Adblock wins in court again – this time against German newspaper

Adblock Plus has won another legal challenge in Germany against a daily newspaper which claimed its “acceptable ads” policy broke the law. The Süddeutsche Zeitung argued that Adblock Plus's German owner Eyeo GmbH should not be allowed to block ads while also offering a “whitelisting” service to advertisers. Adblock Plus …

[RachelG]

ironically acceptable ads will probably kill adblock

did for me anyway, for whatever anecdata's worth. I was so persistently annoyed by the Taboola ads still turning up that I chucked Adblock Plus ages ago in favour of uBlock Origin.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: ironically acceptable ads will probably kill adblock

Taboola are definitely not acceptable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: ironically acceptable ads will probably kill adblock

I've never had ABP let any ads through... perhaps I visit the wrong sites.

[RedCardinal]

Re: ironically acceptable ads will probably kill adblock

I'm with you on this. I've never had any ads either :)

[Snowy]

Or you and turn off thier "whitelist" so you do not see ads from big corporations such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Taboola" and decide for yourself what ads you allow.

If the ad needs an off site script to display or wants to run a script it is going to stay block not matter how acceptable it is to someone else.

[Paul Crawford]

Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

The alternative, that of not having intrusive ads with sound or video, or grabbing focus, etc, has never occurred to them?

Really, they get what they deserve for that. True, they do deserve some finical support for publishing, but not by throwing crap (and potential infection vectors) all over my screen.

[ratfox]

Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

Maybe I got it wrong; but from what I understand, even with acceptable ads, you still need to pay to get on the whitelist.

Which does sound slightly like a protection racket in a "nice advertising revenue you've got, shame if anything was to happen to it" way.

[Can't think of anything witty...]

Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

i think that you might have it wrong. My understanding is that you can get on the whitelist in one of two ways, either by adhering to the acceptable advert policy, or by paying a chunk of money. I'm actually ok with the first of those, but the second makes me feel a little uneasy. i would think that if the only way to get whitelisted was to pay, then it would be a lot easier to accuse them of taking an unfair advantage.

As for the whitelist, i've been using ABP for ages and it appears that i have had the Whitelist on (to show those adverts) and yet i cannot remember the last one i saw... so i don't really have a problem with that.

[Paul Shirley]

Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

You only pay for whitelisting above a threshold of views. They claimed the threshold means something like 90% pay nothing.

[Paul Shirley]

Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

... And forget to say: paying doesn't bypass the acceptability checking...

[Anonymous Coward]

Home taping is killing music!

[Stevie]

Home taping is killing music!

Rubbish! The Victrola is killing the music industry!

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Re: Home taping is killing music!

Home fucking is killing prostitution!

[ecofeco]

Re: Home taping is killing music!

Home fucking is killing prostitution!

A more apt analogy to advertising has yet to be made.

Upvoted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Home taping is killing music!

>Home fucking is killing prostitution!

Love it !

And masturbation is killing the human race.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: Home taping is killing music!

I knew I was doing something wrong..

[KeithR]

Re: Home taping is killing music!

"Home fucking is killing prostitution!"

I married a prostitute - I'm DEEPLY conflicted about this revelation..!

[anonymous boring coward]

I can't recommend Adblock any more!

It nowadays bogs down the system more than all possible ads put together can do.

And, of course, with Adblock now taking money to not block, it deserves to die a quick death.

[anonymous boring coward]

The one who thumbed me down really need to practice using a system tool to monitor browser resource usage. Then compare with and without Adblock.

[imanidiot]

@ABC, Yes, ABP uses more system resources than not running ABP (has to do with the way ABP prevents ads from running within frames and such). The reason for it is very simple to find and most adblockers suffer from the same problem.

[Archie Woodnuts]

"It nowadays bogs down the system more than all possible ads put together can do."

It really doesn't.

[jason 7]

Yeah, rebuild in order I reckon.

[Archie Woodnuts]

"Yeah, rebuild in order I reckon."

That or some pearls to clutch.

[Stevie]

It really doesn't.

And even if it does, it does so without flashing annoying moving pictures or ransom-note banners at me.

[anonymous boring coward]

RAM wise it sure does.

It used gigabytes of RAM, which is unacceptable on many systems.

Firefox is bad enough as it is on RAM usage.

But, yes, you can save a bit on bandwidth and CPU cycles using AdBlock.

I also had some odd things going on that used massed of CPU which I tracked to AdBlock, but that was likely a bug that has since been fixed...

I much, much prefer NoScript, which REALLY removes all crap.

It's more maintenance as I have to grant things to run, but results in really stripped down and quiet pages. I usually get through complicated internet baking sites etc with NoScript, by granting access to the obvious bank-URLs, but nothing else, like Google Analytics etc al.

[RedCardinal]

>>It nowadays bogs down the system more than all possible ads put together can do

Really? Strange how it has no visible negative affect at all on my 4 year old mid-range pc....

[anonymous boring coward]

I might have believed you if you said "effect".

[KeithR]

"I might have believed you if you said "effect"."

Rather than get it right.

Which he did.

[anonymous boring coward]

The only acceptable ad is a static image, or text, that scrolls normally with the page.

All the rest is total dreck.

[dan1980]

Non-static ads are not just 'dreck', which is bad enough; they track you and are also exceptionally dangerous potential malware vectors.

When sites can guarantee that the ads they serve will never track me in any way, shape or form and are verifiably 100% malware-free, then I will be significantly more open to ads.

The crux of the issue is that advertisers want to have their cake and eat it too. They want us to be stuck with the ads they choose to serve, as we are with traditional media, but they also want to track viewers/readers.

The rub is that the technology they exploit in order to track us - the client-side request and rendering of Internet browsers - is the same thing that gives users the ultimate control over what is displayed.

You can't have one without the other.

[nijam]

> Non-static ads are not just 'dreck', which is bad enough; they track you and are also exceptionally dangerous potential malware vectors.

The insidious ones just look static!

[Mint Sauce]

$22bn

According to a report by Adobe and PageFair, a Dublin-based adblocking blocker, nearly $22bn (£15bn) in advertising revenue was lost last year due to the practice.

No, no it really wasn't.

Unless they think the kind of people who block ads are the same kind of people who also love them and click on them and buy from them...

[Ben Boyle]

Re: $22bn

Obviously they're using the same mathematicians and formulae to calculate losses as the RIAA

[BebopWeBop]

Re: $22bn

The ones who specialise in imaginary numbers you mean?

[frank ly]

Re: $22bn

I hadn't realised that I've been taking bread out of the mouths of advertising executive's children. I feel bad about using AdBlock now.

[Captain DaFt]

Re: $22bn

"I hadn't realised that I've been taking bread out of the mouths of advertising executive's children. I feel bad about using AdBlock now."

Well, you should feel bad.

You're supposed to be stealing the candy from the little tykes! Sheesh, the quality of petty crooks these days...

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: $22bn

Agreed.

I have never clicked on an Ad that was shown to me. I never will.

So why do I have to put up with the crap the ad slingers think I need to see?

I don't. That's why I run an ad blocker.

I also never watch ads on TV.

I will never eat a Big Mac/Kfc/Burger King. etc etc etc

I just wish that there was some way that I could just opt out of all advertising. Life would be a lot nicer.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: $22bn

Firstly, have an upvote.

> I have never clicked on an Ad that was shown to me. I never will.

I did click ads that were not fecking obnoxious. Now that was long ago.

I am more than willing to click ads, for example for the Reg, if they are NOT obnoxious: static pics, no more. I'll say it AGAIN: offer a box "our ads" in a corner of each page that leads to a full page of ads. I'd not only go there but actually consider buying goods that are advertised in a non-intrusive way.

@companies: intrusive ads are insults, think about it.

[Darryl]

Re: I also never watch ads on TV.

Exactly. This is just a rehash of the outrage over home VCRs and DVRs/PVRs allowing people to skip over commercials on TV

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: I also never watch ads on TV.

"Exactly. This is just a rehash of the outrage over home VCRs and DVRs/PVRs allowing people to skip over commercials on TV"

And look what that's doing to TV these days. I was watching a US stream of a live TV channel the other day and there were banner ads across the bottom of the screen after the ad break. Based on the ad, that wasn't just on the streamed version since it was for a local business. Here in the UK, commercial channels are varying the ad break lengths as well as selling short slots at the start and end of the ad break making it harder to skip them completely.

Advertisers are at war with their potential customers, ie us. It's ironic really.

Correction: At war with their customers customers. We aren't the advertisers customers. Maybe the companies paying for the adverts should be sorting this out with the advertisers.

[Terry 6]

Re: $22bn

@ mint sauce

The thing is they do.

Their bean counters include the figures that equate to ads blocked as if each of those was a potential revenue source. Whereas the blockers may well just not go near those sites, let alone click on their sh*t..

This is in no way different to how the music and video industries beancounters treat every home copy as if it was an actual lost sale. But in reality while a proportion of these may well be convertible to actual lost sales many more are purely imaginary losses. If the freeloaders didn't get them free they just wouldn't get them at all.

[Paul Shirley]

Re: $22bn

$22bn not in advertiser pockets is $22bn real businesses don't need to spend or recover from customers. Not sure why that counts as a loss at all.

[KeithR]

Re: $22bn

"This is in no way different to how the music and video industries beancounters treat every home copy as if it was an actual lost sale."

Oh, give over - it's UTTERLY different. And they're a LOT closer to being right about pirated music.

Justifying nicking music doesn't wash.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: $22bn

"Unless they think the kind of people who block ads are the same kind of people who also love them and click on them and buy from them..."

They think everyone really loves ads and can't understand how or why adblockers got into browsers. Maybe they think they're some sort of malware.

[Roland6]

Re: $22bn @Mint Sauce

You miss read the text you quoted:

nearly $22bn (£15bn) in advertising revenue was lost last year

Whilst I suspect the $22bn figure comes from the application of the Monte Carlo method, where the individuals sampled simply raised a wet finger and plucked a figure out of the air, the failure to serve an ad will result in no payment to either the website 'hosting' the ad or to the advertising agency, regardless of whether someone actually clicks on the ad or not.

Hence it is perfectly correct to say that the Ad industry is missing or losing revenue (as are websites that depend upon garnering large revenues from the ad's they host). However, for businesses paying for an advertising campaign the economics are probably quite different, given they are wanting to generate real business transactions and not just clicks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: $22bn

$22bn. Firstly the figure is from an industry which lies for a living, so a bit of scepticism might be warranted.

Secondly, it fails to take into account people like me who have a "no fly" list for manufacturers who piss them off beyond a certain point. Using their spurious accounting methods, you could counter-argue that ad-block actually gains revenue because the more cantankerous among us aren't seeing the adverts and aren't blacklisting some manufacturers because of it.

[tiggity]

Re: $22bn

Maybe their comment was based on the assumption that (with no ad blocker) with how the slow background load of the Mbs of ad associated cruft & async page / part of page re-renders causes a page to jump around like mad (especially on a mobile) that an accidental click on an ad just whilst trying to scroll through the content you wanted to read is almost inevitable? Thats the lost revenue.

[Durant Imboden]

Re: $22bn

"No, no it really wasn't.

Unless they think the kind of people who block ads are the same kind of people who also love them and click on them and buy from them..."

Not all ads are pay-per-click.

[RedneckMother]

heh, heh...

Joke 'em if they can't take a... wait... how does that go?

[anonymous boring coward]

Thinking about this thing a bit more..

Isn't is just absurd that somehow there is even a concept that people may not be allowed to filter whatever data they are looking at on their own computers, in their own homes, using their own paid-for internet connection, in whatever way they want?

If you want your content to reach the reader/viewer/listener unmodified, just make it so people don't feel a need to modify it. Simples.

And stop thinking you have any right to force anything on any user.

[Sven Coenye]

Re: Thinking about this thing a bit more..

Absurd?! This is the future. Get with it!

And soon, you will not be allowed to block any exfiltration streams from your computer either.

You will be marketed to!!!1!1One!

[Graham Marsden]

Re: Thinking about this thing a bit more..

> Absurd?! This is the future. Get with it!

Twenty minutes into the future...

Janie Crane: "An off switch?"

Metrocop: "She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal!"

- Max Headroom - Episode 1.6 "The Blanks"

[Mark 85]

Follow the stories on ads and Windows10 for the future. It apparently throws ads when the screensaver comes on. So if you leave the computer running and go to bed, you being served ads... using your electric and your bandwidth.

Using Windows10 as the "state of the art" in ad serving, I'm surprised that the TV makers and cable companies haven't forced the TV to stay on 24 hours such that if you hit the "power off", it just goes into "ad mode" and shoves ads at the screen.

[Dwarf]

Ahh but don't forget

When all the ads were summarized, de-anonimised, trended, tracked and and other such tricks, then some advertising drone will happily report 150% coverage on all the adverts that your PC was spamming out all night long, without anyone watching.

I wonder what happens to power save when the ads start flying - will this prevent your monitor or PC from going into low power mode and cost us more in power and bandwidth charges ?

Don't forget advertising drones, "mine" means its "not yours" for sharing.

Here are some examples to help you. My eyeballs, My brain, My PC, My power, My bandwidth, My wife, got it ?

[ecofeco]

I'm surprised that the TV makers and cable companies haven't forced the TV to stay on 24 hours such that if you hit the "power off", it just goes into "ad mode" and shoves ads at the screen.

Don't think they haven't tried. Look at the Tivo ad blocking/skip lawsuits. Hell, "fast forward" on VCR came under attack and yes, even the mute button.

[Doctor Syntax]

"So if you leave the computer running and go to bed, you being served ads... using your electric and your bandwidth."

Turn it off when you're not using it. It's using electricity whether MS are sending it ads or not.

[hplasm]

"Turn it off when you're not using it...."

Can't. It's trying to update to Win 10...

[Fatman]

RE screen saver throwing ads

<quote>Using Windows10 as the "state of the art" in ad serving, I'm surprised that the TV makers and cable companies haven't forced the TV to stay on 24 hours such that if you hit the "power off", it just goes into "ad mode" and shoves ads at the screen.</quote>

Don't give those motherfuckers ANY ideas!!!!!

[alain williams]

£15bn in advertising revenue was lost

I think that the correct wording must have been lost in translation from German, surely it should have been ''£15bn was saved by companies in useless advertising costs''

[RyokuMas]

Double-stacking

"Adblock Plus operates a whitelisting policy"

... which is why I don't rely on just one blocker.

[Andy Non]

Re: Double-stacking

As someone else mentioned, just open preferences and untick the allow whitelist box. Simple. I don't see any adverts, ever.

[jason 7]

Re: Double-stacking

Yeah still amazed how many 'IT experts' still haven't picked up on this point. I always use Adblock Plus with the untick and I never see any ads either.

People only read what they want to see I guess.

[tfewster]

Re: Double-stacking

I've never felt the need to look for the "untick" option - The ABP defaults are fine for me. And the occasional context-relevant ad? I might actually be interested!

[Florida1920]

A hollow victory

Adblock is so 2015. Those in the know have long since migrated to uBlock Origin.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: A hollow victory

I tried this uBlock Origin of which you speak. It stopped the weather forecasts on the Beeb site from working. That was the end of it. ABP with the box unticked continues to work fine.

[Florida1920]

Re: A hollow victory

RIght-click the icon and select Options | Whitelist. Figure out who's serving the weather info and add the URL to the Whitelist. www.bbc.com/weather/ might do it.

[nijam]

Re: A hollow victory

> I tried this uBlock Origin of which you speak. It stopped the weather forecasts on the Beeb site from working.

(a) Why not go direct to the Met Office site, more informative than the cut-down BBC summary?

Maybe because (b) even on the (taxpayer-funded) Met Office site, uBlock Origin still picks off dozens of adverts.

[BobChip]

"putting a squeeze on the already-struggling industry"

Can hardly blame adblockers for that. If the adslingers are already struggling, it must say a lot about the quality of their product. if they produced material that people actually wanted to see, adblockers would be unnecessary and the advertiser's revenue streams would be full. Don't try to blame the consumers for their reluctance to consume crap, or for taking measures to defend themselves against it.

[Archie Woodnuts]

Adblocking is morally wrong.

No-script, RequestPolicy, etc however are just fine. ^_^

[jason 7]

I keep asking and no one answers.

Just how much money would a site make if a person did not use adblockers but visited the site and looked at ten pages, read ten articles and then left?

They didn't click on any ads, as only an idiot would do that. However, according to the ad folks they have played fair by not blocking. So that's all good with them.

No one can tell me the magical figures. I reckon its so small its not calculable to any great financial benefit.

[Adam 52]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

Depends on the site and the audience it attracts but cost per thousand varies from 5 cents to $25, mostly at the lower end. If a site gets 10 million views a day with 5 ads per page then those add up to significant amounts of money, enough that almost every newspaper would go out of business without them.

I've said before but if you block ads then you are effectively killing almost all online journalism. Up to you if that's a world you want.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

"I've said before but if you block ads then you are effectively killing almost all online journalism. Up to you if that's a world you want."

Let's ignore the "bad to piss off potential customer" aspect of advertising, even though the ads that do that are what brought adblocking into existence.

Today's problem is malvertising. Ad blocking is no longer just a matter of aesthetics, it's a matter of basic IT security. It just isn't acceptable to bleat about killing online journalism without a solution. Viewers who've been hit with ransomware from a news site are going to stay away for good so the end effect is much the same for the site but worse for the user.

We've heard some mention some months ago about an initiative but seen nothing. The industry simply winges about adblocking but makes little attempt to see itself as others see it or to recognise that it has brought its problems on itself and does nothing whatsoever about it.

Frankly, I think the online advertising industry is in a death spiral. It has only its arrogant, narcissistic self to blame and, frankly, the sooner it's gone the better. Then online journalism can get on with developing a business model that works.

[Terry 6]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

Not just(?) malware. As noted so many times before. Ads unblocked have long since swamped the content on too many sites. You don't get to see "journalism" for things that block the content, flash on and off, float around the screen, run annoying videos etc.

It's very much come to the point that adverts have gone from merely trying to catch our attention to punching us in the face. So we punch back.

[Alan Brown]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

"It just isn't acceptable to bleat about killing online journalism without a solution"

There's a very simple one:

Newspapers don't print _any_ ads without vetting them first. Why are they handing responsibility for online advertising over to a third party who clearly isn't doing that vetting even if they make claims to do so?

I'm surprised that Forbes and others who served up malware via banners haven't faced class-action suits from people who had to pay to get cleaned up.

[imanidiot]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

If killing off online "journalism" means I get to pay for actual journalism then yes, I would gladly pull the trigger myself! The only thing you can pay for at the moment is ad-slinging paid for by corporations heavily biased "breaking news" that requires heavy filtering and a lot of comparing to find the true facts among the bullshit. I don't want nor need 30 trackers watching my every move when I visit a "news" site just so they can target more obnoxious ads for tat I don't want or need. And paying for the contents makes no difference in the amount of ads I would receive or the level of privacy invading tracking going on. So they can go F*^% themselves. If the ad money going away means news sites need to actually do good journalism to attract readers and survive then I think it can't happen soon enough.

[Adam 52]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

It's ironic that when I post on a subject I actually know about I attract downvotes.

Anyway, "If killing off online "journalism" means I get to pay for actual journalism then yes"

I don't think you understand how much that'll cost. Nobody in the mainstream media industry really has a clue how to make it work or how much it'll cost so that's not a criticism. One million subscribers paying £200/year will just about support a national newspaper (The Guardian makes a loss on £250m revenue, but it has an expensive print operation), but will enough people be prepared to pay that much?

[jason 7]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

From what I see of the web, 25% of the sites produce the real content and 75% just repost or link to it in some way. I'm quite happy for that 75% to die off tomorrow. Ohh all those useless blogs...

If you have good content they will pay. I've donated £25 last week to a couple of my fave sites that do a "Keep the site free of Ads" campaign every year. How many times would I have to visit to give them that through not clicking on ads and also having a frustrating time while doing it?

Ads are not the way forward. After all it wasn't what the net was solely intended for was it?

People got greedy, thought they were in control and they got burnt. Deal with it.

[Alan Brown]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

"The Guardian makes a loss on £250m revenue, but it has an expensive print operation"

Newspapers work on a print model that says the paper is paid for before (by advertising) it leaves the presses. The cover price more-or-less covers the paper and ink costs.

Taking that model online with inadequate care and attention to the adverts is what caused this problem.

Popups, noises and animations (or videos!) were more than sufficient motivation to block advertising, especially when on the end of an expensive or slow data link (mobile phone bandwidth is still pretty shitty in large parts of the UK. Malware was merely the icing on the cake.

[DavCrav]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

"I don't think you understand how much that'll cost. Nobody in the mainstream media industry really has a clue how to make it work or how much it'll cost so that's not a criticism. One million subscribers paying £200/year will just about support a national newspaper (The Guardian makes a loss on £250m revenue, but it has an expensive print operation), but will enough people be prepared to pay that much?"

I currently spend that sort of money on the Economist, and did for a while on the LRB as well until I couldn't find time to read both.

But you miss the point. Until advertisements are sorted out so they have zero chance of crippling a user's computer, just like print ads have no chance of landing me in hospital, then we can talk. Until that problem is resolved, ads are switched off, and I don;t care who suffers, because I value my own computer above their paycheques.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

"It's ironic that when I post on a subject I actually know about I attract downvotes."

It may be that, while you have knowledge, you don't actually know what you are talking about in this context. Under the print model, newspapers etc were responsible for the adverts they served. There was a specific policy of what was acceptable, and this was known to all. Adverts were specifically approved by people working for the publication, and, because they were static, I suspect hardly anyone noticed any of them. What online media has done is hand over the responsibility to third parties with no policy except "make money!" This has led to a race to the bottom, and people are fighting back - quite correctly.

The solution is in the hands of people like you - I suspect you work in the newspaper industry from your comments - not us. You need to take control of the ads, make them acceptable, and take responsibility if you are publishing ads that cause damage etc. The industry might just survive that way. If not, it will die, and someone else will come up with a better model sometime in the future - some form of Samizdat, possibly.

Claiming you know about a topic is insufficient when you are arguing for the status quo which is clearly unacceptable.

[nijam]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

> Nobody in the mainstream media industry really has a clue

And that really says it all. It's their industry, why haven't they got a clue?

[Drefsab_UK]

Re: I keep asking and no one answers.

We know thats not strictly true now though don't we. All any online site needs to do to server ad's past ad blockers is to host them locally on your own servers.

Sure if you have fancy script bases stuff that wont work for those using noscript but well then those types of ads are the most evil anyway.

This however opens up the other can of worms, in that if your slings the ads from your own servers, you have to trust the add content's as your server will host the code, so if its malware your responsible etc. So you will have to vet the ads.

This is exactly the kind of thing needs to happen. People keep passing the buck saying we dont host the code we just have ads to get pennies to live. Well that approach has lead to people wanting ad blockers. The ad companies dont belive in acceptable adverts (you know the kind that dont take over your browser, don't obscure the site content etc).

The technical issue is that the ad companies need to adapt to allow this to work, set tokens on each ad served, that token gets lodged with the add provider, then when a clickthrough happens it has the token so you can track not just ad's servered by actual clicks.

Content providers need ot reslise that they carry a responsibilty to the crap that gets put on peoples screen's when someone visits their sites. It doesn't matter if its from an adslingers network or not, you included them in your page so its your responsibility. If a large number of your users are saying they hate some of your content to the point they take steps to block it you need to rethink your content.

[Stevie]

Bah!

Newspapers! Offer low-cost ad-free "buy-in" options and forget about it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bah!

Or even, if they were to produce their papers on sheets of paper, that I could fold, carry with me and read at my leisure, in only the sections that I wanted to read, I'd tolerate ads in the text and a cover charge.

Oh Wait!

( Indie reader)

[Nadjau]

Re: Bah!

I feel your pain. The Indy app is ok, but not a replacement for a newsPAPER.

I'm taking the 'i' at the moment, but it's a bit thin.

Looks like I'll have to bite the bullet and go back to The Guardian, which has gone seriously downhill, but is still better than the Times and, particularly, the Telegraph.

[Nifty]

Re: Bah!

That may still work for a short while, but the internet isn't going to be delivered that way much longer

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FAfb3W4B97sJ:http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2016/02/13/internet-to-go-online-only/%2BInternet+to+go+online+only+newsbiscuit&hl=en&&ct=clnk

Meanwhile the cursor and focus on this old iPad keep being stolen by the resource hungry MS Cloud ad on the right. Think I'll go for the paid version of this browser app now, has Adblock, extend machine life!

[TheProf]

I've never heard of Taboola

I've never heard of Taboola before so I've just looked that their home page and it was totally blank. Really, nothing showed up.

Thanks to you Ghostery and uBlock Origin. You should advertise and let people know about your excellent products.

Err...

[Cynic_999]

Isn't stealth adblocking possible?

So I've read here that some web sites are not serving content to people who use ad-blockers. Surely it must be possible to design an ad-blocker in such a way that the server cannot tell that the ads have been blocked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Isn't stealth adblocking possible?

Possible, yes, but it would be harder to code. Also the pseudo-blocker would have to download whatever it is and send tracking data back. Bandwidth and hate of tracking being 2 main reasons for blocking ads, nobody has felt it's worthwhile to do as yet. Simply refusing the connection, so all the advertiser gets is "111.111.111.111 says go fuck yourself" is simpler and much more satisfying.

Of course, you may have just described the next generation of ad-blockers if enough sites get on the anti-blocker bandwagon. Download whatever, drop into the /shitpit/ directory and just throw some random numbers into the tracking data returned. You might be on to something there...

[Alan Brown]

Re: Isn't stealth adblocking possible?

"Surely it must be possible to design an ad-blocker in such a way that the server cannot tell that the ads have been blocked?"

Yes - but if the objection is bandwidth (and when I'm in the arse end of the internet in Burma where average ADSL speeds make a dialup modem look snappy, that's important), then there's no point.

[MrDamage]

Re: Isn't stealth adblocking possible?

It's possible.

I've visited some of these sites with uBlock Origin enabled, and got the "you horrible person, you're blocking ads" warning. I then enabled NoScript, went back to the page, and the ad-block warning didn't show up.

Don't allow them to run scripts on your computer, and they don't know the difference. If the pagelayout is borked because of NoScript, then trash taht site and use one that doesn't rely on scripting to format the page.

[Keith Glass]

I've run into several of those "major media sites" . . .

. . . .that refuse me access while I'm running an ad-blocker.

I then go to a different site. The fact that most of these "major media sites" have been shown to be, at least occasionally, serving malware embedded in their ads, is why I refuse to lift my blocker. . .

[Mr Dogshit]

Re: I've run into several of those "major media sites" . . .

http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2016/03/23/the-latest-innovation-from-the-media/

[Stuart Elliott]

The only advert I need..

.. is a clean usable website that show up on Google's front page when I go searching for something, other than that, not interested.

Adblock (without acceptable ads) ftw.

[PNGuinn]

So it's coming to this ....

The ad "industry" is bleating that blockers are "Stealing" it's lunch.

The said industry is serving more and more intrusive ads.

Worse, far, far worse the said industry is serving an increasing amount of malware.

The said "industry" couldn't give a flying ****.

By the most effective form of advertising - word of mouth - everyone is beginning to get the message that ad blockers are becoming as essential (if not more) than av.

So fewer and fewer visitors will see the ads and their revenue stream will fall drastically

Soon, pretty soon two things may start to happen:

(a). The reputational damage of being associated with ad slinging scum (I'm feeling charitable today) and the decreasing advertising value will mean that companies will begin to look for other ways to advertise online.

(b). Reputable online sites that depend on advertising will notice the same thing and arrange to serve ads locally off their own servers, hopefully having thoroughly vetted them first as there will now be a direct line of liability.

Until the next round in this war of wackamole with the scumbags who infest the net.

[Schultz]

So humanity made a little progress in killing online ads ...

when will humanity figure out how to kill offline ads? I just don't get why every bus window in the Western world must be plastered with ads -- I personally value having a view when sitting in a bus. The same applies for pretty much all the other public ads too. Who decided that it was acceptable to sell every square meter of public city space for advertisements? You want to advertise Coca Cola to me? Sell me a Warhol painting for my living room.

[Potemkine]

Ads companies reap is what they sow

No, I'm really not interested to know about the new algorithm that will make me rich buying and selling stocks, neither am I of any other snake oil they want me to buy.

Go to hell, b*stards.

[tiggity]

related reading

Bandwidth slurpage due to ads

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160317/09274333934/why-are-people-using-ad-blockers-ads-can-eat-up-to-79-mobile-data-allotments.shtml

[boldpatch]

slow

Only reason i use adblocker is because without it a lot of websites are nearly impossible to navigate so painfully slow at times. perhaps its the speed of my machine.

I have visited news web sites that tell me to uninstall it to read its articals but i just leave i'm not that desperate to read them.

[jason 7]

Dear Advertising People

You all seem to be struggling with why we mere mortals don't want to see your ads on our screens.

It's a simple concept. Try and follow.

Imagine you are waiting for your post in the morning. Instead of post, a man pushes a pile of dog crap through your letterbox. Obviously you are annoyed and want to do something to stop this. So you take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.

If you are still struggling, the dog crap is your ads!

[Fatman]

Re: Dear Advertising People

Allow me an opportunity to expand on a point you have made:

<quote>Imagine you are waiting for your post in the morning. Instead of post, a man pushes a pile of dog crap through your letterbox. Obviously you are annoyed and want to do something to stop this. You are irritated at the prospect of your having to pay to clean up that dog crap. So you take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. For a while, those steps are adequate, but the purveyor of dog crap figures out a new and more ingenious way to funnel dog crap into your letterbox, all the while making the dog crap more objectionable in the process. You begin to wonder if hunting down the dog that does the crapping is a more effective means to bring this situation under control.</quote>

I must wonder, is it time to put down the advertising industry???

[jason 7]

Re: Dear Advertising People

I had to smile reading your amendments as I thought of most of those, especially the clean up bit, while writing it but decided to trim it down.

I didn't want to confuse the marketing numpties with too many hard real-life concepts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dear Advertising People

I only agree if it's the dog that also does the posting.

Otherwise I'd say: put down the man.

[anonymous boring coward]

How it was, and how it should once again be

Perhaps all those who think that ads are just fine and dandy, because otherwise the totally free internet experience that you pay £25 per month for would cost money, need a little history lesson?

Back in the day when the WWW (World Wide Web) was invented, to run on top of the Internet (which was invented by DARPA), it was payed for no-one in particular. Companies (mostly) just hooked up using dial up or whatever technology was available to them at the time.

There were no ads. Some idiot implemented the BLINK HTML code (I'm not going to look it up, but if named it wrong, please do spend time to correct me). Now we had a way to attract attention that was horrible. But at least it wasn't as wasteful with the Earth's resources as running HD video clips that no-one has asked to see. Doing so wastes a lot of electricity. (Side note: Perhaps EU should look into making this crazy waste of electricity and users' patience illegal?)

From then on we have been on a slippery slope where people with ties and suits (or turtlenecks, perhaps) and pointy shoes have been hell-bent on making money by making us view things we don't want to view.

Now, I don't deny the right for ANY site to make money by having ads, but why on God's green earth would anyone want to have ads that piss people off?

The first web site that implements a standard for good advertising, prohibiting anything annoying, will probably become quite popular.

In the meantime, to get an experience that at least approximates the early WWW, any kind of counter measure to the parasitic glossy suit salesman (and women) tactic is fair.

Well, I could go on, but that's the gist of it.

[jason 7]

Re: How it was, and how it should once again be

I had a rare spot of posting on a LinkedIn article someone from marketing posted up saying about how great internet ads are and its the future blah blah blah. Myself and many others posted up quite politely and plainly why ads are mostly a bad thing and how bad it is but the marketing types just totally failed to grasp it. They were still saying "but...but why don't you want ads? We are offering so many extra benefits to readers and customers!"

They live in a totally other world from the rest of us. Eventually the rest of the world will block them out and they won't notice for ages.

Time is not on their side.

[nijam]

> A number of UK newspapers are also testing this approach

Let them die.

[nijam]

I wonder if the advertising industry would stop these stupid lawsuits if we all referred to things as "malware protection" or "bandwidth optimisation" rather than "ad blockers"?

Of course not, silly of me.

[Jeffrey Nonken]

Advertising is content

Don't push intrusive, offensive, obnoxious, annoying or malware-ridden advertisements on me and I'll be happy to stop blocking.

I'm usually happy to disable it on sites that ask me politely to do so. Also on webcomics sites specifically. But if you try to force me, I'll walk away. I'm looking at you, Forbes. I never did get to read that article. Too bad.