
Ethical Adblocking - westi
http://noscope.com/2015/09/ethical-adblocking/
======
wanderfowl
There was a time when the industry could have prevented the rise of widespread
adblocking with "ethical advertising", which wasn't user-hostile, risky,
creepy, intrusive, tracking, bandwidth and power heavy and didn't trash the UX
of the sites. But, they didn't.

So, now, the ad industry trying to talk to the rest of the world about the
ethics of blocking ads is like the drunk uncle who puked on last year's
Thanksgiving Turkey talking to the family about the "ethics" of not inviting
him this year. Sure, it's a sad situation, but you probably should've thought
about that before you puked on the turkey.

If the ad guys spend a few years ensuring that advertisting is safe,
lightweight, unobtrusive, non-creepy, and fast, maybe we'll invite you back to
the party someday, and start to consider web advertising less of a threat-to-
be-blocked.

But for now, we're not taking that risk. Sorry guys, but you've earned it.

~~~
eli
> _If the ad guys spend a few years ensuring that advertisting is safe,
> lightweight, unobtrusive, non-creepy, and fast,..._

Isn't that the point Gruber was making his Deck ads? Or do you not think those
qualify?

There is no monolithic "ad industry" ... it's a bunch of people and companies
with different methods and objectives and values.

~~~
wanderfowl
This is a perfect case for disruption. Make a company whose ads are _so_
unobtrusive, _so_ free of tracking, _so_ non-creepy, and _so_ fast that I
would actually want to unblock them specifically. Gruber's on that, which is
great, but 99% of the rest of the ad industry is full of everything wrong with
it, and there's no guarantees Gruber's service won't start running malware
tomorrow.

If there's a door open to a room that's filled with 9900 assholes and 100
decent people, even though it's not fair to the 100, it's still a good idea to
shut the door. Similarly, right now, the best bet is to set your adblockers in
the least permissive way possible.

EDIT: Also, with regards to the decentralized "ad industry", look at what
happened in the spam/commercial email industry. The bad companies have been
chased out, and the good ones are well regulated. That was many disparate
groups, but along with improvements in spam blocking, they've proved
themselves ready to sit at the adults table. Advertisers now have a chance to
do the same, and Adblock will help us keep them honest.

~~~
krapp
I'm not certain such a company would be successful.

I think the number of users willing to _unblock_ ads that are already being
blocked will be in the minority - and more than likely any such "ethical"
advertising would be blacklisted as soon as possible. An ad blocker that does
allow so-called "ethical" ads by design would probably be considered spyware.

~~~
wanderfowl
Well, that's the thing: Nobody actually _likes_ ads. At best, people like what
ads _allow_ (e.g. free content, services, etc), but they're a necessary evil
even there. If given the choice between two universes, one involving ads and
one not, which were equal in all other respects, there would be no line to get
into the ad-ful one.

And I think the ad industry is going to need to give up on tracking as a
concept. No matter how they do it, it's basically the same concept as the
massive data collection the NSA is working towards which everybody hates,
except ad companies don't even have the illusion of protective and pure
motives.

~~~
eli
I don't really agree with that.

The people who truly want zero ads are, I think, in the minority. If I'm
reading a blog about Django and it's got an ad with a discount code for
DjangoCon, I actually want to see that ad -- and not just because it supports
the blog.

The other day I put an item in my cart on an ecommerce site and forgot about
it until I saw a "retargeted" ad reminding me to complete my purchase. I
wanted to complete the purchase, I just forgot. I want that ad.

For some non-tech examples: consider how many people would opt for an ad-free
Superbowl or an ad-free fashion magazine. Some would, but certainly not
everyone. Many people _like_ those ads.

I think people hate ads that are not relevant to them. Third party tracking
cookies have many problems, but they're one way to help make ads more
relevant.

(Disclaimer: I'm cofounder of an ad-supported B2B news organization)

------
vlucas
I really don't get this moral argument at all. Websites don't have the right
to use 5x my already severely limited mobile bandwidth on pure crap that I
don't need. They have the right to put trackers and crap ads on their page,
sure - but I also have the right to block them.

* TV channels have the right to put annoying ads in, but I have the right to mute them, look away, change the channel, skip them if previously recorded, etc.

* Movies have the right to insert pre-roll ads and previews, but I have the right to skip them or come to a movie 15 minutes later than listed showtime to ensure I miss them.

* Newspapers and magazines have the right to put ads in, but I have the right to cut them out or fold the page over so I don't have to look at them while reading the article.

No amount of these shaky moral arguments are going to make me change my mind
about intrusive advertising and tracking. There is no contract or promise
between me and the website that I am visiting that I will be captive to their
ads or behavior tracking, implied or otherwise - just like in any other other
media format. People absolutely have the right to block them, and they
absolutely have the right to install software that helps improve their
privacy.

~~~
kllrnohj
That's because you're talking about "rights" not "morals".

I have the right to call you an asshole but it wouldn't be moral. Mods have
the right to ban everyone with ideas they don't like but it wouldn't be moral.

You do have the right to demand something from someone for free. You do have
the right to go to every store in the city and empty every "take a penny leave
a penny" tray. But having the right to do it and it being moral are very, very
different things.

~~~
vlucas
But I am not making any demands at all. Publishers are offering their content
for free, and I sometimes take them up on their offer and read it. It's an
offer that started with the publisher, not a demand that came from me.

Are you saying it is moral for publishers to track my usage behavior, and to
force me to watch any ad they want me to?

~~~
phpnode
> Publishers are offering their content for free

No, they are offering their content in the expectation that they will be
rewarded for producing it, via ads. It isn't free.

Are you saying it's moral for you to read their content but circumvent their
business model?

~~~
vlucas
> There is no contract or promise between me and the website that I am
> visiting that I will be captive to their ads or behavior tracking, implied
> or otherwise

If you ask any website without a paywall, they will almost ALL tell you their
content is free. Some even advertise and market that enthusiastically. A visit
still helps them - it is still counted in server-side stats (which is used to
sell ads), and I am exposed to their brand, which is a large part of what
marketing is all about. There are also other forms of advertising which are
not blocked - things like sponsored posts, guest posts, mailing list opt-in
forms, referral links, etc.

You also conveniently ignored my question on whether or not forcing me to
watch an ad or forcing me to accept behavior tracking is moral on their part.
This is not a one-sided equation.

~~~
malchow
"If you ask any website without a paywall, they will almost ALL tell you their
content is free. "

Come on. No they don't, vlucas. They say "welcome, enjoy, support our
sponsors." They do _not_ say "it's free; do whatever you want with our content
now that the packets have been transferred."

~~~
vlucas
They do indeed say the content is free. Of _course_ they are not going to say
"do whatever you want with our content". That's not what I said or implied at
all.

------
srdev
> Once the adblocker is installed, once web-ads have been poisoned by years of
> bad practices, ads aren’t coming back.

That's really the crux of the matter. Advertisers and the sites using them had
a chance to show us that they could do this in a responsible manner that took
user experience into consideration. They demonstrated that they would engage
in as much user-hostile advertising as they could get away with. So my ad-
blocker went from having a carefully curated whitelist to a blanket banning
with no exceptions. They had their chance and they blew it.

~~~
hollerith
If I was a responsible advertiser over the last 20 years, I had absolutely no
chance to prevent irresponsible people from becoming member of the group you
refer to as "advertisers" \-- and, at least in the US, if I tried I would
probably run afoul of anti-trust or other laws -- so it does not make much
sense to say that I "had my chance".

There are good arguments for ad blockers, but treating a collection of
independent market participants as if they were a single person or a coherent
group able to enforce norms on its members is not one.

I guess you could argue that Google and Facebook controlled enough of the
market that if they acted in concert, they could have prevented the current
situation, but they certainly would have faced strident accusations from
advertisers of anti-competitive behavior and would have attracted the interest
of regulators. (And if that is your argument, you should say so.)

ADDED. Over the 20 years since the start of advertising on the internet, the
actors with the best chance to have headed off the current situation were the
maintainers of the popular web browsers, but saying that they had their chance
does not help shift the moral high ground from responsible advertisers to
users of ad blockers.

~~~
srdev
From my perspective as a user, it doesn't matter. If the ad networks and their
customers are unable to enforce standards on their advertisers, then I have no
choice but to block them. Making it my responsibility is not an option.

Its not possible to enforce compliance with some sort of ethical standards
industry-wide, but it is possible to at least encourage it, especially if you
are a large player like Facebook or Google. From my perspective, they don't
even appear to be trying.

> I guess you could argue that Google and Facebook controlled enough of the
> market that if they acted in concert, they could have prevented the current
> situation, but they certainly would have faced strident accusations from
> advertisers of anti-competitive behavior and would have attracted the
> interest of regulators. (And if that is your argument, you should say so.)

Its not clear to me that this is the case. Simply enforcing standards on ads
is not the same as limiting competition. Its an issue of a corporation
deciding to not carry your content because it does not pass some presumably
published and neutral guidelines. At the very least, it is not as clear-cut as
you are making it sound.

------
forgetsusername
> _" I think if your Safari Content Blocker blocks The Deck by default, it’s
> wrong. I dare you to defend it._"

Hilarious. Okay:

I decide what comes up my pipe, into my house, and appears on my screen; opt-
_in_. If you have a problem with me "free-loading", then put your content
behind a paywall and I'll decide if it's worth my money.

~~~
nattaylor
Let's assume the market isn't in a place where most sites can put up paywalls,
since users will just turn to free alternatives. This is debatable, but not my
point.

If the site had an "opt-in to ads" modal (which set a cookie or something,)
would you ever accept?

~~~
Spivak
> since users will just turn to free alternatives

If there are completely free alternatives which are an acceptable replacement
how are you going to compete in the first place?

I would _never_ accept that opt-in for an ever growing list of reasons but I'm
also the person who donates to sites I like.

------
AdmiralAsshat
A webcomic from twelve years ago summarized my feeling on ad tracking:
[http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/07/19](http://penny-
arcade.com/comic/2002/07/19)

Of course back then we called it "spyware," but apparently now it's the more
consumer-friendly "interest-based acquisition and aggregation you tacitly
agreed to when you decided to visit our website."

------
Zikes
I'll take Mister Gruber's dare: it's my device, it's my bandwidth, and they're
my eyeballs.

~~~
eli
I can't really speak for him, but I think "by default" is an important part of
that dare. That the people who are complaining about ads are mostly not
bothered by Deck ads, but Deck ads are blocked by default along with far more
obnoxious ads.

------
irl_zebra
I should be able to choose what I see on my computer, especially when I'm
paying for bandwidth. But this has already been said.

What I find laughable is the author's warning at the end that essentially
boils down to: If you keep blocking ads, the alternative will be much worse,
so you better not block ads...or else!

"What’s more likely is that web ads are going to get way worse, adblocking is
going to go way up, and at some point in this arms race, after the death of
many a media company, eventually some will indeed have adapted. The big
question is whether you’ll like the alternatives. It can be apps. It can be
inside Apple’s Newsstand (featuring unblockable ads). It can be inside
Facebooks instant articles. It can be subversive native ads. It can be
paywalls. Think in-app purchases: 'Pay $1 for this article, or pay by watching
a video.'"

~~~
manicdee
Unblockable ads, using Apple's Newsstand delivery vehicle?

How long will that last before Apple is kicking the content provider's arse to
kingdom come?

------
pavel_lishin
I'd like to see a whitelist option happen, like AdBlock currently does - but
more transparent. Ad networks/providers that have shown themselves to be
trustworthy, secure, compact and not-annoying ought to be able to show me ads
- plain ads that I can scroll past, nothing that pops up, or stick around
while I scroll - while the egregious offenders ought to be blacklisted until
they go out of business.

~~~
hullo
Well, yes, but the thing is while we care, and might want to craft a whitelist
or put consideration into our choices, the majority of folks are going to
search for ad blocker, choose the first one, and start enjoying the web
without ads. Then they're going to wonder why they never did it on desktop?
And then they're going to do it on the desktop. The genie, once out of the
bottle, will not choose to return.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Oh, in my perfect world, while end-users would be able to modify the list, it
would ship with one by default. 99% of users wouldn't know or care it was even
there.

------
cbd1984
Here's an interesting part I'm going to use to illustrate a larger point:

> whether those services are free through ads or are entirely paid.

It isn't this simple. I pay for a newspaper, I still get ads. The fact the
newsstand price is too low for them to give it to me ad-free isn't really up
to me; they don't offer an ad-free option, even at a higher price. Magazines
are the same way. So are a lot of premium pay TV channels. So's SiriusXM.

My point is, I can't trust them to _not_ run ads. Even if I'm paying them
directly, they still have the option to shove ads down my eye-holes. I can't
effectively block ads anywhere but online, so that's what I do.

Everywhere else, regardless of what I pay, I still get ads.

------
wahsd
I have a feeling we have surpassed the opportunity for the industry to appeal
to ethical ad blocking. I for one even think ads can play a role in society to
disperse information, but hell, every time I try to both use the unintrusive
white lists or even dare to totally disable blockers it triggers massive rage.

------
javery
Here are my thoughts from the ad industry side:

[http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/ad-blocking-
will...](http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/ad-blocking-will-keep-
growing-until-we-make-ads-better-2/)

I think there is a chance to make it better, ad blocking is not yet maintsteam
and I think there is a room for a blockers that will only block "bad" ads.

~~~
wanderfowl
This is well and good, but there's a trust issue. Last time we let you guys
have free reign, you created a user-hostile hellscape of tracking and
intrusive ads, and sold ads to the highest malware-pushingest bidder.

After you guys messed the whole thing up so badly the first time, why would we
want to re-open the doors _at all_? "It's OK guys, this time we'll be good for
realsies!" just doesn't cut it.

As much as I feel for the people involved, I just don't see a compelling
reason for your industry to be given a second chance and continue existing at
anywhere near its current scale.

An evolution of business models away from web advertising is what we need to
bet on, rather than a pinky-swear from the people who got us into this mess in
the first place.

~~~
javery
I definitely understand that perspective - and to be clear there are good ad
providers out there, we just haven't been winning the war in our own industry.

I don't think a pinky swear would work either, but I think if the browsers can
enforce better standards we would be able to move forward. Of course the
problem there is that the largest advertising company in the world owns the
most popular browser in the world.

An ad blocker that only blocks bad advertising would be a good way to
encourage this.

I wish a form of micro-payments or subscription would work, but most
publishers have found little luck with this. (look at all the people here who
complain about a paywalled link, or find a way around it)

~~~
wanderfowl
"An ad blocker that only blocks bad advertising" is a great idea, but it
relies on easily faked characteristics. I'd love to see an industry group
which focuses on authenticating non-harmful ads in a provable way, and thus,
ad blockers could load only the least-worst stuff in a trustable way. But
you've still got a ways to go before you can convince me that there are "good"
ads, rather than just non-bad ones.

I'd also love to see laws passed which make websites legally liable for
malware served on them by ad networks, which would incentivize sites to use
only good companies.

------
lostcolony
What ads blockers and ad companies should do is work to create an opt in
whitelist, that is socially decided upon by the blockers' users.

That is, allow an opt in to use a socially decided upon whitelist, along with
your personal whitelist. As users allow ads on certain sites, let them also
indicate "this ad should be shown to everyone; it's not annoying/it's
acceptable enough to allow". If enough users do that, allow it to be shown. If
that triggers a large enough backlash amongst users, remove it from the
whitelist, and prevent it from being re-added to the whitelist (though
individuals can still whitelist it individually).

That way, non-obtrusive, background ads can be slowly turned on for those who
opt in to allow it. If someone tries to engineer the whitelisting of an ad
that people find objectionable, it will be removed by all the people re-
blocking it. If a user finds the ads being allowed, in total, are too
irritating, they can remove the social whitelist entirely. And those who
simply want no ads need not opt in to the whitelist.

------
anc84
There is no mention of third-party tracking in this which to me is an instant
criteria for unethical treatment of your users.

------
dil8
Ethical adblocking = Blocking all ads

------
rip747
I block ads for one reason only: I don't want malware.. period.. the end.

The day ad companies actually have a conscience and won't sell to malware
authors, is the day i'll stop blocking their ads.

------
JulianMorrison
Ethical adblocking is all of them gone forever.

I want advertising to cease to exist.

~~~
wanderfowl
That's one of the problems I have in this debate. "How can we have the best
advertising possible?" includes the premise "We should have advertising",
which is probably not true, for the very best values of society.

It's one way to monetize the world, but not the only way, I hope desperately
that I see a day when ad companies are remembered like telegraph companies.

------
Guthur
Caveat Emptor: I run adblocking.

Ad blocking is not unethical; in most cases there is no agreement from the
provider of the website and the consumer to say that the consumer must watch
the adverts, it's just not there.

It is not the adblockers fault that the websites business model is dependent
on ad revenue that's the provider's decision. If the lose of web content
happens because of adblocking it's still not the adblockers responsibility,
there was no agreement.

~~~
logfromblammo
Ethical ad-blocking is to block any and all ads that you don't want to
receive.

Shouldn't we be discussing the limits of ethical _advertising_?

~~~
mrob
The only ethical advertising is a factual text description and a price.
Computer Shopper magazine used to be full of this.

Any more advanced advertising is specifically designed to undermine human
rationality. It's an act of aggression similar to forcibly drugging people.

~~~
JulianMorrison
I'd expand the scope of "good advertising" to any and all factual non-
manipulative details about the product - pictures, features, tradeoff
decisions made, intended use, impartial ratings, and so on.

------
imgabe
This is not an ethical issue. You don't get to just send whatever information
you want to my computer because you paid some underemployed 20-something 50
bucks to slap together a listicle.

If publishers want people to look at ads, then provide useful, non-obnoxious
ads. I have precisely two sites whitelisted in adblock, Penny Arcade and
Reddit. Both are known for screening their ads to be unobtrusive and relevant
to their audience.

------
vinceguidry
The frontier is run by strongmen, as it gets settled, you need stronger
rulers. But because there's not enough there to interest the big players back
home to bring in infrastructure and big-city politics, these services wind up
being provided by the mob, autonomous players far enough away from
civilization to avoid the law, strong enough to enforce their vision, even on
the strongmen.

As the frontier gets more and more settled, the big players gradually make
their way in. Civilization is huge and it takes time to build. The big players
have to work with the old strongmen because they don't have enough boots on
the ground yet to enforce order.

That's the position Apple is in right now with their content-blocking API. Ad
blocking companies are the mob running the web content frontier towns, the ad
companies are all the ruffians trying to make a quick buck. Apple is starting
to build railroads and bank branches and hotels and courthouses and cultivate
property developers, but the mob is still there and they have to be dealt
with, otherwise the problem the mob solved is going to bite them in the ass.

------
sleepychu
I'll never forget a conversation I had with one of Amazon's devs about real-
time ad bidding.

When you load(possibly -ed not sure if this is still the case) a page Google
says to it's advertisers "Ok, how much will you pay for an advert to be served
to this id" and they had some tiny number of ms to respond based on the data
they'd collected about that user.

The article author rejects that mass adoption of adblocking will cause the
advertising industry to come back with a better deal that doesn't include
egregious privacy invasion and that it will in fact just kill small media
companies relying on advertising revenue. The two are not mutually exclusive,
it's a shame that some companies will inevitably fall through the gap but as
others have pointed out this _doesn 't_ create a moral obligation to you to
accept the current 'deal' ad companies are offering. Don't fall for this crap,
mass surveillance by advertisers must die.

------
s_kilk
Nope, it's all going in a black hole, no exceptions.

------
josefresco
Charging for ads based on impressions or views keeps the costs high, the
industry inflated and ad people safe in their jobs. If the ads were tied to
actions (clicks, sales etc.) the costs would plummet and many ad people would
lose their jobs.

It's one thing to say "Your ad was viewed 10,000 times" and another to say
"Your ad got 100 clicks".

------
mariusz79
There is too much crappy content (including this comment) on the web anyway.
If the websites can't find another revenue stream .... too bad. I won't miss
them.

------
markyc
you can watch street performers for an hour and then leave without leaving a
cent. it's perfectly legal, but not cool

------
jbob2000
Ethical Adblocking? Is adblocking a moral issue now? We're going to put it up
there with assisted suicide and abortion? Is it really that life or death?

~~~
bediger4000
I'm a stakeholder here, so let me just say that ad blocking is NOT an ethical
issue: it's my hardware, and I get to decide what to run on it or not. End of
story because property rights.

There's a collision coming between the Kopyright Krazies and the Anti-Ad-
Blockers. They want two different things. Or maybe not, maybe there will be an
alliance to eliminate control over the computers that you and I own. Anti-Ad-
Blockers: your computer must run what I want it to run. Kopyright Krazies:
your commputer must not run what I don't want it to run. That's a bullshit
situation, by the way.

------
slight
This site has a problematic design.. I couldn't see anything but a logo and a
searchbox on my laptop (720p-ish).

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Have you tried disabling your adblocker?

~~~
anc84
She meant the initial state of the site with seems to fill the whole screen
with "not the article".

