German blogger calls Adblock Plus 'a mafia-like advertising network'

It never was taken away, unless one can prove that the cases aren't simply errors. I've never experienced it myself. That is to be determined, right now there is nothing Adblock Edge offers over Adblock Plus.

 

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/...lock-plus-mit-werbung-geld-verdient-1.1715051

 

Nobody said it was taken away. I said it could be taken away and then users would either have to find an alternative or deal with it.

@Pinga: The more I read about Eyeo, the less faith I have in ABP.

 

I've got nothing against the fork - AdBlock Edge. I sincerely hope it lives as an option (in the event the worst case scenario ever happens) unlike a few others that have tried and disappeared. I just find it odd that the same people recommending this add-on feel the need to add drama to the situation.

By removing "acceptable ads" instead of having it as an option, AdBlock Edge is touted as the no 'mafia' - the 'rescuer', the 'nobler', the 'better' add-on. That seems to be the logic around here for some folks. All in the name of principles. I guess I see that more as an overreaction than anything sensible.

 

I don't really see it as being about ABP as an extension or even the acceptable ads option anymore. The company, Eyeo, is what it really should be about. It's their practices and reputation that concerns me, not ABP itself. The problem is, they are dragging ABP down with them because of their way of doing business. With big time players like Google paying to be excluded from blocking, I feel it's only a matter of time before "acceptable ads" goes away as an option to enable or disable, depending on how many users currently disable it. When that happens, I'd honestly be curious as to how many people still think the ones with concern aren't be sensible or are overreacting.

 

I don't think that that will happen. I can't imagine that those people (like fanboy) maintaining the "normal" filter lists would cooperate. Don't forget that EasyList etc. are not a product of Eyeo!

And if they really did - well, in that case the usage of ABP would slump faster than a stone.

No, really: They can't afford such a strategy - unless they have a tendency towards masochism

 

Then again, how many people would notice anything? How many people are now aware that there's even an 'acceptable ads' feature?

I can't even recall how many times I had installed this or that extension to some relative, and then a few months later 'Oh, I didn't recall I installed that.'. How many geek people out there don't even recall they installed/suggested ABP to their relatives and friends?

Would it really hurt ABP if it ever came to that?

 

After the publicity caused by the Eyeo "scandal" I think that many users are aware of further changes. Again, I think that ABP/Eyeo can't afford to lose their complete credibility.

 

That is the reason they can continue to have the 'acceptable ads' as an option enabled by default. Because most people don't care and they won't manually disable the option, AdBlock can continue to have the normal way of operation as well...

 

Well, I think people need to realize that Google (and any other adservers) paying to be part of the white-list need to conform to certain criteria. It's not a free pass per se. You don't just pay and suddenly you're king. Furthermore, it's only logical since most web owners who place ads on their site(s) run ads from Google and/or the other "big players". Webmasters would understand this better.

The basic idea is that ABP in it's default installation now blocks 'annoying ads'. If anyone disagrees with the notion, he/she is still given the option to toggle off that setting and revert back to how things used to be. I don't understand how this should affect EyeO's reputation. If anything, it should be to the contrary. AdBlockers are getting too popular and if every Joe and Jane install it (which is what's gradually happening) and subscribe to filter lists without white-listing (let's be honest, how many would take the effort to do so?), the revenue of those who run websites are affected. Making the 'acceptable ads' a default option is to minimize that problem while still allowing users to use ABP with less guilt. That is if they have any sense of guilt.

Some people just find the notion that ABP playing the middle man disgusting. The word "commercialization" is simply plain evil to some people. The idea of letting certain ads through is also a big no-no for them. Funnily though, these people claim 'ethics'....when they can't even give the slightest consideration to web owners. All they could care about is 'no ads' and 'no evil Google'. Talk about oxymoron.

I'm just put off by those trying to play the scaremongering game and this is exactly what's affecting the reputation. Not EyeO. Not ABP. Not Wladimir Palant.

 

Good post, Safeguy

 

It's funny, though. If it weren't for abusive ad networks and web owners not caring about what kind of ads were/are displayed, tools like ABP never needed to exist in the first place.

As far as I know, web site visitors weren't the ones who created the annoying ads, wasting traffic, distracting us from what really matters in web sites. Nope, ad networks did and web site owners couldn't care less to tell those ad networks that "lighter" ads were needed instead.

Do yourself a favor and visit this website without any ad blocker of any kind, including hosts file, and tell me whether or not they have consideration for the visitor: -http://www.computerworld.com (there are other websites belonging to the same company as abusive as this one)

And, that's not just about one website. I've come across many like that before, and some way more abusive with their ads.

Also, for as long as ad network still get hacked and ads compromise users systems, I'll still block those damn ads. The only ads I do not block are first party ads, and provided they are simple text ads, and not large images/flash content, animated images.

I also wonder if you're not using any ad blocking at all? Maybe you don't mind those kind of websites, that regardless of having great content to be read, are just way too abusive with their ads.

 

Abusive ad networks get on my peeves just like any other person. Ad networks being hacked is a different story.

What I don't quite agree with is that people are taking advantage of that fact as a moral justification to do outright blocking of ads without fair consideration. In their quest for taking control of things and do a 'revenge time', they get lost in their self-prioritization and self-pity. Being contented with the ability to see content without ads, they no longer see it as a problem, easily forgetting that the web model we have right now runs on ads (whether anyone likes it or not). Imagine wide adoption of that attitude. We're doing the same mistake those ad networks did. Being selfish.

In short, I do mind ads. I do use ABP. I just see the acceptable ads as a fair compromise. I do check/uncheck it and even entirely disable ABP (or other similar tools) from time to time. I guess I empathize with web owners to a certain extent.

 

I usually like to control what ads I see, and also I like to use my own judgement about it, not use some so called AdBlock "community" criteria. As I said before, I'm not exactly fond of this "we know what's better for you" approach, but as long as I still can uncheck that box in ABP, it's still OK.

However, I must note that even before I discovered the ad-blocking solutions, I never clicked on an ad in my life. Maybe I'm incredibly unlucky and I never found something interesting in an ad, or maybe there are some other reasons, but I never did it. So for me, ads are just an annoyance and a form of tracking me online. As a result, I don't care too much about this "web model" based on ads.

 

That being the biggest problem. The 'acceptable ads' feature doesn't take care of that, does it? I took a look at the ABP 'acceptable ads' page and see nothing about that. They do mention we are always working at improving them. (their criteria) In particular, we want to require that every user's privacy is respected (e.g. mandatory Do Not Track support). However, we are not yet in a position to enforce that requirement..

Well, not only aren't they in such a position, but also the fact that DNT is one big joke.

At ABP page one can see among other things, the following about ABP, and that's the fact that it Protects your online privacy. But, by allowing these ad networks, privacy is being broken, because now they get to track users.

It's a contradictory statement. On one hand it protects your privacy, but on the other hand it breaks it by allowing non-abusive ads?

 

This is mostly a discussion at meta level, which makes sense for a complex subject such as this. Your 'some people' rhetoric confuses the message with the messenger. In doing so, you are jumping to conclusions that are not only irrelevant to the current discussion but also inaccurate. Who exactly are 'they'? How do you define ' consideration to web owners' and what are the reasons 'they' should practise it, in your view?

 

@ safeguy

agree with you

 

A medium that was originally designed to advance the flow of human communication is increasingly being used to push commercial content and to track, profile and cluster human behaviour. Jodi Dean argued as early as 2003 that more and more domains of life seem to have been reformatted in terms of market and spectacle:

http://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/courses_readings/phil123-net/publicness/dean_net_publicsphere.pdf

The view that maintaining - or regaining - control over one's own communications and priivacy is somehow illegal is dangerous. Human beings deserve respect, unwanted sales pitches and/or tracking individual behaviour do not. Eyeo GmbH's role as a self-appointed middle man in this highly intransparent process is ambiguous, to say the least. As for ethics, noone_particular summed it up nicely:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/archive/index.php/t-344073.html

 

It's getting crowded:

http://clarityray.com/#our-solution

http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/18/clarityray-ad-blockers/

 

They aren't proposing an alternative though, nor a compromise with this "solution". What they're actually proposing is what would possibly turn out to be the end of "free" information (none is actually free considering you're paying an ISP just to access it). Also, paying a subscription wouldn't likely stop all websites from displaying ads. It sure hasn't stopped Hulu and others. There's too much money in ads to not display them. The solution is both a pipe dream and a terrible idea for both customers and the websites these guys think they are protecting. No one is going to pay a fee for every website, and websites would lose eyeballs. Adblockers won't in the long run kill the web (or they would have long ago). This proposal, however, just might.

 

It's getting crowded (2):

http://www.free-my-search.com/

 

I already know about ABP giving an option to allow harmless ads as they called them. I do not know if that option was enabled by default. Ads is the only source of income for some sites to pay for their hosting. I don't like ads myself, but I have not found any reason not to use ABP unless they are sharing the sites I visit with a third party. I have seen no proof of that, not to say it has not happened. The facts I have so far gives me no reason to stop using ABP. I don't have time at the moment to read this entire thread. Does anyone want inform me of any facts that have been mentioned in this thread? If its suspicious components of ABP that worries you then please list them. I'm interested in knowing so I can look into it myself. Thanks in advance for any info given!

 

Most of the facts are actually in the 4th page. In the previous pages, you'll only see a few reasonable posts within swarms of unverified (and disproven) claims. People are hysterical enough to move from ABP to ABE, which is based on the same source code only with a few lines (like the optional whitelist) removed. They just hate even the possibility of ads, especially after Google got the green light first.

 

On low-bandwidth connections, most of the Web is unusable without Adblock Plus (or equivalent) and NoScript. I had forgotten just how bad until recently, in using Ubuntu LiveCD VMs for testing VPN setups.

I wonder whether sites could auction access using Bitcoins. As sites got busier, they could ask more for access priority and throughput. Users could offer more if they wanted faster access, or wait and pay less.

 

There's always knee-jerk reactions, sure, but to only equate those that move to ABE as being hysterical is rather narrow.

Some users may not be willing to turn a blind eye just because it's optional. It may be against their own principles, and so they made the move because they don't believe that "few lines" of code should be there to begin with. There's nothing hysterical about that, and I see nothing wrong with it either.