Rebellion Against Rebellion Against Advertising
-
@asuffield said:
@DaveK said:
@asuffield said:
"And we will only tolerate a limited number of visits to the bathroom"
Not a joke. Actual quote from a TV advertising industry executive.
I wasn't able to google that, do you have a link, or some search terms that might get it for me?
Alas, I've lost track of it. It was on boingboing a couple of years ago.
-
I wish an IBM developer would contribute the Webmap from OS/2 Webexplorer to the Mozilla tree. That was probably the best history interface ever. When I went to Netscape 2.02 (to get frames and SSL), it was a real downgrade.
-
@mattwho said:
So do these sites get paid for impressions or clicks? If it's clicks then the person using adblock most likely wouldn't have clicked on the ad anyway.
both, or neither depending.
basically the people that sell ad space on big sites often sell impressions but the value of those depend upon clicks and conversions (clicks that lead to sales). Some sites the impression is value enough (say cnn.com) some the click is what is required (google adsense), and other look at both and even look for specifica lead generation or conversion number goals in order to price the next ad campaign.
-
@nwbrown said:
A bit of advise for all the web developers out there who are thinking about doing something like this. You can't. Whatever you publish on the web, you lose control over. [...] there still isn't anything you can do to stop them.
Actually - yes you can in some situations.
When you have a site that is based on dynamic content / not really searchable in google, you can stop ad-blockers in a simple way. Put your dynamic content in invisible div. Check in onLoad if ad has been loaded (for example google frame) - if it has, change div style to visible. It doesn't work for people that you don't really care about:
- those with JS disabled (seriously - anyone normal still does it?...) - those who use script-block either know how to disable that for your page, or you don't really care about them anyway if they're clueless and they don't know
- those with page-changing plugins for FF - they can get through any block, so why botherExplain what to do, to see your page in a div, that will disappear after the same check in JS. There's one more thing... you need content, that PEOPLE WANT. If it's "yet another ... page", it's not gonna work. If it's a page, that will spawn nice number of "how to get www.....com to work - there's an error message about ads" on couple of forums - it will work ;)
I've been running that kind of site for couple of months, forced people to look at google ads if they wanted to use the page and landed at a quite high position in alexa anyway (I know - it's broken - but gives a nice overview). I've seen that - I know that people were whitelisting my page in blockers - they really wanted the content.
Though - I wouldn't do that on any blog / normal page. It just doesn't make sense, if you're not providing any service exactly at that moment exactly on that page.
-
@Cap'n Steve said:
@asuffield said:
That's a funny concept, though. Every time I buy a CD from artist A instead of artist B, that's also a lost sale. Why isn't it stealing? It's a lost sale for the owners of artist B, isn't it?
As much as people on the Internet hate to admit it, many downloads [i]are[/i] lost sales. Unless you've got two [i]really[/i] similar albums or someone who's only going to get one album in their lifetime, no one would try to apply like your example.
Back on topic, it's not unethical to block ads, but it's not very nice. And if you block Adsense or Google Analytics, you're just being an assholeI block Google Adsense and Google Analytics, and will continue to do so for as long as Google maintains massive amounts of personally identifiable information, and datamines it with the stated intention of "being able to tell you what you should do tomorrow". Oh, and as long as Google Analytics takes so long to load that you can fall asleep waiting for the Urchin Tracker.
And why the feck is it ethical to block ads only if it's not Google? Drop the double standard, it's crap and you know it. It's either ethical, or not. All, or none.
-
@Kyanar said:
@Cap'n Steve said:
@asuffield said:
That's a funny concept, though. Every time I buy a CD from artist A instead of artist B, that's also a lost sale. Why isn't it stealing? It's a lost sale for the owners of artist B, isn't it?
As much as people on the Internet hate to admit it, many downloads [i]are[/i] lost sales. Unless you've got two [i]really[/i] similar albums or someone who's only going to get one album in their lifetime, no one would try to apply like your example.
Back on topic, it's not unethical to block ads, but it's not very nice. And if you block Adsense or Google Analytics, you're just being an assholeI block Google Adsense and Google Analytics, and will continue to do so for as long as Google maintains massive amounts of personally identifiable information, and datamines it with the stated intention of "being able to tell you what you should do tomorrow". Oh, and as long as Google Analytics takes so long to load that you can fall asleep waiting for the Urchin Tracker.
And why the feck is it ethical to block ads only if it's not Google? Drop the double standard, it's crap and you know it. It's either ethical, or not. All, or none.
Being an asshole and being unethical are two different things. There are plenty of people who try hard to get the least intrusive ads possible and get blocked anyway. Is it really the end of the world if you have to see a couple of text links on the side of the page? And what personal information can adsense get from you?
-
@Cap'n Steve said:
And what personal information can adsense get from you?
Clickstream trace. Google routinely reconstructs your entire web activity by watching the origins of requests and checking the cookies. They're creating a record of exactly what links you followed. They then match this up to other commercial data sources to get your name, address, credit card history and bank account numbers, and send the whole lot to the US and Chinese governments (and probably also sell it to commercial data brokers, who then put the whole database on laptops and let them get stolen).
-
Are you serious? I'm sure Google has much easier ways to get your personal information if they really wanted to.
-
IF most adds were not artistic equivalents of pond scum or cow manure nobody would need adblock. DeviantART has some nice internal adds that I would never block, because they are not annoying and look like artwork more than adds. The problem with adds is that if there were right amount of them, I would not be bothered. But if they distract me from the content, the whole source gets blocked and thats that. And Flash adds stealing focus , playing sounds and covering content are pure EVIL.
-
@asuffield said:
Clickstream trace. Google routinely reconstructs your entire web activity by watching the origins of requests and checking the cookies. They're creating a record of exactly what links you followed. They then match this up to other commercial data sources to get your name, address, credit card history and bank account numbers, and send the whole lot to the US and Chinese governments (and probably also sell it to commercial data brokers, who then put the whole database on laptops and let them get stolen).
I'm speechless... really... Don't forget your tinfoil hat when going out ;)
"entire web activity"? They don't have THAT many servers. Getting bank numbers from browsing would be hard too. But why would they do that anyway? You can buy that data (credit history) for reasonable price in legal way in US.
+ I'm ok with them collecting my search history - even more - I want them to do that. After couple of months of using personalized search, I get stuff I'm interested in on first page - always. No more browsing search results in vain.
-
@viraptor said:
I'm speechless... really... Don't forget your tinfoil hat when going out ;)
Most of what I described they have released papers about. The rest is stuff that other researchers have released papers about and I can't imagine Google not knowing. This is in the realm of "things that work so well it goes into peer-reviewed journals". Goodness only knows what they've got that didn't get published.
"entire web activity"? They don't have THAT many servers.
Actually, they pretty much do. Adsense and analytics are everywhere, and don't forget that most web accesses begin with a visit to google.com. There will be gaps, but they'll have a fairly complete log.
Getting bank numbers from browsing would be hard too. But why would they do that anyway? You can buy that data (credit history) for reasonable price in legal way in US.
You will note that this is precisely what I suggested they do - and they probably then sell the more detailed data they generate back to the commercial data brokers, making a hefty profit in the process.
-
Sorry for necroing a thread with a possibly age old article, but I think this fits very well into the discussion.
