Brit publishers beg Apple not to hurt online ad revenue The UK News Media Association (NMA) has written to Apple, warning that its reported plan to provide AI-powered ad blocking in iOS 18 threatens the revenue of news publications. The iGiant is reported to be preparing to introduce an AI-powered privacy tool in its Safari browser called Web Eraser as part of its forthcoming iOS …
As well as Retch, you can add nearly all local newspapers to that list.
Back in the day, they were quite useful, holding local government to account (in between articles about cats stuck in trees). Now the local newspaper sites all have so much advertising they are borderline unreadable.
There is no god given right for publishers to punt ads.
If I had any trust in Apple I would be all over this idea like a rash. However, I don't. This is nothing to do with Apple users and everything to do with *Apple* getting the money.
"Meet the new boss .... same as the old boss !"
"There is no god given right for publishers"
There is no god given right for publishers to publish content for you to read, either. We, collectively as a society, voted with our feet for an ad-supported funding model. This might break that. So the outcome might be everything paywalled, with prices for paywalls rising and a lot of stuff disappearing. (Will this make for a better world - discuss.)
Actually no. The good websites will starve, and the crap ones will survive... Because it takes orders of magnitude more work/money to build something good than something crap. Nowadays, you have thousands of websites that just auto-generate content and try to push it onto you. They don't get a lot of revenue, but it costs peanuts to maintain so they still end up ahead. The good websites, however, those that pay actually people to write good articles, need a more stable source of revenue, and if they lose that they will die out.
OP Here.
There is no god given right for publishers to publish content for you to read, either.
Did I say there was ?
I would happily go back to paying a few pennies a day for a decent source of news. However that requires .... a decent source of news.
It's bad enough being forced at prison-point to subsidise the dreadful BBC and it's idea of "news".
When subscribing to the *paying* online copy of for example newspapers, they *still* push adds. You just get access to all articles rather then a selection of a few full views and headlines for the rest.
That is, plus an excessive amount of illegal privacy invading tracking, selling your personal data, having ads sprayed all over the screen and taking zero responsibility for the many vulnerabilities and scams online ads contain.
Self inflicted wound, foot meets shotgun.
There are various bans around the same age group, e.g. alcolhol, to some extent, sex, smoking, driving, possibly others. OK, voting is not banned because it's 'dangerous' to that age group as such, but ease of manipulation would have disastrous social consequences. Perhaps. I can't see any key difference between these bans and a ban on mobiles. Whether it's feasible or desirable (economy might collapse ;) is a different matter.
ie those that annoy people or slow the browser down.
I am OK with discrete ads that do not get in the way but hate things that: auto play video/sound; generate popups; obscure what I came to read; ...
This AI might be a good thing if it stops abusive ads and everyone might win.
This post has been deleted by its author
If it seemed like the journalists cared about what ads were displayed and didn't just stick ad boxes from major ad services then I'd be more inclined to allow them.
It would probably work better for the advertised product/company too with the potential customer knowing that they are being targeted by an actual person instead of an algorithm. Also, knowing that their advert won't appear next to something which would be damaging to be associated with.
I agree, it should be on a par with the content. Although I will never forget this...
"So it appears that you are interested in male grooming products. Here is an advert for Harry's razors in the middle of an article on beard care."
But if I ever chose to wet shave I DO know which brand to go with.
But if I ever chose to wet shave I DO know which brand NOT to go with.
There, fixed it for you.
Seriously, any product ad that gets through my ad blockers will NEVER EVER IN A GAZILLION YEARS get purchased by me.
A spent a few years working for an ad slinger. The first thing I was taught was how to block all their ads.
Well done Apple. The ads are wasting the bandwidth that I'm paying for. Go to Hell Google and all the rest.
When advertisers whine, you know someone is doing something right for consumers.
There is no good reason NOT to block ads, you are literally opening yourself to exploit if you don't. Using the internet without an ad blocker is downright disgusting, I don't know how or why people ever would.
"Ad blocking is however a blunt instrument which frustrates the ability of content creators to sustainably fund their work ..."
I know that advertising is essentially based on bullshit, but this particular bit of bullshit is so transparently false that it amazes me it still persists.
I'm still waiting for the obvious to occur to these 'publishers' -- that those site visitors using an ad blocker wouldn't be clicking on ads anyway so they are irrelevant to the 'sustainable funding of their work', just like anyone who doesn't use a blocker but doesn't click on the ads.
Apples Web eraser just sounds to be exactly what ublock origin has been doing for years, without needing this years must have AI buzz word tacked on.
I guess though if this is enabled by default then it will cause more people to block ads that those who currently use ad blockers extensions which don't come as standard on main stream browsers.
Personally im all for it, I hate ads. My next target to remove them from is Amazon Fire stick and Amazon prime video, since i paid up front for a 12 month ad free service and they now show me ads and want me to pay more to get rid of them. Fsck you Jeff Bezos, im going to sail the seven seas for my prime video content til my subscription runs out now.
As I've said before, without the ad model, most of the net would vanish and the remainder would be charged for. You smug, wealthy people can pay all the fees, but may miss the services that vanish. A large chunk of the planet would lose the lot. As most of you seem to crow about using ad-blocking, effectively freeloading your way across the net, every chance you get, you don't actually need this new technology anyway. It's depressing that the response on El Reg to this is always so selfish, ignores the basic economics of the net, and yells of an elitist, bubble mentality. The quality of responses on here is usually better than that.
It is an issue if Apple is using AI, which is still pretty crappy and error-prone, to interfere with what should be a wysiwyg content experience. You should see what the website puts up or know that you are not. Such technology is a slippery slope for censorship and content manipulation.
You are probably right about most of the internet disappearing if advertising was stopped. I sat here and thought about it for a few seconds and I'm not convinced that would be a bad thing.
I think you probably see more "services" as being useful than I do. For example I'd like on-line banking to remain, living in the Scottish Highlands I find Amazon useful (even when I buy elsewhere its a useful start point when looking for something). Other shopping websites can also be useful but I don't see them going, nor do I see the government websites going.
Removal of the advertising supported entities such as Facebook would not bother me at all. I now it would a lot of people who's very existence depends on seeing the latest cat video or finding out what the latest in-vogue influencer had for breakfast. Not sure what they did before the advent of the internet. I enjoy elReg but its not a necessity.
So a question: what services do you see vanishing?
> As I've said before
Indeed, but have always failed to give any plausible detail.
> but may miss the services that vanish
Come on, give us your list of the services that will vanish *and* which we will sorely miss.
More importantly, which ad-funded services do you think are going to vanish that will seriously disempower all but the rich?
> A large chunk of the planet would lose the lot
Online banking, online shopping, online government services, online health and medical (*proper* ones, like NHS, not Jill's Homeopathy) - you believe all those are going to vanish because we block obnoxious ads?
"Social" media? Oh no, I'll have to leave the house and meet people!
News? There are more - and more convenient - sources than a web page: on the radio, they even read it out to you whilst you journey to work!
I agree entirely.
Fair play to google, they do occasionally suggest some articles I'm interested in on my feed, and i do like to read them, but unless I'm at home with my pi hole helping out, the articles are near unreadable, videos that autoplay and then shift themselves into the corner and follow you down the page, a new picture displayed seemingly after every other sentence, whole screen images that you have to scroll through to continue reading.
I'm there for 2 or maybe 3 paragraphs of information, but that text has been turned into 4 pages of dross where i have to pick out the content.
None of the adverts are relevant, and they are extremely intrusive, their loading seems to take precedence over the actual content you are there for.
"[I]mportant information which would otherwise have been very useful to them" — when was the last time you got that in any ad, anywhere?
Disclaimer: I am so adblockered-up on all my devices that the only time I ever see ads is when I briefly lift the protective force field to view specific _content_ (as opposed to ads) before swiftly turning the shields back on, that I haven't viewed many ads coming from the Intertubes. Please let me kn ow if I'm missing anything "important" or "very useful." Ta.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
