some sort of proper monetization model for rss. The
web has no reason to be this obnoxious pile of bloated unreadable spyware. I
want to support more of these companies because I think what they do is
important but it gets hard to justify 10 bucks a month for each of them. When
I try and whitelist ads I often find I can’t even find content on the site
anymore and my browser slows to a crawl.

------
maxheadroom
What is the difference (if any) between companies who nefariously, vehemently,
and willfully track users and stalkers (who we classify as criminals) chasing
after their obsessions? Why is it legal for the business? Aren't the end-goals
pretty much the same in both contexts and the only differentiation in both
cases is the fact the adversaries are either a business or an individual?

------
bcaa7f3a8bbc
FYI, The title doesn't suggest one to stop blocking ads, but means the
opposite.

> _When you visit a site, the deal on offer is, "Let us and everyone we do
> business with track you in every way possible or get lost" and users who
> install adblockers push back. An adblocker is a way of replying to
> advertisers and publishers with a loud-and-clear "How about nah?"_

------
lazyjones
How about we just don't let the advertising industry develop or fund our
browsers and web standards? Users need to be able to control what kind of
content their device will load and display, so it's probably time to develop
technology that supports it (and scrap the current web, which is now basically
billboard ads for the internet).

~~~
tomaskafka
Don't let them. Use Firefox or Safari instead of Chrome or Edge.

~~~
lazyjones
I use Safari, Firefox/Mozilla is wholly dependent on money from the ad
industry (Google). But Safari also goes in the direction the ad industry
desires through its adoption of new standardized features. There is really no
way out using the current "web", we need a simple, open alternative that isn't
controlled by the ad industry and adopts only features in the best interest of
the users first and content creators second.

------
beezischillin
Ny main gripe lately is with YouTube.

YouTube's gotten a lot more shitty about it, too. I wouldn't block ads on
there but they treat their creators like crap and they treat me like crap.
Nowadays if I don't block them I get two ads in a row and if I don't skip the
first one, I have to wait on the second one, too. And often some ads go on for
minutes. The longest I've seen was a 50 minute ad. Or ads that scream at you,
as loudly as possible. Especially when you're trying to enjoy more laid-back
content. Ugh.

And a lot of that revenue doesn't go towards paying the creators their proper
share. I would gladly pay for an ad-free YouTube but they're dead-set on
shafting creators, making their lives as miserable as possible. Random
demonetisations, horrible handling of fair use, etc. All this without ANY kind
of proper support. If I pay for a service or rely on something to make a
living, I expect to be able to at least somehow talk to a human being, etc.
They've gotten more and more and more hostile towards creators and users. So
now they get the Brave-treatment (since they fiddle with adblock on Safari, I
use Brave just to watch YouTube. If they detect adblock and can get through
it, you get actively punished with longer and more frequent ads.)

Little wonder that most small people without VC investment backing them have
looked for alternatives to this, they understand how sites that host content
being hostile towards the userbase is a race to the bottom. With off-site
patronage and superchat and burnt-in ads they're in control. Sadly you do have
to be of a audience certain size to take advantage of these but they're far
more pleasant for everyone involved (except the firms that host the content).

For sites in general that model seems to be viable, too. But you do depend on
your audience for this which can be a good thing generally as often it seems
to keep the content more honest. The content that panders is very often just
going to slowly die off.

I would be okay with ads if they weren't disgustingly obnoxious and
consistently trying to intrude in my life and take my data.

Lots of bigger websites have an insane quantity of ads, some even have their
entire backgrounds replaced with clickable ads. One accidental misclick and
you're pissed off. There are sites where the occasional ad is sometimes
interrupted by content.

I simply can't take it. Performance-hogging, data-stealing, annoying, time-
wasting ads. They're everywhere.

------
jordanpg
This embarrassing early era of an internet built on the ludicrous house of
cards of advertising can't come to an end soon enough.

I look forward to reading in the history books about how some of the world's
greatest minds spent their time and energy figuring out how to build
businesses on manifestly bad UX.

------
thomas
What a weird phrase: “how about nah”. Is this a reference to something I’m
totally missing out on? I can barely pay attention to that point the article
make when it’s framed in such an odd and unclear context.

I get wanting to have style to your writing but not at the expense of clarity.

~~~
dwaltrip
It means something to the affect of "Thanks, but no thanks, I'll do this my
way", with a bit of extra snark.

I liked the term "adversarial interoperability" that they used in the article.
I think it is an interesting concept. Although I might want to reframe it as
protecting individual autonomy.

------
sadness2
Breaking this cycle of blocker-blocker-blockers is what makes me actually like
Adblock Plus's "Acceptable Ad" options. It provides a counter-offer, rather
than just "No.", whereby advertisers can feed you unambiguous and untracked
ads.

~~~
catotheyoungest
> It provides a counter-offer, rather than just "No.", whereby advertisers can
> feed you unambiguous and untracked ads.

That ship sailed in 2001, hit an iceberg, and sank with all hands.

------
MiddleEndian
I always thought the Do Not Track option was naive. It did nothing to stop
tracking except beg.

~~~
jszymborski
In a sane world, DNT would be opt-out and enforced by legislation.

~~~
egdod
There's legislation to stop robocalls. How many have you gotten in the last 24
hours? I've had 3, and it's been a pretty typical day.

~~~
nutjob2
Meanwhile I haven't gotten any in many years, because my spam call filter
works a treat, and always has.

Though I am thinking of turning it off and putting up a "Hello? Hello? Sorry I
can't hear you could you repeat that. Uhha, go on..." recorded message about 5
minutes long, just to waste their resources. That would actually be a
promising addition to a spam filter.

~~~
IceWreck
And that spam call filter probably requires proprietary software, which has
access to your call logs and theres every chance that the spam filter app
company can steal your data.

> Though I am thinking of turning it off and putting up a "Hello? Hello? Sorry
> I can't hear you could you repeat that. Uhha, go on..." recorded message
> about 5 minutes long, just to waste their resources. That would actually be
> a promising addition to a spam filter.

This a nice idea but on the rare occasion that your filter incorrectly blocks
the wrong person, you might be annoying someone who really needs to talk to
you.

~~~
tylerl
Android phones do it automatically, assuming your carrier hasn't monkeyed with
the phone app.

I think Google keeps a spam probability score for callers' phone numbers based
on how many people have marked a call as spam.

~~~
tatersolid
Spam call numbers are randomly generated. Blacklisting can’t work without
collateral damage.

~~~
egdod
I’m surprised it helps at all. Why wouldn’t a robocaller generate a new random
number every time?

~~~
manigandham
They do. The common strategy is to pick numbers with the same area code to
pretend to be legal, and some advanced callers try and pick numbers that match
even more recognizable digits (like your office). All this traffic is a major
source of revenue for VOIP operators.

------
anticristi
Couldn't we solve this problem by always clicking on ads we don't like, then
close the tab?

If I like a company, I tend to scroll down in Google Search until I find their
organic result. Hopefully that makes a difference to their bottom line.

~~~
mxfihdsgyxegaas
Like this [1] browser extension? It hides all the ads and also clicks them in
the background.

[1] [https://adnauseam.io/](https://adnauseam.io/)

------
lkrubner
If I buy the paper version of the New York Times the ads are on every page but
I don’t mind them. They are not watching me. Nor would I mind ads on a page,
if they are rendered as plain HTML. Just no Javascript

~~~
dredmorbius
I subscribe to the print edition of the local paper.

I'm not interested in logging in to the paper's website so that it can 1. feed
me yet more ads and 2. track in minute detail exactly what I'm reading and for
how long.

------
zzo38computer
The real problem is that the browser does not give enough ropes for the user
to hang themself and also a few more just in case, and gives too much control
over it by the data received from the server instead.

------
gigatexal
i'm on a vpn that blocks ad networks no software in my browser is needed

~~~
brighter2morrow
Which VPN is that?

~~~
gigatexal
PrivateInternetAccess

------
a3n
> setting Do Not Track in your browser does virtually nothing to protect your
> privacy.

It sends another signal, that this person is an aware contrarian, and may be
receptive to this or that source or style of engagement.

------
a3n
Is there a way to make an ad "blocking IO" from the point of view of the ad
network, but my browser can keep on going (sans ads of course).

Sort of like laying the phone down when a telemarketer calls.

------
tapanjk
> and indeed, some ad-blockers actually track users!

Can someone please explain this?

~~~
freehunter
Browser extensions can see quite a bit of your activity. And if they know your
browser/IP/OS and the sites you visit, there's money to be made.

Here's an article on it: [https://www.wired.com/2016/03/heres-how-that-
adblocker-youre...](https://www.wired.com/2016/03/heres-how-that-adblocker-
youre-using-makes-money/)

------
stunt
Nobody was bothered with ads the way they used to be. But currently you can't
use internet without ad-blockers.

Advertisers are pushing too much and they are overheating their market.

------
gergelykralik
Most companies overdo the ads on their sites. If it was one or maybe two
banners or the like, it would be okay, but no, let's cover 2/3 of the content
with ads.

------
swiley
Just install noScript. All the really nasty stuff ads do gets blocked but
people being sane (things like what project wonderful used to do) still works.

------
ngngngng
Are there any advertising companies that don't target ads with tracking? But
just serve ads based on content of websites?

------
jbverschoor
We’ve made full circle again. Were back in 1999. Tons of ads pace being bought
with clickfraud (facebook). Zillions of scripts etc, when all you want is
someone to put a text link + a pitch which is relevant to the _page_ (current
search, current article, type of content in the video), not the user.

Problem is they can’t. Publishers earn through the massive amount a low
quality traffic, bots, and even misreporting impressions and clicks.

I _want_ ads, if they’re relevant.

~~~
antupis
I really like
[https://tab.gladly.io/?u=antupis](https://tab.gladly.io/?u=antupis) which
raises money for nonprofits through adds.

------
m712
The title could've been worded better. It makes it sound like the article is
against ad-blocking.

------
01100011
So has anyone found a reliable solution for a ad blocker blocker blocker?

------
pixelmonkey
500th comment.

(Wow, this must be one of the most discussed HN posts.)

------
anotherevan
They are not ad blockers, they are HTML firewalls.

------
edem
So what can I do to fuck them over?

------
wakiliadechy
J'aime l'application

------
gruez
Why not use the original eff source?
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-
about-n...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah)

~~~
sctb
Thanks! We've updated the link from
[https://boingboing.net/2019/07/25/largest-boycott-in-
history...](https://boingboing.net/2019/07/25/largest-boycott-in-
history.html).

~~~
dredmorbius
Appreciated -- I realised the EFF's link was better 10s after submitting.

------
tlibert
When I loaded the BoingBoing version of the article my browser contacted 53
third-party domains and a grand total of 373 cookies were set. The BoingBoing
privacy policy does not mention "Do Not Track", usually a signal it is
ignored, and it discloses nearly none of the third-parties. The cookie opt-out
link goes to the NAI site which does not work on Safari because Safari won't
allow the third-party cookies required to opt-out by the NAI. BoingBoing's
privacy policy lists nine types of advertising, none of which are behavioral.

The author of this article, Cory Doctorow, is an editor of BoingBoing and has
some level of control of this.

In contrast, I got zero tracking from the EFF site. Exact same content,
completely different privacy experience.

I'm not an absolutist that you can't criticize a system you benefit from (it's
ok to criticize Apple's labour practices if you own an iPhone), but there is a
big difference between admitting participation in a flawed system and passing
yourself off as an objective critic of a system you benefit from.

Doctorow knows where his paycheck comes from.

~~~
nolok
Does that changes anything to the truth and validity of the points he is
making, though ? Because if yes I would like to know what and how, and if no
then this is an ad-hominem.

Nobody said advertising wasn't paying the bills.

~~~
malvosenior
Yes it says boingboing are hypocrites and not the right people to spread this
message. At the very least they could have used this as an opportunity to say
“you may have noticed we have tons of tracking on this article, here’s
why...”.

There’s something to be said about being a trustworthy source.

~~~
dredmorbius
The capitalist will gladly sell you the rope you hang him with.

------
askosh
There are more countries besides United States. I don't know why people here
always refer to it as if it were the only ruler of the internet. It's not. In
fact it does a piss poor job at playing its part.

~~~
evancich
You mean, aside from the fact that we invented the internet?

You are welcome.

~~~
ddalex
The net add people know it was invented by a brit at a major European project.
You're welcome.

~~~
hollerith
That's the web, not the internet. The internet existed continuously for over 2
decades before the web was created (although the general public didn't know
about it).

"Existed": had actual users. (The US government started funding continuous
research into packet switching in 1960.)

Also, if Tim Berners-Lee (TBL) hadn't created the web, someone else would
probably have _used the internet_ to create something like it in a few years
whereas if the US hadn't invested heavily in packet-switching in the 1960s,
70s and 80s, a much longer interval of time probably would've gone by before
someone created anything capable of enabling an ordinary programmer or
sysadmin like TBL was to create something like the web.

"Ordinary": not able to command a lot of capital or labor.

TBL persuaded his boss to let him create the web during working hours. His
boss agreed largely because he thought that the project would be a good way
for them to evaluate a new computer the boss had bought (by NeXT). In other
words, the existence of the internet (which in turn enabled the existence of a
community of programmers interested in donating code to innovative projects, a
community that got a very big boost when Stallman started publishing _on the
internet_ in 1983) enabled the creation of the web without any serious
commitment from government, corporate executives and people with lots of
money.

In contrast, the creation of a network that allowed an ordinary programmer to
recruit open-source contributions to his project and to easily deploy server
and client software of his own design required massive outlays of capital over
3 decades. It easy for such massive outlays to go awry in various ways. The US
government avoided its going awry. In contrast, the French government retained
so much centralized control over Minitel that at no point in Minitel's history
could an ordinary programmer have used Minitel to create something as
innovative as the web.

(It wasn't until the internet had been almost completely turned over to the
private sector in the early 1990s, for example, that any software started to
track users more than absolutely necessary for the operation of the network:
in the early 1990s, anyone could send and email with president@whitehouse.gov
in the "From" field. The reason it worked that way was to maximize anonymity
of senders. There was no way for the sender of an email in the early 1990s to
know whether the recipient read it, the reason again being a desire among the
designers and maintainers of the infrastructure to maximize privacy.)

