
Ad Blocking Will Keep Growing Until We Make Ads Better - cpeterso
http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/ad-blocking-will-keep-growing-until-we-make-ads-better-2/
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whoopdedo
The issue not mentioned is better curating of ads. The #2 reason to block ads
right now (after not making 20 connections and running half a meg of
javascript that slows down your browser) is security. Malware distributors are
abusing ad networks to distribute exploits. The ad networks need to do a
better job keeping out the bad actors. This also ties to the privacy and spam
issues as advertisers who can be trusted not to deliver malware can probably
also be trusted to obey DNT and unsubscribe requests.

Speaking of spam, advertisers should adopt opt-in policies and avoid confusing
"gotcha" phrasing. Things like having a large "Download" button that goes to
the paid signup page, while the actual file download link is a tiny plain text
link you have to scroll down to find. Stop that. It's deceptive and if done in
a physical store would get you sued for fraud.

Except I really don't expect advertisers to do any of these things because
they're not interested in making the viewer happy, they want to make their
customers happy and that means getting as many people to "accidentally" click
on their ads as possible. I'm sure they've done AB testing and heatmaps that
prove playing nice is not profitable.

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runin2k1
Good steps -- a site that asks me to allow displaying of ads will get white-
listed as long as they play by the guidelines that they've laid out here.

It is promising to see the industry look at ways to self-regulate before
something drastic happens. i.e. doomed government attempts to regulate, or
more sophisticated ad-blocking that continues to destroy the business model.

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javery
I wrote this piece so happy to answer any questions - also love to hear any
suggestions or thoughts from people running ad block.

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brerlapn
I run an ad blocker on all my browsers except IE (which I generally don't use
unless a site like Fandango has made it impossible to finish a transaction
while using Disconnect/uBlock, in which case half the time I'll just abandon
the site and go to a different vendor). I make a habit of whitelisting sites
that I find valuable and don't engage in sketchy advertising practices. I even
pay for Newsblur as my RSS reader so that I can pull the actual page up in the
viewer and allow for the site to get my clicks. The rules laid out in TFA
would go a long way to easing my blocking even further, and when I used Ad
Blocker I enabled the acceptable ads list. In the past few years, though, I've
also started to see advertising networks as potential malware threats and
think advertising standards should incorporate security standards, as well.
When I go to a page that NoScript shows has 30 or 40 scripts with
unrecognizable names, I'm less likely to go back to the site at all, much less
whitelist any of the blocked domains. If I was running an enterprise IT
department, I'd be more likely to blacklist advertising domains than
timewaster sites because of the threat of malicious payloads through those
advertising networks.

TFA lays out ways to make advertising more humane for viewers, but I am
curious how aware or involved with technical approaches like VRM or Kantara
Initiative's User-Managed Access (UMA) to making permission-based advertising
more feasible. In the past year I bought two new high ticket items--a new car
and a new laptop. I had to do two phase of research for each of them--what is
even out there as far as features and then who offers the features I think are
interesting. I would expect that a highly qualified lead would have made any
advertising much more lucrative during either of those phases (advertising
that I would have actually welcomed) than a bunch of simple broadcast ad views
(which I mostly blocked anyway). I would love to see advertisers and browser
developers work with groups like those to make advertising not just less
obnoxious but something that I could actively consider useful.

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markyc
not so sure abt this. even if some adblockers eventually whitelist "good
advertisers", there will always be blockers that block everything. and ads are
just half of the story. there are tons of trackers and marketing javascripts
clogging down the web.

it seems to me that once people see the benefits of the blockers, there's
almost no chance of getting them to go back

