
Google paid AdBlock Plus to get its ads whitelisted - cowchase
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.horizont.at%2Fhome%2Fdetail%2Fgoogle-ist-geldgeber-von-adblock-plus.html&act=url
======
RyanZAG
I was thinking about this further, and while it comes off as fairly irrelevant
to start with, it's actually an extremely bad thing.

In essence, this has set up two tiers of advertising: those we have paid for
white list privileges, and those who haven't. This is heavily in Google's
interests as they are the only advertiser powerful enough to get by with only
text adverts - nobody else has a platform like Google search where text only
adverts are enough to overcome costs and provide viability.

By using Adblock Plus as a weapon against non-Google adverts, Google is
removing the ability for other players to compete on level footing. It's very
similar to the idea of paying AT&T for prioritization for Google traffic, and
it destroys a lot of the foundations that the web is built on. It definitely
crosses into 'evil' territory for me, in the same way as paying AT&T to slow
down access to Bing would be.

While it's just an add on, it's a bad precedent to set.

~~~
md224
It's interesting that people are upset about Google being able to pay to get
their content around certain barriers, when this is essentially what Google
AdWords is: a system for advertisers to pay to get their content displayed in
prominent locations rather than relying on position in organic search. And yet
nobody really takes it seriously as a Real Problem.

Not trivializing your complaint, btw... just pointing out that using money to
get your message to the forefront is kind of the point of advertising itself,
so the fact that Google is paying to get their advertising displayed is kind
of... meta?

I'd love to have a discussion on HN about the necessity of advertising in the
Information Age. I think we would all like to live in a world where purchasing
decisions are based on reviews from people that have actually used a good or
service, and I would think that the ubiquity of the web has made this kind of
crowdsourced intelligence quite feasible.

Does advertising provide a valuable service beyond subsidizing information
flow? If not, are there alternate viable strategies for subsidizing
information flow, such as Wikipedia's donation model? Is a post-advertising
world possible, or even desirable?

~~~
bpatrianakos
I don't want to live in an ad-free, review-only world myself. Advertising and
reviews serve two different purposes. The one gets the word out about a
product or service and lets the creator point out why their audience would
like it. A review's purpose is to let others know if the product or service
lives up to the advertising and lets you gauge how good a fit a given product
is in relation to competitors or on its own.

We need both. Advertising can be unethical at times but its no reason to do
away with it all together. Reviews cAn be flawed too.

As far as AdBlock goes, I'm still uncertain of why people dislike advertising
so much to begin with. Okay, they collect information about you. I understand
the desire to not want to be tracked like that. But lets imagine for a moment
that advertisers are collecting your information but they're not doing
anything unethical with it. They're just trying to show you add that are
relevant. In that situation I really don't care if I see advertisements online
at all. I also think the definition of unethical comes into play here too
though. For me, advertisers sharing my data with each other is something I
don't see as unethical. Others I suspect do. Living the lifestyle I live, I
can't think of anything advertisers could know about me that would be at all
harmful. I suppose everyone's mileage may vary.

My question is, in the end, what part of online advertising is so distasteful
to everyone? Is it the data collection or is it seeing the ads?

~~~
ronaldx
>The one gets the word out about a product or service and lets the creator
point out why their audience would like it.

I've heard this argument countless times but I'm fed up with it and I want to
call it out: the constant and worldwide glut of Coca-Cola advertising suggests
this is _not_ primarily what advertising is about.

Advertising _never_ tells me about a new product that I care about and I'm not
already aware of: in an age when I can research what I like on the internet
and I hear about interesting new products through curated content such as this
forum.

If you can, please come up with a better argument in favour of advertising.

Until then, I will continue to believe that modern advertising is perhaps the
biggest waste of our greatest minds and resources.

~~~
gaadd33
Coca-Cola advertising isn't product advertising, its brand advertising. The
intent is to keep their brand in your mind when you are shopping so when
deciding between two essentially equivalent products you will lean towards the
one you remember better. This sort of advertising tends not to have a strictly
measured ROI in my experience since its hard to measure the "value" of
wrapping a subway car in Jameson ads.

Product advertising is advertising a specific product and the ROI on it is
usually closely measured when it comes to channels that can do that such as
banner ads. While you are quite well informed and get information about all
the new products you care about via other channels, most people are not hence
the need to make people aware.

Without making "the masses" aware you end up with product usage/growth
spreading virally which while it might be "better" is a lot harder to predict
or model production levels or possible ROI on an initiative. For example, the
Taco Bell Doritos Taco would have probably become popular after a while but
that would lengthen the payback period for redesigning the menus/training
staff/etc, alternatively you could do partial rollouts but that defeats the
economies of scale.

While its not perfect, or anywhere near, advertising does serve a useful
purpose and until the economy changes to not reward advertising initiatives we
will sadly have to deal with it.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Well, in their defence, Facebook appear to have made an attempt to measure
brand advertising:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/03/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/03/facebook_advertisement_studies_their_ads_are_more_like_tv_ads_than_google.single.html)

Its an interesting approach, but that might just be because I'm a data nerd.

------
jpdoctor
Quick ref to get rid of Google Ads (and some others too) on Adblock Plus:

FOR CHROME:

Go to "Settings"

Find Extensions in the list on the left

Find AdBlock, select "Options"

Click the tab "Filter Lists"

Uncheck: "Allow some non-intrusive advertising"

FOR FIREFOX:

Go to the Firefox menu in the upper left corner

Select "Add-ons"

Select "Extensions"

Find Adblock Plus, select Options.

Find the "Filter Preferences" Button

Select the tab "Filter Subscriptions"

Uncheck: "Allow some non-intrusive advertising"

~~~
gcb0
Still shocks me that people on this site uses those lame extrensions (which
are a security risk no less)

someonewhocares.org/hosts_zero/

Save this hosts file in your house's router and be safely free of advertising,
shock sites, tracking.... On ALL devices

With no added attack vector as with an extension and not limited to one
browser in one device

~~~
driverdan
How exactly are ad blocking extensions a security risk?

Blocking at the domain level gives you no control. What if you need to see
what a site looks like without ads blocked? I have a few of my own content
sites that use ads. By blocking outside of the browser I wouldn't be able to
see what they look like to other users.

~~~
3pt14159
Because they could be updated and now your whole browser is pwnd.

This is how sites like Compete.com get their metrics.

~~~
pyre

      > Because they could be updated
    

So, this is a rally against _all_ extensions? Expanding this argument, we
basically get to a point where we don't trust _any_ software:

    
    
      1. No more browser extensions.
      2. Want ad-blocking in Firefox? Request feature.
      3. Feature request denied.
      4. Fork Firefox.
      5. Add ad-blocking to Firefox fork.
    

This leaves us with a couple of issues:

1\. The bar to adding functionality to a browser has now been raised
significantly. With a larger barrier to entry, we will see fewer extensions
for trivial things like 'adding collapsible threads to HN', which can make
your life easier, but isn't worth a fork of the entire browser to achieve.

2\. Trust. You still have to trust the developer of the browser fork that same
way that you have to trust the developer of the browser extension.

~~~
coldtea
> _So, this is a rally against all extensions? Expanding this argument, we
> basically get to a point where we don 't trust any software:_

Yes. So DON'T expand it. The thing is, third party updatable extensions are
far less trustworthy than Firefox.

~~~
pyre
This is true, but to _only_ trust Firefox means that you only get features
that Mozilla adds to Firefox.

------
znowi
I think it was immoral and dishonest to sneak in a whitelist feature into
AdBlock, which is in direct opposition to the core product value. Imagine a
firewall that whitelists certain networks. And background updates add more
networks that bought their way into your machine. Not a product I'd be willing
to use.

~~~
wallunit
1\. There was a user survey in 2009, whether users would like to have every ad
blocked or would accept some ads to a certain degree. And the result was that
around half of the users are fine with getting some ads:
[http://adblockplus.org/blog/adblock-plus-user-survey-
results...](http://adblockplus.org/blog/adblock-plus-user-survey-results-
part-3)

2\. Adblock Plus has announced on their website that they have introduced
"Acceptable Ads", and that it will be enabled by default:
[http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-
ads](http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads)

3\. It isn't even a secret that they get paid from larger companies, for
putting them on the whitelist (they though have to conform to the guidelines
for "Acceptable Ads"): [http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads-
agreements](http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads-agreements)

4\. Plus the source code is open source, that everybody can read it:
[https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/](https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/)

So Adblock Plus couldn't possibly be more honest and fair about its
"Acceptable Ads" feature. If you don't like it, it's just 3 clicks to disable
it. I don't get why lately, everybody is so surprised about thatfeature and
feels betrayed.

The German media went completely insane over the past two weeks, and made a
scandal out of that feature in Adblock Plus, which exists for quite a while
now and was clearly announced and documented from the beginning by the AdBlock
Plus Team, and can easily be disabled.

~~~
nitrogen
It's #3 that is evil. Unless there's a large print disclaimer sayong "notice:
ad networks pay for whitelisting" in the extension description and next to
thethe acceptable ads checkbox, Adblock Plus is being deceptive. The ad
networks themselves should never be paying an ad blocker for special
treatment. It's either bribery by the networks, or extortion by ABP.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I feel some charge is acceptable as the ad network needs to be assessed
against the whitelist criteria.

~~~
nitrogen
But having the ad networks (or sites hosting ads) pay a charge creates
misaligned incentives.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It can. Arguably however if you agree with the premise of the whitelist as
beneficial and there is a fixed schedule of charges (ie no company is
preferenced in charging) then to me it seems OK.

You can't have the whitelist without having ads/networks assessed to see if
they meet the criteria. Even if you crowdsourced that [which probably wouldn't
be objective enough] you'd need to administrate the whitelist and so you need
some revenue to cover the overheads at least. Even automating it there's a
cost in creating the code. It seems right to pass that cost on and the
networks are the ones holding all the money.

You could have users pay for the whitelisting to avoid "misaligned
incentives".

Indeed charging the companies for assessment gives an incentive to reject them
so you can charge to assess them again ... 4) profit.

------
fintler
Since it seems to be a common misconception, I'd just like to point out that
"Adblock" and "Adblock Plus" are two different extensions made by different
people.

~~~
enraged_camel
Yeah, for the longest time I thought the latter was an enhanced (paid?)
version of the former. I can't believe naming browser extensions in a similar
manner like this is allowed. It causes nothing but confusion.

~~~
B-Con
I feel really old now, but Adblock Plus was actually forked from the original
Adblock. The "plus" part implied it was supposed to improve on the original
project.

------
kevingadd
As long as they're only whitelisting text ads, I don't think I mind. Even
image ads that aren't animated are okay with me if they aren't offensive. The
only reason I have AdBlock plus installed in the first place is the really
vile shit - noisy SWFs, scantily clad women, drive-by PDF 0 day exploits,
etc...

~~~
diggan
Well, what others find offensive, you find funny and what you find offensive,
other people don't even notice. It's a pretty subjective thing no?

~~~
kevingadd
I'm pretty sure it would require an extreme amount of subjectivity to find
random noise blaring out of your speakers or drive-by trojan installs
acceptable. But sure.

~~~
pygy_
I think you missed his point. He was referring to the fact that you don't mind
the ABP policy, while you may find some images offending.

~~~
kevingadd
Those ads aren't vile specifically because they have an image of a woman in
them; they're vile because they're psychological manipulation primarily based
on the objectification of women and intended to funnel clicks to shady online
game websites that basically operate as a mechanism for scamming as much money
out of gullible players as possible.

Or to put it another way: Typically the ads that do the most annoying stuff
are from advertisers that obviously aren't particularly legit. Microsoft and
Apple aren't blaring noise out of your speakers or shoving pictures of
scantily clad women in your face to get you to play microtransaction games and
Amazon doesn't do it to get you to buy books or movies.

Of course the definition of taste and acceptability is subjective, but there
is definitely a line between legit advertisers that aren't hostile to web
surfers, and the advertisers who will do absolutely anything if it increases
revenues - including tracking users or outright lying to them.

------
tenpoundhammer
This whitelist was highly publicized, I even listened to a segment on NPR that
interviewed an Ad Block Plus employee about it(Link below). For all you
outraged individuals this was a very openly communicated addition and comes by
default, but it can be easily turned off. Oh the outrage...

[http://www.onthemedia.org/2013/may/10/adblock-plus-
internets...](http://www.onthemedia.org/2013/may/10/adblock-plus-internets-ad-
gatekeeper/)

------
webwanderings
Just uncheck the Allow non-intrusive option and this becomes a non-issue.

With recent onslaught of attack on Ghostery and Ad-block, I wonder if these
two tools are doing exactly what they're supposed to do: help people.

~~~
tr4656
What were the attacks on Ghostery? I seem to have missed them.

~~~
natch
This: [http://i.imgur.com/cocSwhF.png](http://i.imgur.com/cocSwhF.png)

~~~
cbr
Text version, at least until Adam says something more popular:
[http://www.reddit.com/user/dudethatsmeta?sort=top](http://www.reddit.com/user/dudethatsmeta?sort=top)

------
SomeRandomUser
Although the ethics of paying as the method for being whitelisted can be
subject to debate, IIRC Adblock states that whitelisted ads could be those
that aren't animated, block access to content or distract the normal flow of
browsing.

Adwords are just blocks of text. Ugly blocks of text, but they don't distract
too much. And promoted search results are a fair tradeoff imo.

Anyway, disabling the display of whitelisted ads is not a complex task.

------
6cxs2hd6
As others noted, AdBlock and Adblock Plus are two different companies.

I donated to AdBlock a couple years ago. Should have earlier. And should do
again. Not claiming to be a saint. But I gave them some actual money. I'd like
to think that enough people doing this, makes it possible for AdBlock to avoid
doing what AdBlock Plus did.

I think this is a variation on the theme, "If you're not the customer, you're
the product." Usually we talk about this WRT free web services. In this case
it applies to what, back in the day, some of us would refer to as "shareware".

------
naner
I thought this was assumed to be the case when AdBlock added the "Allow non-
intrusive advertising" feature?

------
dotmanish
It's not just advertising that Google stands to benefit from.

The Google Ads also help them keep a _track_ of where the person has been
around the web and also acts as a proxy site stats data for Google
(irrespective of whether you use Google Analytics or not).

------
downandout
I was always curious as to how they made money. He used to ask for donations.
Asking for money in exchange for _not_ taking actions that will harm another
person's business (i.e. blocking their ads) seeing seems awfully close to
extortion. Yelp was sued for extortion, and their conduct was far less
egregious than this. Google probably couldn't handle the PR hit after the NSA
stuff, but I'll bet their first inclination was to sue rather than write a
check.

~~~
jmharvey
Adblock and Adblock Plus are different.

~~~
downandout
I changed it to "they". It doesn't change the fact that someone managed to
extort money from Google.

------
dendory
I suspected something like that when I realized Google Ads were now showing up
on my screen a few weeks ago. I went to the Adblock Plus forum and all it said
was that those ads had been added to the list, no reason why. I personally
find it appealing and hope everyone switches away to an Adblock fork, if only
by principle. Sure it's the extension' maintainer's right to take bribes, but
the consequence should be that no one trusts the extension again.

------
hcarvalhoalves
The other day I was thinking about how Google keeps printing "download button"
traps [1], despite it being in clear conflict with their TOS [2], for obvious
reasons (abnormal high revenue from clicks).

Now, they "bribe" the author of AdBlock to keep a flawed model alive.

Advertising is a shitty industry, but boy, is Google taking it to the next
level. And the nerds are too distracted with their shinny things and job
offers to notice.

[1] [http://www.ghacks.net/2012/06/17/how-deceiving-ads-trick-
you...](http://www.ghacks.net/2012/06/17/how-deceiving-ads-trick-you-on-
download-sites/)

[2]
[https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/topic/1308149](https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/topic/1308149)

~~~
cbr
Looking at your [1] link I don't see any "download traps" there being served
by Google. (No "ad choices" triangle in the upper right.)

------
guelo
Here is the "non-intrusive" filter [https://easylist-
downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.tx...](https://easylist-
downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.txt)

It does seem to have a lot of google.

~~~
Recoil42

      It does seem to have a lot of google.
    

Google's a rather large advertiser, and put a good deal of work into ensuring
their ads behave better than most.

~~~
s3r3nity
"...[P]ut a good deal of work into ensuring their ads behave better than
most."

It's more like they have a lot more data and scale to target better ads at
individuals. And when you have many many ads competing for X amount of spots,
the average ad quality increases. Google doesn't really need to do anything
other than create the platform that gathers lots of data on individuals and
allow for appropriate targeting.

------
scotth
Is this a bad thing? AdBlock has made no promises to me, and it continues to
be useful. The day it doesn't, I uninstall it and find an alternative.

------
mratzloff
I defined an exception for AdWords when I first installed an ad blocker. I
just want to block the annoying ads, but I understand that many sites have to
advertise to stay online. I can live with text ads, but not auto-start videos
with sound, animated banner ads, pop-ups, etc.

~~~
calbear81
It doesn't help a site if you show text blocks from AdSense since they get
paid only when there's a qualified click.

~~~
amalter
The first step in getting a click is gettin an impression.

On the other extreme, I've actually found myself right clicking into an
organic search because I feel bad for charging UPS for my laziness.

(Yes I do realize how ridiculous this is on so many levels. However, do not
assume that well plassed text ads do not get click thrus)

------
cupcake-unicorn
I did notice this recently and have been having to uncheck the box on all the
new PCs I install it on. While the ads are "unintrusive" I have a media PC
where I've turned the font up to huge to be able to read from the couch. Some
search terms will cause maybe up to 4 different text ads to show up and that
will effectively block out the actual search results when your font is large.

I'm glad I found out about this though. I always felt vaguely guilty
unchecking it, because I thought it was maybe AdBlock trying to support the
"Good Guys" of online advertising, but if Google themselves are paying for it,
I no longer care.

------
calbear81
I understand the apprehension in this community about ads in general but when
it comes to search engine ads, it does add value (and relevance improvement)
to many "commerce" oriented queries.

Google also already knows categories that generally don't get high ad
engagement and doesn't show them for those. An example would be "chuck norris
biography" \- the intent is clear that you're looking for information
primarily and even though I'm sure Amazon or others buy tons of ads against
"chuck norris movies", etc. Google is smart enough to know not show you those
irrelevant ads.

~~~
ruswick
I don't believe that I've ever clicked on a text ad. (That is to say, I had
never clicked on one prior to starting using an ad blocker two years ago.)

If I'm attempting to research a product or product category, I'll go to an
aggregator like Gdgt or an editorial site like The Wirecutter.

I can't comprehend why one would ever click on ads when intending to spend
money. The last source I would ever trust to recommend how I spend my money is
an advertising platform.

------
mknits
Use AdBlock Edge instead of the normal ABP, you'll have no further worries.

------
darkstalker
Ad blocking should be a core feature of web browsers.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Web browsers developed by advertising networks or funded mainly through
advertising networks aren't likely to consider it a wise addition to the core
features however.

------
bwy
That explains Google sponsored links showing up again. Oh well, that's just
another filter I'll have to add.

~~~
lfcode
There is a setting to disable whitelisting ,so you don't have to add the
filter manually.

~~~
hobs
And it is in a very obvious place, even though I dislike the whitelisting,
they did tell me about it and make it clear how to change it. I see it as the
adware installers in legit software you can uninstall, it is there to catch
the unwary and make money off of them.

------
nivla
Although I can understand the need to whitelist non-intrusive or "acceptable"
ads, it seems shady to base the list on who pays the most. If adblock plus is
a community plugin, the list of acceptable ads should be voted on. I have
switched to Ghostery (after reports of adblock plus injecting referral tags),
so can someone clarify if whitelisting is enabled by default?

Despite ads being the main source of revenue for Google, it is really cool of
them to allow ad-blockers on the Chrome extension store (although Andriod is
another story). However, paying to be whitelisted puts the rest of the
advertisers at a disadvantage. It is a very well known fact that there isn't a
good alternative to Adsense and things like this will only puts a dent into
the remaining competition.

------
dropdownmenu
I can understand google trying to protect their revenue source, but actions
like this undermine the openness of the platforms that they are trying to
promote.

Open and free platforms need to allow people to say no.

------
GoldfishCRM
Adblocking it self is evil. The current ecosystem where users get contents for
publishers for "free", advertisers pays publisher for producing content and
viewing it to users and last users pay advertisers (buying there product). If
users dont see advertising, advertising has no interest in paying publishers
and then publishers gets no money. Not many people understand the ecosystem
and I have seen developers living of advertising and still blocks ads online.
That is crasy if you think about it.

------
vnchr
Many people love AdBlock being free (incl. myself) and many people would admit
Google's Ads are comparatively less intrusive and comparatively more relevant.

I assumed this was the case when I installed it, similar to the situation with
Firefox using Google search by default while being compensated to the tune of
$1B[1]. Why is this surprising or upsetting?

[1]
[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398046,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398046,00.asp)

------
driverdan
Solution: Use AdBlock instead of AdBlock Plus. You can add your own whitelists
if you want but it doesn't have any itself.

Chrome:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock/gighmmpiob...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom)

Source:
[https://code.google.com/p/adblockforchrome/](https://code.google.com/p/adblockforchrome/)

------
Apocryphon
Mozilla's main source of revenue is from Google, as well. Are many of these
non-profit entities dependent upon Google funding?

~~~
dendory
Except Mozilla doesn't try to hide that fact, and it can be argued to be in
users interest by providing a search bar, instead of no search function at
all. Here, someone who uses Adblock Plus decided to block ads. Adding them
behind their backs is dishonest.

------
jojolebobo
Funny that people would focus on google in this case. It seems to me adblock
plus is the culprit here. First it gained a much significant footprint, then
added the whole "acceptable ads" concept, then got paid by advertisers to be
whitelisted.

Seems like adblock plus is abusing its position of power to extort money and
doesn't care about the user.

------
suyash
So what is the alternative, in the comments two of them have stood out:
[http://www.ghostery.com/](http://www.ghostery.com/) & AdBlock. Any prefrences
or any other good ones, I'm going to get rid of AdBlock Plus right now so
looking for a solution.

------
straight_talk
I personally use a commercial ad blocker - AdMuncher. Blocks more ads than ABP
and I know I'm the customer, not Google. Only supports Windows unfortunately,
but on Linux I run an XP VM and proxy through it.

------
brendoncrawford
The whitelist also allows ads for Reddit and Amazon.

------
leeoniya
time to dig around in the Adblock Plus source and see what's behind that
"Allow some non-intrusive advertising" checkbox.

~~~
Narretz
There's no need to dig around in the source. AdBlock Plus is setting certain
ad providers on its whitelist. In theory, the decision of who is whitelisted
should be made by the community. But as a German blogger recently found out,
Adblock plus owners and investors have connections to some AdProviders, and
those are favored, while others are still blocked. The article in question:
[http://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-
einblicke-...](http://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-
ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk/)

------
kmfrk
Saw the same thing with AdMuncher, I believe, and was wondering whether they
had entered the same sort of agreement.

~~~
jfoster
I know the founder of AdMuncher. Pretty sure they don't whitelist.

------
1giangpnda
Replace google with any other major company.. let the real unbiased discussion
begin.

------
pvdm
The question to ask is does google allow you to make informed and rational
decisions.

------
osth
I would have thought Adblock's userbase too small to be of concern to Google.

------
lifeguard
The Evil just keeps on coming from the googleplex lately, doesn't it?

------
pjbrunet
Paying was easier than obfuscating the js.

------
nemoniac
Disabled AdBlock Plus. Added Adblock Edge.

------
justplay
for some reason I am thinking that how smart peoples are making money with his
hack-ish idea.

------
tlrobinson
I don't run an ad blocker right now, but I'd totally run one that only blocks
advertisers who have paid AdBlock Plus.

------
alokyadav15
if they are doing so , well we have to lookup for another adblock option

------
atirip
Yeah, money talks, bullshit (you, the product) walks.

------
transitionality
All it takes is one click on a checkbox.

Anyone is free to fork AdBlock Plus' codebase and prepare a version that
doesn't require that checkbox.

I, for one, am happy that AdBlock Plus is being funded (and will continue to
provide a great, reliable product) at the expense of users too stupid or
ignorant to click on a single checkbox.

