"acceptable ads"

[jsavidge10]

Was surprised to find that adblock had stopped blocking ads today. Perhaps a name change is in order?
If its all the same to you, I would prefer to decide all by myself what constitutes an acceptable use of my time and resources.
The info on this feature claims it can be turned off, but neglects to mention that it must be turned off every time you start your browser. Also, the filter does NOT block animated ads, I am using an rather antiquated system that has a prediliction to randomly restart during animations. Please place me solidly within the are you %$#ing kidding me camp. The best possible description I can give this move is to call it disingenuous and user hostile. Please change this to an opt in feature not a default.

[lewisje]

The "Acceptable Ads" whitelist only lets through a small number of ads, all of which are text-based; if you see animated ads there's a good chance that your problem is some filter corruption, and ABP is reverting to a default state (no subscriptions, "Acceptable Ads" checked) whenever you start Firefox: en/known-issues#no_effect2

[Sedate Me]

Was surprised to find that adblock had stopped blocking ads today. Perhaps a name change is in order?
...Please change this to an opt in feature not a default.

Ad Block Sometimes, perhaps? Soon to be followed up with Ad Discourage Occasionally and later Ad Promote Plus. Ads were yesterday...today, tomorrow, infinity and beyond!"

I knew this software was too effective not to eventually fall victim to the corrupting influence of advertising. Ultimately, some corporation was going to write a cheque large enough to do the trick. I guess this is the beginning of the end of the ad-free Internet I was promised (and temporarily delivered).

I am downright angered by this change which, like advertising, occurred without my permission and how it self-congratulatorily promoted itself by DEFENDING THE "PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE" ROLE OF ADVERTISING and how it laughably helps out "the little guy". The claim it only allows "acceptable" ads not only pre-supposes there even is such a thing, it imposes a highly subjective notion of "acceptability" as the default, not merely an opt-in.

I'm not sure what rabbit hole this "survey" that claims only 25% of Adblock Plus users actually want the program to block ads climbed out of. But, rest assured, nobody asked me. However, even pretending 75% of users actually want a change that WORKS AGAINST THE VERY PREMISE OF THE SOFTWARE, it should never have been made a default position. Easy to opt out of or not, just like Term & Conditions, it will flow past most users completely unnoticed. Many will just think the program isn't as effective as it once was.

But if 25% of customers pre-complained about something a company was about to change regarding its product, what are the odds the change would come to pass? Hell, companies often change policies and products based on the complaints of lone individuals. That's reason enough to be highly suspicious of this change. While I'm not declaring it to be a crass sell-out just yet, I am very dubious and fearful of the future. Once you start permitting some ads, you start sliding down that slippery -and potentially lucrative- slope.

Starting today, if only as future planning, I begin looking for alternative ad blocking software that, oddly enough, blocks EVERY ad. That's what I downloaded Adblock Plus to do. It seems it's not so interested in doing that anymore.

[lewisje]

Un-check the "acceptable ads" checkbox already

[Sedate Me]

Un-check the "acceptable ads" checkbox already

I reset it to the proper default setting within seconds. But, if the instructions weren't so obvious, I wonder if I would be tech-savvy enough to do it on my own. If it really was "just a few ads" as they claim, I'd probably just think the program was simply becoming less effective, which would be true. Unless clearly told, I would never have expected it was intentional, so there would be no point in playing with my settings.

But the real point is why should I have to do ANYTHING? A program designed to block ads should block all ads by default. You shouldn't have to do anything other than install it. That is in NO way, shape or form an unreasonable expectation, especially when the program promotes itself as doing just that. Nor is it unreasonable to complain about the change. This is like buying a car that suddenly stops operating after getting an "acceptable" distance from your destination and, after complaining about it, having people roll their eyes at you and tell you to "just walk the rest of the way", as if you had some unrealistic expectation.

And maybe that's the inherent problem here. Advertising has been so ingrained, so normalized, so omnipresent that even programmers and users of ad blocking software subconsciously feel like they're doing something wrong by making their mind-space their own and not the property of the highest bidder. If this "acceptable advertising"change isn't a sellout strategy, it's the result of some form of collective guilt, as if we are stealing something that doesn’t belong to us just because we pulled a curtain over the mighty Wizard of Advertising. We've been so conditioned to accept advertising, something feels amiss if we aren't being pitched something, even as we try to ignore the offence. “He beats me. But I still love him.”

If people want to see ads, it's much easier for them than for those that don’t. Simple logic suggests they shouldn't install ad blocking software and then try to figure out ways to let it show you ads. Ad blocking software is for those that don’t want to see ads. But if, for some bizarre reason, you want your ad blocking program to not block certain ads, put them on your own "white-lists" or make it a voluntarily downloaded "non-filter". They shouldn't be forced on anyone by making this a default setting.

The point isn't whether it is simple to change back or not. ("Not" only makes it that much worse.) It's the fact it's being done at all. It's a warning sign that the program is headed in the wrong direction.

[Observer84]

...even programmers and users of ad blocking software subconsciously feel like they're doing something wrong by making their mind-space their own and not the property of the highest bidder.

I have been using AdBlock and its variants for years and have no love for intrusive advertising distracting/slowing/contaminating my online experience. But regardless of whatever well-formed and nuanced arguments we may want to make about blocking online advertising, the simple truth is that we as users of ad blocking software are a minority that reap benefits from the larger majority who do not use ad blocking software for whatever reasons, and view the ads that keep the current online business models viable. There is no free lunch, and someone has to pay for the hardware, bandwidth, let alone content that you partake in while online. Unless you somehow actively create content or economic value for a site (and despite what some may personally feel, their forum comments and posts do not fall in this category) you represent a net loss for the business. Not everyone can simply maintain online content as labors of love, and ads currently are but one of the prices we pay for "free" content online. Nowhere is it written that we are entitled to a "mind-space" covering of all the content we choose to consume online that is free of all advertising.

I am not arguing that it is "wrong" or "immoral" to block advertising, and one can make perfectly reasoned arguments that the current online business models are broken and in serious need of reinvention. But I believe there can be a reasonable middle ground that could benefit both online businesses and users, and help keep the online content we want "free". I would also argue that there that is a nontrivial population of users that if given more insight from an online business's perspective coupled with a straightforward technical means, that they would be open to allowing some forms of "non-intrusive" advertising (GMail is one example). The AdBlock Plus "acceptable ads" option I think represents a modest step in that direction that is in line with the original vision of the creators of AdBlock to block disruptive ads but not necessarily all ads. If it were enabled by default it's likely no one would use it for various reasons. If you don't like the ads it permits, then join the crowdsourcing effort to help refine what should deemed "acceptable" by it. If you can't stand ads altogether, then just disable the feature. The developers still gave us options, and it's within their rights to make an initial choice of what should be the default option (and it's within our rights to try to persuade them otherwise if needed).

This article and the associated discussion from a site a regularly visit helped change my perspective on this topic:

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/20 ... u-love.ars

After reading it and thinking about it, I decided to whitelist some sites to allow ads. And you know what: it wasn't all that bad, and it helped them continue their business of creating content that I have the option of enjoying for "free".

[Silico]

Good post. I'd just like to comment on this last bit:

This article and the associated discussion from a site a regularly visit helped change my perspective on this topic:

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/20 ... u-love.ars

After reading it and thinking about it, I decided to whitelist some sites to allow ads. And you know what: it wasn't all that bad, and it helped them continue their business of creating content that I have the option of enjoying for "free".

Do you find ads useful? Unless they influence what you purchase, you're not helping a site by seeing its ads. Even if an ad is charged per impression, someone disabling their (no-request) ad blocker, but not being influenced by the ads they now see, just reduces the effectiveness of the ads in terms of sales per impression, providing pressure for a reduction in the site's CPM rate, returning things to the status quo.

It's bizarre that the most popular way to fund high-quality published material is to sell the space around it to the highest bidder, saying to the reader "I stand by these parts of our pages, but I wash my hands of what you're told in these other parts, though I'm trying very hard to get you to look at them, and even though a large part of our staff spends their days wooing these companies that we write about".

There are other ways to get compensated for published work. Given the huge variety of material the Web has opened up, the subscription route that Ars Technica is trying is problematic. I'd find it difficult to subscribe to them given that I'd read only a couple of their articles a year. Widely-accepted micro-payment credits will be one way things will go -- it's already strong in the mobile-app world, though trial periods don't work for articles as they do for software. There's also several ways of rewarding content you found helpful (post-payment).

While advertising still dominates, use of adblockers is one signal to publishers that many people don't find ads useful, and want a value-for-money alternative. Sure there's a moral dilemma for users of adblockers, because there's no good way for them to compensate the publisher. Their only alternatives are to avoid those sites entirely or to suffer the useless and distracting content. But does morality also demand that the quid pro quo for watching a TV program is to pay attention to most of its ads? Or is the morality instead that you can use relatively inconvenient methods like muting, leaving the room, and changing the channel, but one shouldn't fast-forward recorded ads, or use an automatic ad-excisor?

[lewisje]

It's bizarre that the most popular way to fund high-quality published material is to sell the space around it to the highest bidder, saying to the reader "...but I wash my hands of what you're told in these other parts..."

It's actually fairly common for mainstream websites to take action when they hear about some particularly objectionable ad, and ad networks sometimes respond to requests to keep specific ads off specific sites (like if an LGBT site asks for the removal of an ad from a "reparative therapy" camp); additionally, good ad networks remain vigilant against malvertising (although the risk of infection from even the short amount of time those malvertisements stay up is the main reason I even block ads in the first place).

Widely-accepted micro-payment credits

I much prefer my Web content to be free at the point of access unless I specifically subscribe to it, rather than get lured into being nickel-and-dimed for browsing around the site; micropayments are precisely what I want to avoid becoming the norm, and IMO the "acceptable ads" initiative is a good way to take the pressure off any nascent movement for such a seductive scheme.

But does morality also demand that the quid pro quo for watching a TV program is to pay attention to most of its ads? Or is the morality instead that you can use relatively inconvenient methods like muting, leaving the room, and changing the channel, but one shouldn't fast-forward recorded ads, or use an automatic ad-excisor?

The Ars Technica article explained why that analogy fails: Unlike TV advertisers (or radio, or print, or billboards), online advertisers can track results (a.k.a. "impressions" and "clicks" and "conversions" and even the behavior of users across ad-supported sites and within the sites the ads link to), while "old media" advertisers must use statistical models rather than being able to track (even anonymously) the behavior of viewers of or listeners to their advertising.

[Silico]

It's actually fairly common for mainstream websites to take action when they hear about some particularly objectionable ad, and ad networks sometimes respond to requests to keep specific ads off specific sites (like if an LGBT site asks for the removal of an ad from a "reparative therapy" camp); additionally, good ad networks remain vigilant against malvertising (although the risk of infection from even the short amount of time those malvertisements stay up is the main reason I even block ads in the first place).

When I wrote about websites washing their hands, I wasn't thinking of objectionable or malware ads, but about the fact that advertising by its nature rarely tells the whole truth. Publications must come to terms with presenting their readers with a combination unbiased and strongly-biased material, because TINA.

Not only that, but websites like Ars that run 1st-party rather than 3rd-party ads must come to terms with the cost and potential corruption of having a staff that has to try to get the makers of products they are writing about to place ads with them.

I much prefer my Web content to be free at the point of access unless I specifically subscribe to it, rather than get lured into being nickel-and-dimed for browsing around the site; micropayments are precisely what I want to avoid becoming the norm, and IMO the "acceptable ads" initiative is a good way to take the pressure off any nascent movement for such a seductive scheme.

Advertising is not working as well as it once did for content-producers, mainly because of search-engines, re-publishers, and social media, so alternatives must be found. As I've said before, I don't think low-impact "acceptable ads" is going to work for sites with high-quality content.

While I think nickel-and-diming can indeed work, as it's working for mobile-apps, there are alternatives that I've mentioned which don't require up-front payments.

The Ars Technica article explained why that analogy fails: Unlike TV advertisers (or radio, or print, or billboards), online advertisers can track results (a.k.a. "impressions" and "clicks" and "conversions" and even the behavior of users across ad-supported sites and within the sites the ads link to), while "old media" advertisers must use statistical models rather than being able to track (even anonymously) the behavior of viewers of or listeners to their advertising.

I really don't think there's a big difference between TV and online. Sure online impressions can be counted exactly (except for browsers with adblockers that still fetch the ads, like those on Chrome), but, given their consistency, TV ratings are also pretty accurate. With neither can you be sure how many ads caught the viewer's eye, though click-through-rates help with online estimates.

As well, conversion tracking isn't much clearer with impression-based online and print advertising compared to correlating sales to TV ad campaigns. Many online impression-charged ads are designed to influence without being clicked.

[LorenzoC]

After reading it and thinking about it, I decided to whitelist some sites to allow ads. And you know what: it wasn't all that bad, and it helped them continue their business of creating content that I have the option of enjoying for "free".

Ok, this is the point.
YOU DECIDED what to allow and what not.

Which is different than having ABP make a partnership with some advertisers than serve some "ABP-approved" advertisement to million people through an "hidden" subscription.

It is also different than me reporting some advertisement on a site and the subscription maintainers automatically removing it from million clients just because I reported it. This is acceptable only if you think advertisment must be always removed.

As you can see, it is not about the true nature of the Internet and/or adversiement, it is just about WHO DECIDES WHAT.

[lewisje]

If there were no way to opt out, then I'd cry foul.

[Robinsog]

The history of announcements is inseparable from the history of the press. When Theophrast Renodo created La Gazette in 1631 with the support of Cardinal Richelieu, he organized the ad section in the first French magazine. Thus, the announcement arose when two interests came into contact: on the one hand, the need to finance a newspaper through advertising and, on the other hand, market information access to potential clients.