
Rise of Ad Blocking Is the Ad Industry's Fault, Says Outgoing FTC Commissioner - chopin
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/ad-industry-is-to-blame-for-ad-blockers-outgoing-ftc-commissioner-says-julie-brill
======
karterk
For a very long time, I did not want to use ad blockers. I have used ads in
the past to monetize some of my own projects, and I really did not want to
stab the creators of quality content.

However, last week I finally reversed my decision and started using ad
blockers. Why? Frankly, many sites are just greedy. Banners were ugly enough
(and I tolerated them) but many sites these days show ads that cover the
content, and going as far as to hide the [x] button for a few seconds. And, I
am not even talking about privacy and security issues.

Businesses have to come up with better monetization strategies. Shoving ads on
my face and making me accidentally click them is a net loss for everyone.

~~~
team_doom
I think this is the wrong way to approach this. You're essentially pirating
content now. If you don't like the ads, stop using the site. It's that simple.
To take it a step farther, send an email to customer service explaining WHY
you're no longer using the site. This sends a much stronger message to them
about what makes you unhappy with the service they provide.

~~~
tomp
> You're essentially pirating content now.

Earlier, the websites were "pirating" his/her device & browser.

~~~
jamespo
How did they do that, put a rootkit on his machine forcing all hits to them?

~~~
freehunter
Well they didn't exactly say "do we have your permission to run your CPU up to
100%, hog all of your memory, and install trackers on your computer? And
occasionally, can we install malware on your machine?"

~~~
jamespo
Reminds me of the arguments about not letting in any refugees as some of them
may commit a crime.

~~~
freehunter
Once advertisements become sentient creatures and can be considered human,
then they should be granted human rights. As it stands though, what you're
doing is saying that refugees (who, I remind you, _are_ humans) are basically
worth as much as a banner ad on a website. It shouldn't need to be said, but
I'll say it anyway: blocking ads is not comparable to genocide. In any way. At
all.

Fucking disgusting.

~~~
bigmanwalter
The singularity is approaching! What a time to be alive :)

------
CuriouslyC
People question how we'll support content without ads, but I have to take a
step back and wonder - is content that needs to be supported really that
valuable? Might the world be a better place without it?

People who are passionate about the subject they are writing on are going to
publish regardless of ad revenue, assuming they get hits (writing stuff nobody
reads is a fast track to burnout). Right now, in many cases these people are
being crowded out by well SEO'd content mills. If the advertising dollars dry
up, the content mills will die off, and that ecological niche will be freed up
to be filled by people with passion.

I for one welcome the idea of a return to a genuine internet, where everything
isn't about monetization. The amount of content may go down, but the quality
will almost certainly go way up, and there will be that much less garbage to
wade through.

~~~
klunger
No. You are basically saying that people should work for free if they are
passionate about it. Professional writers cannot pay their bills with passion.
Same with artists, musicians etc, and every other underpaid profession. Just
because they (hopefully) like what they do, does not mean it is not work or
does not have value.

~~~
kuschku
> Professional writers cannot pay their bills with passion

Professional writers aren’t ad-financed.

Look at Panama Papers.

Not a single of the involved newspapers and broadcasters is ad financed: All
are either tax or subscription financed.

Btw, for just 19.99€ you can get full access to all articles about Panama
Papers in the Süddeutsche if you don’t want to enter a 12-month subscription
for the whole newspaper.

~~~
klunger
>Professional writers aren’t ad-financed.

Wrong.

While some outlets enjoy full state support or sufficient subscription revenue
to not need advertisements, the VAST majority of publications get a
significant portion of their revenue (which is the used to pay their staff
writers and freelance contributors) from ads. Better known examples of such
publications include: The New York Times, Wired, The Atlantic.

In Norway, where I live, Aftenposten was given access to the Panama Papers for
analysis and publication. Aftenposten is partially subsidized by the Norwegian
government, but also dependent on ad revenue to survive.

------
Spooky23
Online ads are pure garbage.

It's amazing to me that I still actively seek out some legacy ads (flyers in
the Sunday paper, Thursday car ads, Wednesday butcher ads) in the local paper.
But except for the occasional Google organic result, I never, ever get any
utility from online advertising.

The closest thing is the ads in podcasts, which tend to be built around a
story and are more compelling. I've looked at several of those advertisers and
bought a couple.

~~~
tomp
> It's amazing to me that I still actively seek out some legacy ads (flyers in
> the Sunday paper, Thursday car ads, Wednesday butcher ads) in the local
> paper

Those are not ads. It's legitimate information that helps you, so you seek it
out. The vast majority of ads are not informative, but rather use emotional
manipulation to get you to buy stuff you don't need, or that you wouldn't buy
otherwise.

~~~
recursive
Why do you think those aren't ads?

> Advertising (or advertizing) is a form of marketing communication used to
> promote or sell something, usually a business's product or service.

It sounds like it fits the bill to me.

~~~
tomp
The biggest difference, in my view, is that ads are forced upon you, whereas
you seek out information yourself. E.g. if you browse a clothing magazine and
you see a H&M or Zara branded page, that's an ad. But if you're looking
through a catalogue of clothes, and there's a section with H&M clothing and a
section with Zara clothing, that's information that you explicitly sought out.

Another example are billboards and information boards. If it's in large print,
so that you see it passing by, it's an ad. But if it's in small print, so you
only see it if you intentionally approach the board to see what's new locally,
that's information.

------
wiz21c
I use adblocker. Now, the news sites I like say "sorry pal, adblocker means no
news". I'm perfectly fine with that. It's just arms race. My freedom to remove
the ads, their to put them. Everybody's free and I love it. Now I'll have to
pay and that's fine : good content comes from work and work deserve money. But
all of a sudden, as I'll pay, I'll become much more demanding. And so
competition can work again...

~~~
CuriouslyC
Just get a browser plugin like quick javascript switcher and disable
javascript for sites that try to disallow adblocker users. It has worked for
me every time.

------
jld89
Trackers are horrible. I don't want anyone to know what I am doing what sites
I am visiting etc...

What gives them the right to track? Besides of imposing banners to my face?

They got what was coming to them. I am glad that the EFF is giving us tools to
fight back.

Consider donating to them!

~~~
officialchicken
Please remember to include a link whenever you mention the EFF!
[https://supporters.eff.org/donate](https://supporters.eff.org/donate)

~~~
randunel
Why is that? I think there's nothing wrong with mentioning the EFF without
linking to their donations page.

~~~
fucking_tragedy
If you support their message and cause, it's a reminder that they exist on
donations from people like you. If you're thankful, it's a reminder to show
thanks if you can/want to.

------
chopin
Malware is the #1 reason for me to use ad-blocking...

~~~
amelius
For me, #1 is tracking, #2 is malware.

~~~
chopin
It comes close as a #2 for me (I care more for an uncompromised system than
for tracking but YMMV). However, the article states that the state of affairs
might be better for publishers if they didn't ignore DNT. I doubt that very
much for these two reasons:

1\. Malware 2\. Intrusive ads, even the article site serves animated ads which
distract from the content.

------
jasonkostempski
DNT was never going to work and the failure of the Do Not Call list should
have made it obvious. No one ever thought people would willingly accept being
tracked in the first place. I'm sure everyone who ever worked on an ad network
felt a little yucky with what they were doing at some point and got over it
real quick or quit, leaving an industry full of people who already
rationalized that what they were doing was OK. Seeing the DNT options in
browsers bugs me almost as much as seeing those cookie warnings. Government is
making this stuff even more annoying, just let the people figure it out.

Side note, I'd love to see ad blockers add something to block those cookie
warnings. Since literally no one on either side wants them, I'm sure website
authors would be willing to agree on a de facto standard css class or
something that would make them real easy to hide. Maybe it should be opt-in in
case someone tries to go after the ad blockers for interfering with the cookie
law.

~~~
cpeterso
Perhaps DNT can be repurposed to bypass those EU cookie warnings by sending
`DNT: 0` (Do Not Not Track).

------
sveri
I started blocking ads when adblock plus was not even a thing. Not sure when
that was exactly, 10 years ago or more? However, I did it when they started to
add moving ads. There was a site that I regularly consumed (multiple times a
day) and that I wanted to support. But, I was not able to focus on the
content, everytime that blinking ad just distracted me. So I had the choice,
stop using that site or blocking the ads. I started using adblock back then
and everytime I have to use a computer without a blocker I thank myself for
the wise decision back then.

That said I would rather not consume anything anymore than allowing ads again.
The things that I was and am really interested in, will be saturated by buying
books and the people that put up stuff for free, like I do for certain things.

Also I would pay for services I like. Byte.fm did it the right way I think.
It's online radio, from the beginning on they never streamed ads and still do
not do so today. Not long after I started to consume them I paid them and
still do so today because I support services that explicitly do not use ads.

~~~
tunap
I am of the same mind. I make payments/donations to sites I enjoy regularly
and block ads wholesale. If Forbes will not let me read their content w/ an
AdBlocker, then I will just not read, nor cite, their content. Simple as that.
I have weened myself off of much infotainment over the years and as sites
bork/discontinue their RSS feeds I will read even less web content. My life is
more enjoyable with less noise on the ine, anyway.

------
imgabe
It would be interesting to see if someone could endow an independent
publication with enough money to keep it going, then put quality ad-free
journalism behind a paywall.

I'm thinking it would be something like "B Corporation". Not exactly a
charity, but not necessarily trying to maximize profit either. Charge a high
monthly price, maybe $50/month for immediate access to new articles, but after
1 month everything becomes freely available.

Information will undoubtedly be copied and posted elsewhere anyway, the only
thing you can realistically control is who gets access to it first. People who
value up-to-date news that's guaranteed to be impartial would pay for early
access to it, I think. Everyone else would still get to benefit from it as
well, just slightly delayed.

~~~
ihsw
The Intercept, edited by Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald of the Snowden
Disclosure group, is exactly that.

[https://theintercept.com/](https://theintercept.com/)

Their website is clean and I have yet to see intrusive ads anywhere.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
While I love The Intercept, and First Look Media, its parent company, it is
important to understand that this is not a typical scenario. The Intercept
runs at a loss, which it is allowed to do because First Look Media's founder
and president is Pierre Omidyar (eBay). He cuts checks for The Intercept when
they need funding. They don't have an economically-sustainable journalism
operation, which is why they are currently working on new for-profit
initiatives.

------
forrestthewoods
Even legit sites serve malware. It's beyond their control. Ghostery makes
money by telling sites what shit they're serving. Because they don't know.
It's too many layers of dependency.

There I block all ads all the time. No exceptions. Not even for "good" sites.

The sooner everyone blocks ads the better. If sites go out of business then so
be it. They'll evolve once forced; but not a moment sooner.

[http://www.csoonline.com/article/3044588/security/malvertisi...](http://www.csoonline.com/article/3044588/security/malvertising-
campaign-hits-new-york-times-bbc-others.html)

------
zzleeper
What do you guys use as ad blockers on mobile? I use chrome on an android and
it seems that I would need to switch to FF in order to have adblocking?

(Which I might, as there are ads on Chrome that even make the cellphone
vibrate and redirect to the store, amongst other things)

~~~
schlipity
Take a look at Netguard on Github. It emulates the hostfile via local loopback
vpn and is able to fully adblock your android device without rooting it. It's
also available on the playstore, but that functionality is disabled.

Their releases:
[https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/releases](https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/releases)

To enable adblocking:
[https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/blob/master/ADBLOCKING.md](https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/blob/master/ADBLOCKING.md)

------
wnevets
The content that accompanies the worst kind of advertising tends to be the
worst kind of content. If adblocking kills that kind of content I'm all for
it. For example the number of sites that scrap stackoverflow and cram 30
different ads onto the page.

------
quanticle
Interestingly enough, the page itself is an example of the very thing it
criticizes: [http://imgur.com/aQJvlG3](http://imgur.com/aQJvlG3). Almost half
the screen is an ad when you load the page.

~~~
esun
I have been using ad blockers for a long time I guess... I had no idea ads had
gotten so big. That's gross.

------
zodPod
While the discussion here on HN is good about this topic, I think the actual
article missed the point completely.

Sure, tracking is an important issue with ads but I really don't think Do Not
Track made any sense nor would have made any difference. It's the continued,
forceful intrusion into our minds that these ads make.

Without ad blockers: I go to a page and, the first thing I see, is an overlay
with a Ford Truck on it. Then I click the x that appeared after 25 seconds on
that and I continue down the page. I manage to read half of the article in
spite of the "Social Bar" that is blocking some of the text and then I see a
"article continued after the jump" and an ad served right below it. I scroll
past that to the rest of the content. I continue to lose track of the article
that I'm reading because there's a giant flashy banner to the right side of my
screen replaying some video with crazy motion and is following me as I scroll.
THEN, I finally get to the bottom and I'm like "I liked that article. I should
read more by these people!" and, instead of their content, there's a bunch of
click bait bullcrap that leads to poorly written articles about topics that I
don't care about at the bottom. I then proceed to leave the page in anger.

With ad blockers: I go to a page and read an article. I get it done quickly
and efficiently and am able to concentrate and take in all of the information.
I get to the bottom and want to read more but I don't see any more from that
site because it's all served through some scammy ad network and is blocked. I
leave the site but I will return when I see another link from said site, for
sure!

None of that would have been changed by Do Not Track and THAT is the problem
with ads today. (IMO at least..)

------
mahranch
Black and white thinking. Content creators still need to get paid. I'd be
quite upset if my favorite sites had to shut down due to the rise of ad
blocking and non-viable alternatives to ads (like "subscriptions", etc...)

~~~
fucking_tragedy
Black and white thinking. Content creators can still get paid. They just need
to figure out a business model that doesn't hijack my browsing session, use
the limited mobile data I'm allotted and pay for each month to serve unwanted
content, drain my battery, eat my CPU, track my reading/surfing/porn habits
and potentially run malicious code on my machines.

~~~
ssharp
You seem to think content creators sit in some evil dungeon, plotting out ways
to screw their readers with ads.

That's not really it at all. There are a limited number of ad networks out
there and publishers attach themselves to one or more of them. At that point,
the publisher is largely clear of the process, unless they're negotiating
custom deals of some sort, which happens with larger sites but is far less
common than small sites.

The people doing the tracking aren't the content sites -- it's the ad
networks. As a publisher, I'm not privy to your personal details.

~~~
fucking_tragedy
I'm under no such impression. Thanks for the image, though.

I am under the impression that they are okay with or ambivalent towards
tactics used by the ad-networks, because they'll block you for using an
adblocker.

~~~
ssharp
What's the reasonable alternative?

~~~
darpa_escapee
Not my problem.

------
riprowan
"You get what you pay for," is probably what my grandfather would have said
about this problem.

------
elorant
Besides profiling I also use ad blocking because I hate the usability of most
pages which are cramped with ads. It didn’t use to be like that a few years
ago. From the moment advertisers decided that their ads should mainly appear
above the fold, web page usability went downwards very fast. There are quite a
few sites where you can’t see a single thing without scrolling down. I don’t
ever recall advertising being so annoying online.

------
stegosaurus
The producers of content that I view not being financially secure is a
problem. I've read a lot of useful stuff over the years, and I really want the
people who made that possible to thrive.

I don't particularly care about whether they can buy flash cars, but I do care
about them being able to live without stress and continue to do the things
they love and are best at.

As far as I'm concerned, the problem looks like this:

1\. Society isn't providing them with a way to live, so it's down to me (and
others like me) to help out.

Which leads to:

2\. I'm not wealthy enough to feel like I can give back to them, or there's no
reasonable interface to do so

Which leads to:

3\. Out of desperation, they try to force my hand by employing advertising (so
that indirectly there's a cashflow).

I'd rather work on #1 and #2 directly than look at #3. I'm not that interested
in short term solutions, and advertising is a particularly ugly one.

~~~
stegosaurus
To put it another way:

I'm not sure that the creation and dissemination of knowledge works well as a
capitalistic business. I'm not sure that it leads to optimal outcomes WRT the
dissemination of said material.

I don't know how we deal with the edge case of trading scarce resources like
food and land for unlimited resources like data, but I don't think advertising
is it.

When you think about it, it's really quite odd. The deal is that you can view
this web page, if in the abstract you commit to buying some portion of a
physical item or service from someone else later on.

To me, it feels a lot like an inefficient form of tax.

------
tremon
How fitting. A sidebar filled with animated gifs on a page lamenting the ad-
industry's failed self-regulation.

And it's not even a third-party ad...

------
udhan
Please do not serve content if you detect adblocker. I will decide if its
worth it for me and may unblock advt. No obligations!

------
SeanDav
OT:

> _"...advertisers use to convince us to buy shit."_

Am I just an old fuddy duddy, or does the use of the word "shit" here jar with
anyone else?

I understand that many people talk this way, but feel that the written word
should hold itself to a higher standard of grammar and vocabulary.

~~~
beisner
You are just an old fuddy duddy. If I was reading this as prose, maybe I'd
agree that an author could have been more creative with word choice. But in
this kind of post, the message is vastly more important than the medium, and
the use of the word 'shit' doesn't obscure the message.

~~~
SeanDav
I kind of suspected I am :)

------
inanutshellus
I recently ran into a cooking site that wouldn't serve up any actual recipes
if the javascript of their ad generator wasn't found. Pretty clever... I'm
surprised more sites don't do it.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I feel awful for using an ad blocker sometimes, but I sometimes have no
choice.

On my Windows 10 tablet, a feeble device with 1GB of RAM, the web is unusable
without one.

------
Hjugo
Is there a public whitelist (except the one from ABP) for ad networks which
have non invasive, non tracking ads?

------
JustSomeNobody
Start fixing mobile first, you're _killing_ precious battery life.

------
jgalt212
If third party cookies were allowed, then sites like Business Insider would
not be tempted to fire 50 (or more) resource hogging tracking pixels and
scripts.

The law of unintended consequences in full effect here.

~~~
cpeterso
Besides Safari, which browsers block third-party cookies (when not using an ad
blocker that would also block those 50 tracking pixels)?

~~~
chopin
Firefox, there is a setting for it. It's the first thing I do on a fresh
install.

