[Added] Taboola ads

[squiros]

this is not specific to taboola, but this seems to be a great strategy for ad companies.

1. demonstrate strict compliance
2. revert to unacceptable
repeat

abp now needs to run a constant policing service of taboola and all taboola related sites. if i worked for taboola, i would simply and temporarily 'fix' the complaints on one site until the complaints subsided, then revert to non-compliant ads. in this way, you can keep 95% of the oversized ads 90% of the time. wait until adblock stops checking then immediately revert. this is the problem with the system, taboola will simply retract their compliant ads every 2 minutes. once an ABP employee confirms fix, they can simply revert within minutes. in fact, i doubt that there's a human being at all - it's likely a script that checks this forum and reverts every time there's a post. that way, when employees are notified via forum, when they check the posted site, it's an acceptable ad.

another strategy i would employ would be to arbitrarily load giant ads, maybe 5% of the time. people who post here complain, but most of the users will claim incorrect usage, taboola still gets to display their massive ads. this is a great strategy because if the user does any tweaking, the next reload will likely show the compliant ad - they're likely to think that they succeeded.

acceptable advertising is a great model for ABP. its exploitability is an unacceptable compromise for end users. publishers and their investors will see the giant ads and be happy. apb can claim absolution of culpability. end users are left wondering why 90% of their content is ads. in this war on ads, i considered ad block a true ally. it seems ABP is now neutral. disappointing, but understandable.

[ChrisABP]

@squiros: thanks for thought experiment, but please use this forum for valid complaints.

[sourcejedi]

On a separate note, when approving Acceptable Ads our team must stick to the objective & tangible criteria: Separation, labeling, size etc. It's not feasible to judge Acceptable Ads by their "spirit" on the large scale we have. While you, for good personal reasons, dislike Taboola widgets on some websites, there are many other whitelist users who regard those as acceptable and even useful.

I'm sure you're quite capable of judging whether ads are being included for several years, which lookup the IP address, and crowbar the resulting $CITY into their fake headline, linking to an article where $CITY is a URL parameter, doesn't mention $CITY at all, and makes no mention of the event claimed in the fake headline.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p8rh7k5hdb1el ... 6.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sd9nrirqey466 ... 7.png?dl=0

If you choose not to, that only reflects on your own standards.

[Lumikai]

I'm sure you're quite capable of judging whether ads are being included for several years, which lookup the IP address, and crowbar the resulting $CITY into their fake headline, linking to an article where $CITY is a URL parameter, doesn't mention $CITY at all, and makes no mention of the event claimed in the fake headline.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p8rh7k5hdb1el ... 6.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sd9nrirqey466 ... 7.png?dl=0

If you choose not to, that only reflects on your own standards.

To be honest I'm not sure there are any rules against deceptive advertisements. There's a rule on not misleading users into thinking an ad is part of the primary content, but from what I can see none that talk about generally misleading users to loosely related websites/content with false claims. ABP cares about placement/size/functionality/static vs moving etc, but doesn't seem to police actual content of the ads.
Just as well really, rules on deception would likely result in nearly all Taboola adverts being labelled unacceptable, and given Eyeo get around 30% of the revenue from all Taboola ads they let through, that would be bad for business (https://adblockplus.org/about#monetization).

The reason I moved to an alternative adblocker some months ago, because money has clearly corrupted core values, and for me, killed all trust in the software I used to love.

[Alias18]

I find it phony and honestly disturbing that my LOCATION is being shown in a most likely fill-in the blank ad. For example, "(city, state): this brilliant company is disrupting a $200 billion industry" Or "new law in (city,state)" How convenient that all these things just so happen to be in MY city!

[dominickpastore]

I have yet another complaint about Taboola ads.

I downloaded a piece of software from Sourceforge and the post-download page, I see Taboola's stereotypical clickbait images. See the screensot here: https://imgur.com/a/bpoCB
(URL for the original page is https://sourceforge.net/projects/gpstoradiocontrolledclock/postdownload?source=dlp)

This is an example of "05 Ads on pages with no primary content." According to the criteria, there should only be text ads on such pages, which these certainly are not.

I support the idea of acceptable ads. If we reward publishers only for using ads reasonably, there's a strong incentive to make the web a better place. But, Adblock Plus, we have to have standards. Strong standards that we actually enforce.

The ads in my Google search are acceptable. They're clearly marked, not distracting, and totally relevant to the page I'm on. Similarly, if I'm on, say, a news site for electronics engineers, and I see ads with pictures of oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers in the sidebar, it's not going to bother me at all. I can easily read my story without distraction, and I might even find the ads useful if I was in the market for some test gear.

Taboola ads are not that. Unfortunately for Taboola, they chose a business model that revolves around clickbait. Let me put that another way: Taboola ads are designed to be distracting. The fact that any are allowed doesn't mean that some of them are acceptable; it means the critera aren't strong enough.

Besides that, Taboola has demonstrated over and over again that they aren't interested in adhering to the criteria. Sure, they fix one instance of the problem when they are forced to, but then they break the rules somewhere else later. At what point do you stop slapping them on the wrist, so to speak, and actually take action? Like at least a temporary suspension or something?

I'm sure they are paying good money to be part of the acceptable ads program, but you have to put your foot down somewhere. Don't tell me that "some people find these ads useful," or "our user surveys show that people don't mind them." I am going to pose this question, and I hope you take it seriously: Do you really think these are the ads people have in mind when they say some ads would be acceptable?

[AlanPoe24]

Hi,

The Taboola unit on Breitbart.com is abusing the acceptable ads guidelines. It's massive and is a 6x3 scrollable unit. How on earth is that allowed? Is it because they are paying you off?

Code: Select all

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/11/15/hannity-voters-of-alabama-will-ultimately-decide-on-moore-not-me-or-anyone-else/

https://imgur.com/a/PR46U

[Lumikai]

Hi,

The Taboola unit on Breitbart.com is abusing the acceptable ads guidelines. It's massive and is a 6x3 scrollable unit. How on earth is that allowed? Is it because they are paying you off?

Code: Select all

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/11/15/hannity-voters-of-alabama-will-ultimately-decide-on-moore-not-me-or-anyone-else/

https://imgur.com/a/PR46U

Looks like you're using Adblock, not Adblock plus. They're different extensions.

[mapx]

yep, but the taboola crap is still the same (AB is using the same acceptable ads)

[ManuelC]

Hi all,

thanks for spotting that violation and the discussion around it. As you may have read in previous posts, Taboola delivers a smaller ad unit for Acceptable Ads users. The images for Acceptable Ads users are also filtered: no attention grabbing ones, no misleading ones, only straight forward ads that are related to the content they link to. This violation may well be related to an Acceptable Ads user detection issue.

Anyway, as of today, it seems to be fixed and the Taboola ad unit on breitbart is acceptable. See for example (bottom of the article): http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... elentless/

Thanks.

[AlanPoe24]

Manuel C there are multiples of examples with taboola taking the P.

Such as here: http://terezowens.com/dak-prescott-has- ... -next-one/

Looks at the size of it!

https://imgur.com/a/JK6i9

[AlanPoe24]

Another breach.

https://imgur.com/a/neMyn

Looks at the size of it. How is this acceptable

[mapx]

- upload normal images on imgur => your images can not be enlarged
- provide the page where you get the taboola ads

[AlanPoe24]

Sorry.

Was on this site: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/features/ ... 1205140359

This betTer? https://imgur.com/a/neK9a

[ManuelC]

Sorry.

Was on this site: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/features/ ... 1205140359

This betTer? https://imgur.com/a/neK9a

Hi there, thanks for spotting this. We will communicate this violation ASAP.