
Ad Blocking: A Primer - manigandham
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/16/ad-blocking-a-primer/
======
Jedd
Couple of assertions made that I have trouble with:

    
    
      > There are only two methods to compensate content producers:
      > pay directly or get free content in exchange for ads.
    

Other than the assumption all content producers need financial compensation,
there are evidently alternative methods out there.

The BBC and ABC (of the AU, not the US variety) are two examples. They are
paid / subsidised by the respective populations. Users typically aren't
subject to advertisements - low quality or otherwise, and which probably
contributes to why the services are perceived as high value.

and:

    
    
      > Advertising is a great model, but what is fundamentally
      > wrong today is the implementation.
    

While the implementation is doubtless wrong, I'm unsure how we could
demonstrate that 'advertising is a great model'.

~~~
manigandham
(author here)

So in terms of compensation I would argue that your example is just direct
payment. Instead of attention-via-ads proxy, you're paying the publisher
directly but in this case it's state owned. Even if it wasn't and was just
funded by donations or taxes or whatever, it's still a direct transfer of
currency from you as an end user to the content owner/producer.

The internet is a perfect demonstration of how advertising is a great model.
It funds a lot of content and services (of tremendous value like Google,
Facebook, etc) without costing the end user anything. Many people can only
build the companies they do because advertising is viable, whether they're a
media company or some other business.

It's also fast, anonymous, and egalitarian. Your wealth doesn't determine your
access and there's no loss/refund issue if you consume content that you feel
isn't valuable. I can't think of any other that model that comes close to that
much freedom and flexibility.

~~~
anon1385
> It's also fast, anonymous, and egalitarian

It's not egalitarian. People who are tech savvy enough to use ad blockers are
subsidised by the less technology literate. Those people are also the ones
most likely to fall for the malware adverts which make up a huge proportion of
online ads. Just about every software download site is full of ads with fake
download buttons. Google searches for software often return ads leading to
malware as the top result. That's all very lucrative for the scammers and ad
networks and sites, but it's not egalitarian. It's a tax on ignorance and
inexperience.

A lot of the people enjoying 'free content' on the internet are doing so only
because that content was indirectly paid for by a 70 year old with a computer
full of malware.

~~~
manigandham
These are valid concerns but it's conflating the issues between advertising
structure and the reality of the implementation as discussed.

The advertising _model_ is egalitarian. Everyone, regardless of who they are,
can see the same content as it's indirectly subsidized by advertising.

However as you've described, there are certain real-life issues. Users who
block ads are at fault for, well, blocking ads and not taking part in the
value exchange, skewing the business economics. Ad networks that run bad
scammy ads are at fault for a lack of standards. Advertisers who spread
malware are at fault for being criminals who want to infect users. These are
all issues we face and are similar to any other industry where the ideal
mechanics are affected by bad actors.

I absolutely agree that this is mainly brought about by the lack of standards,
regulation and enforcement that has led to such a consumer backlash. However I
dont believe that this is the end of advertising but rather a very good
opportunity to finally force the change that's been sorely overdue.

------
jccalhoun
So let's see: we have Mani Gandham submitting an article to Hacker News that
is an article he wrote on Techcrunch which is a bunch of fluff and throws in a
link to his ad company instinctive at the end.

I would say this is a perfect example of the future of advertising...

~~~
manigandham
Yes, as a startup founder I couldn't resist. 2 sentences in 1700+ words isn't
so bad is it?

Everything other than that paragraph is objective and educational... what part
do you think is "fluff"? If you already knew all of it then that's
understandable, but I do sincerely hope it helps clear up some of the
information about ad blocking.

~~~
01Michael10
Wow, you are actually justifying this? HN should remove this story
submission... I didn't realize people could even submit their own articles let
alone their own ads here.

~~~
manigandham
I honestly don't understand what you think I'm justifying. I submitted it as a
piece of valid content and it was voted up by the community like any other
story. I don't see how the submitter has any bearing on the content itself.

As for the article itself, it's a well-written, factual, detailed piece on ad-
blocking. My affiliation as a guest writer is at the top of the page in the
byline. The 2 sentences can be seen as promotional perhaps but they have no
effect on the rest of the text and are actually on-topic in the section
they're in where I'm discussing better approaches to the current status quo.

I submitted this to TechCrunch and it passed all their reviews. I did bring up
the fact that I included my company in the article but they had no objections
and I defer to their judgement as the owning publication. Maybe the byline
should be bigger but that's out of my control.

Regardless, thanks for the feedback. Can you let me know how it would've
changed your perception if I didn't include those 2 lines?

EDIT: Judging by the downvotes I'm saddened by how many HN readers can't seem
to let content stand on it's own merits.

------
majewsky
The article hypothesizes that analytics services will probably move their
tracking code from client-side JavaScript to the server-side, so that the
publisher's server will forward the analytics data to the analytics server.

There is an interesting irony in this: By using client-side blocking more
widely, we (the users) force evolution of analytics towards methods that are
less introspectable and less blockable from our side.

~~~
rdtsc
> The article hypothesizes that analytics services will probably move their
> tracking code from client-side JavaScript to the server-side,

From talking to several companies that specialize in this (via a friend
privately, and by interviewing at some) that is already happening. Basically
using all tricks you heard from
[https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/) are used,
fonts, canvas, webgl fingerprints -- everything.

~~~
manigandham
That would be more related to device fingerprinting rather than just server-
side analytics. You would still need client-side javascript to accomplish most
of that, but yes it's also on the rise due to the (in my view somewhat unfair)
collapse of the 3rd party browser cookie.

------
jimmytucson

        > Why would someone use an ad blocker?
    

Isn't this like asking why someone would fast-forward through commercials, or
why they would use a spam filter?

The only reason I use an ad blocker is because I don't like being blasted with
words and images designed to get me to do or buy shit that I don't want.

~~~
manigandham
There are several reasons that apply to different people and it doesn't hurt
to be aware of them. It might seem basic or obvious to you but the article was
meant to be a detailed introduction to ad blocking.

------
michaelbuckbee
This is a good introduction to the subject but misses what I think is going to
be the next big push against advertisers: network blockers.

You can see proof of concept projects like the Raspberry PiHole [1] now, but I
think are going to explode in popularity with any organization that's already
doing content filtering (government agencies, corporations and universities)
as it's such a small technological step and the justification of "it will stop
malware and save on bandwidth" is likely to carry the day.

While I think the HN crowd is generally in favor of ad blockers, it's
interesting to note that the next thing being deeply affected is any kind of
analytics service (even first party).

1 - [https://github.com/jacobsalmela/pi-
hole](https://github.com/jacobsalmela/pi-hole)

~~~
manigandham
I covered this briefly when mentioning OS and router level blocking for the
entire network, as well as carrier level blocking. There are only so many
scenarios and technical details I can include in a single article for
techcrunch.

I do think it'll get more filtered at the network level for security reasons
at certain organizations but then there's the issue of encrypted traffic and
embedded sponsored content.

~~~
toni
You mention in the article that:

> Ads in native mobile and desktop apps are mostly immune as they have no
> extensions

But using a "network blocker", be it a PiHole, Privoxy, or a simple HOSTS
file, ads and tracking services are blocked at the network level and no native
or desktop app is immune to this effect. I believe that's what michaelbuckbee
is referring to. So the whole "Where ad blocking doesn’t work" section is in
need of more clarification, as there is almost no place where an ad blocking
system won't work in one way or another.

~~~
manigandham
Yea you're right. As mentioned, just not enough space to cover all the
details.

However embedded ad content will be hard to extricate if it comes pre-rendered
by the server rather than using client requests.

~~~
toni
I would say hard but not impossible. Privoxy can strip any part of html
content at will with its filter files[1]. It works just like AdBlock Plus
rules, but on network level.

[1] [http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/filter-
file.html](http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/filter-file.html)

~~~
manigandham
Nothing is impossible...

But there are diminishing results. At this point, the people doing this are in
the same bucket as those just using text-based browsers. This goes back to the
filtering/censorship argument if it's deployed at a big enough scope (like a
carrier) so it'll likely be individuals or small groups doing this on their
private networks.

~~~
toni
Let's take one step back to the first point: we have shown you above that the
whole "Where ad blocking doesn’t work" section does not make any sense, as you
can kill any kind of ads on the network-wide level.

Now you are claiming that people using PiHole, Privoxy and the likes are
merely "Lynx" users, as if that would discredit the original point, or maybe
it will water-down the consequences.

You are also severely underestimating the power of individuals and small
groups, see: the initial surge of Firefox install base, anti SOPA and PIPA
protests, Ubuntu, and (ironically) the early days of TechCrunch.

There is nothing wrong with this article, as what you have written about is
"Browser ad blockers". Hopefully you can write a second article and explain
the fruitlessness of trying to play a cat and mouse game with network-wide ad
blockers.

~~~
manigandham
I think there might be some misunderstanding here so I'll try to be more
specific:

I did mention network level blocking in the article but just didn't have
enough space to cover all the details regarding how it works in apps. This is
why I used the word "mostly" for those apps. Even network blocks can be
overcome though when using closed platform apps like Apple News which runs
it's own iAds over the same secure backend. However, thanks for the feedback,
I'll definitely strive to make things clearer in future content.

As far as network blocking, my comments were regarding 2 issues: how
widespread this type of blocking is and how in-depth the blocking will occur.

I do agree that it will increase in usage but as soon as it gets to any major
sized organization, the issues of net neutrality/censorship might come up
which is why I think it will remain used by individuals with home networks and
small businesses rather than large enterprises and network carriers.
Considering the use of adblockers is almost perfectly correlated to the ease
of installation, I just don't see widespread adoption here of router/network
level blocking given the expertise and effort required. Even if the entire HN
audience uses it, that's negligible part of the entire online audience.

In regards to the blocking depth, network blocking still works the same as
most blocking does now, by using domain/dns block lists. This opens up the
possibility for embedded advertising content to come through and while I
understand that HTML can be parsed and edited, it's a far more challenging to
implement and maintain that kind of filtering reliably. Domain block lists
also remove the vast majority of ads so going further in page processing is
what I meant as very diminishing returns for the amount of effort involved.

------
mjirv
> Mani Gandham is co-founder and CEO of Instinctive.

The entire post is a native ad.

~~~
manigandham
Not really, it's a contributed guest post that I've made as objective and
informative as I could.

I see now that perhaps those 2 sentences out of the entire article might be
out of place but I couldn't resist. I think the rest of the text stands on
it's own and I hope it helps provide readers with more insight into the whole
ad blocking situation.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Not really, it's a contributed guest post that I've made as objective and
informative as I could.

There's no rule that says native ads can't be informational.

~~~
manigandham
Out of curiosity - if that paragraph wasn't there then would you still
consider it a native ad?

------
cinquemb
I'm surprised that this also doesn't cover spoofing, which I'd expect to see
grow more, but it's probably harder to detect if "real" (read: seen in the
wild) browser settings are used, especially if done on the http
implementation/network level.

~~~
manigandham
Do you mean browser/user-agent spoofing? I can understand how it might help to
maintain some privacy but unsure how it blocks ads specifically?

For most ad networks this also starts to look more like fraudulent bot traffic
which is another major problem in the industry. Several network security
providers do have analysis techniques to figure out normal traffic patterns
and http headers and determine if a user is spoofing/hiding.

~~~
cinquemb
Yes, but also canvas, accepted file types, etc. I was also thinking that
blocking ads would also cover how content such ads are delivered as well since
advertisers could still end up wasting a lot of money?

~~~
manigandham
I'm still unsure by what you mean. This is more along the lines of user
tracking rather than ad blocking. Spoofing or preventing user tracking won't
stop ads by itself, it'll just result in more generic ads that might not be
relevant to you.

~~~
cinquemb
> _it 'll just result in more generic ads that might not be relevant to you._

I guess I'm just coming from the perspective that wasting peoples time with
probably shitty ads is where we are now in advertising, and if we can do
better in making the overall experience better while also not wasting time and
resources, companies might perform better. At least from my experience with
getting people to download apps and pay a subscription online (not through the
app store) for access to more of the content they want.

