is adblocking theft?

[Jezebel]

Firefox the browser has an extension called Adblock Plus which strips websites of almost all banners and ads. Some webmasters are claiming that this is theft of their resources since they use advertising to pay for their bandwidth. Many are now trying to find ways to completely block Firefox from accessing their websites through scripts.

Do you think blocking advertisements on websites is wrong?
Do you think the webmasters who are attempting to block Firefox will actually be successful in gaining more revenue for their websites?

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[wolf]

Hard to say, because you can do as you please with the HTML provided by the server. Some browse without images, too.

I don't consider it theft, and the method used would/could be used for Internet Explorer, too. I can't believe anyone would block a major browser from access to their site for a minority...

Also, it's easy to block a browser based on what it claims to be (I could block any browser or class of browsers from my web server in under a minute if I wanted to), but Firefox makes it really easy to spoof your browser, so it doesn't work for anyone spoofing or using the host file method to remove ads (which works for any/all browsers)...

Here are some tricks (being a tech guy, I can circumvent numerous basic measures like these with ease):
- I get the "User Agent Switcher" for Firefox.
- Use the Internet Explorer user agent setting for sites that don't like other browsers (these are uncommon anymore, but sometimes they come up).
- Add an additional user agent "Googlebot/2.1 (+To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)", which will allow you to see the vast majority of pages you can find on Google but cannot view the page because it's not cached and they want you to pay to view them. (This can be circumvented with a combination of the user agent and a list of allowed IPs owned by Google, but most don't know enough to do this.)

Enjoy.

[Tarrick]

Answer to Question 1: No, I don't think so. The webmasters are paid to advertise on their sites just like TV stations are paid to run commercials. So is it wrong to TiVO/tape a show and fast forward through all the commercials? The answer is the same to both because both have two types of people who view/watch them: People who see the ads and people who don't. You cannot mandate that people sit through the commercials if they are watching a show, just like you cannot mandate that someone be forced see their ads, especially considering that more and more ads (or so it seems) are less...appropriate for younger viewers.

Answer to Question 2: They have every right to do what they want, but I don't doubt that some ingenious programmer will find a way to circumvent their script, which is THEIR right.

[Jezebel]

That's interesting, wolf. I already knew about the user agent but that's the first I've heard about adding googlebot. Some of the webmasters are trying to get around user agent, but it seems like wasted effort to me.

And yeah, Tarrick, I agree.

[wolf]

That's interesting, wolf. I already knew about the user agent but that's the first I've heard about adding googlebot. Some of the webmasters are trying to get around user agent, but it seems like wasted effort to me.
There's really no other way to do it, except, maybe, through javascript. That can be circumvented by turning it off, but it would seem quite mysterious and be difficult to track down.

The user agent field is the only distinct identifier that a browser sends the server that could be used to identify it (without the above-mentioned javascript trickery, which is basically sending the viewer a trojan horse).

It is impossible to reliably force someone to download an ad unless the ad is part of the content itself (ex: Embedded in Flash, but then the normal impressions method wouldn't work, so that doesn't help unless you have a flat-rate advertiser).

Good luck to them, but they only have a handful of bytes to work with and there is no guarantee those bytes are telling them the whole truth.

[Claverhouse]

It's not theft, cos you aren't getting anything in return for looking at a webpage. If you don't want to see bits of it, that's their hard luck.

[Tarrick]

Actually, I remember hearing about a study in which they tracked people's eye movements while viewing various sites with ads, and people have essentially conditioned themselves to avoid looking at them and instead concentrate on the contents of the page. I wish I could link it, but I have no idea where it was...

[Jack]

Website ads piss me off! Especially the ones with "Congratulations!! Click here for your free laptop."
I understand that everyone needs to make a buck, but soon enough the Internet won't matter. So why fuss about it.

[Jezebel]

Wolf, they're circumventing user agent by targeting the adblocking extensions directly instead of just looking for the browser. This is an example of what I'm talking about. (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) Anyway, I don't claim to know a lot about this or think it's a big deal (it's easy enough to get around). I just ran into a website blocking firefox and thought it was a bit ridiculous when I found out why.

soon enough the Internet won't matter. So why fuss about it.

:thinking:

Blasphemy.

[tundra]

Personally, I don't think blocking advertising is theft. After all, no one can force you to look at billboards. Of course, that works differently on web pages, since you could filter them out all together...

Their standpoint is that its bad for revenue, but since 'Firefox users are a small percentage of the internet', wouldn't it not matter anyway?

That could pick up momentum, but that argument isn't appealing right now.

And what about other, commercial software that block ads? Norton Internet Security. Are they going to sue them?

I've got adblock plus on right now, and none of the sites I browse often have blocked me, so... ::)

Ad-blocking all the way.

[Jack]

soon enough the Internet won't matter. So why fuss about it.

:thinking:

Blasphemy.


I just thought saying something absurd would be humourous.

[Tarrick]

Absurd? Humorous? Those never mix! ;)

[Firelie]

So by that logic, when you're watching television and you get up during a commercial break to go into the other room for some water, you're stealing from the television station that is currently on? *Or would that only work if you made the screen blank during the commercials? *Either way you're not seeing them.
Why should it matter? *

[Tarrick]

Exactly.

[Cato the Younger]

Even though I disagree with their logic I can understand their fear. That's how most sites make money and if they don't want to lose members because they have to charge or have no way to make money then they might have to shut down.

[Firelie]

Yeah, but how many people actually click on ads and buy something from the website?

[Cato the Younger]

It's not so much getting people to immediately buy the product as to know that it's out there. You want to saturate the market.

[The Rose]

I don't understand.
What is adblocking exactly?

[Tarrick]

Certain add-ons to Firefox will stop ads from appearing on the web page. That's it, essentially.

[wolf]

Yeah, I said that JavaScript could be used, but even that can be circumvented. There are many ways to skin a cat.

[The Rose]

Certain add-ons to Firefox will stop ads from appearing on the web page. That's it, essentially.In my opinion, that's not theft any more than pop-up blocking.
I don't see why marketeers should have the right to invade my privacy and bombard my every waking moment with advertising.
It's getting to be ridiculous!
There was an audio commercial in the grocery store aisle the other day!
switches to Firefox 8-)

[Jezebel]

switches to Firefox 8-)

In that case, make sure you pick up Adblock Plus here (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), too.

[The Rose]

switches to Firefox *8-)

In that case, make sure you pick up Adblock Plus here (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), too.Thanks, Jez.

[The Rose]

Apparently IE is giving Firefox some competition.
(As usual. They never get an original idea. They just capitalize on everybody else's.)
done ranting
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[wolf]

Apparently IE is giving Firefox some competition.
(As usual. They never get an original idea. They just capitalize on everybody else's.)
done ranting
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Back in the day, when M$ did a knock-off of someone else's idea, it was better than the original. Today, they generally can't hold a candle to their competition, even when they came out with something first... They've been slipping for a long time now...

[qwerty]

It's sort of a weird question and I think everyones hit the nail on the head with the TV services not being able to force viewers to watch their ads. At the end of the day television advertisers have had to work hard to make their ads appealing and they spend a fortune doing so. The internet advertising racket could learn alot from their counterparts.

Personally I don't mind clicking on ads to see what they're about (I love the current iPod ads - actual apple iPod ads not the you have won and iPod) but I wouldn't ever buy anything I saw advertised on the internet or TV just because. At the end of the day advertisers shouldn't be going after their customers they should be going after the dodgy companies like the scan your computer advertisers who will embed a load script and a javascript prompt forcing the user to view there crap regardless of whether the user presses Yes or No.

If you're going to advertise realize that not everyone is going to be interested in your product and instead focus on the people that would potentially buy from you.

[ciphersort]

One thing is for sure - complaining about it gets some free publicity.

[wolf]

Believe it or not, I click ads sometimes if they're very specific to the article, or something I was curious about. I don't normally notice them, though...

[iamnotspock]

Yes, ad-blocking is theft. Please go to jail. ;-))

[shadowlock]

I do not think adblocking is theft. It's your choice what shows up on your computer, and it's their choice how they use their bandwidth. Imagine if someone knew a page contained image ads, and they purposely blocked images on their browser so they wouldn't have to load them. Would that be illegal? Most likely not.

[GOD]

We just need a script that where the ads are not properly served then the website does not load.

I would expect that Google might be the first to offer webmasters this "freeshare" software.

While anyone can say it’s the users right to exclude adverts, it should be noted that website owners have implicitly assumed that these are served as part of the package to allow a user to view for FREE.

Lost advertising revenue to website owners is no different to lost revenues of pirated software or bootleg movies. The ONLY difference is the process by which revenues are gained.

Where would the internet be today if the likes of Google didn't give webmasters funds for displaying ads? That’s right, there would be a few geeks in University still doing it, and the net would probably exist as an additional button on a cable supplier consol... They could ensure revenues then. To be honest, too many people on the net don't appreciate the mass of free use material they get, and have the audacity to think that denying ads isn't an incredibly selfish self serving attitude.

If they don't want the spam of the ads, then they shouldn't surf those sites.

[wolf]

We just need a script that where the ads are not properly served then the website does not load.
There's no way to guarantee it actually happened - it can all be spoofed for the script. You can choose what your computer downloads, what sites it hits, etc, and website owners can try more and more creative techniques to stop it, but I've gone to lengths for such things before and the best ones will just make it unbearable for the 99% that don't block ads. You must weigh your options and decide if it's worth the complexity, performance hits, and cost to implement/maintain.

There are a lot of nefarious sites out there, and we shouldn't be forced to download from them to view a page. Many of these advertising companies are also information-gathering/selling companies that sell their stats for questionable purposes. I should know; I've done data-mining of such information before and dealt with companies that deal in such information in the past.

[shadowlock]

Where would the internet be today if the likes of Google didn't give webmasters funds for displaying ads? That’s right, there would be a few geeks in University still doing it, and the net would probably exist as an additional button on a cable supplier consol... They could ensure revenues then. To be honest, too many people on the net don't appreciate the mass of free use material they get, and have the audacity to think that denying ads isn't an incredibly selfish self serving attitude.

If they don't want the spam of the ads, then they shouldn't surf those sites.

It would be like pirating software or bootleg movies if many people did it. Many people still view the ads! Most people won't even know how to turn them off, or even know of a program that exists to do it! Second, if there are users that want block ads, if it was made illegal, do you think they would click on the ads then? They would not. It would be exactly the same.

[GOD]

It would be like pirating software or bootleg movies if many people did it. Many people still view the ads! Most people won't even know how to turn them off, or even know of a program that exists to do it! Second, if there are users that want block ads, if it was made illegal, do you think they would click on the ads then? They would not. It would be exactly the same.

Hmm... I think you've missed the whole concept of why a huge number of sites exist and are funded.

Believe it or not website owners do incur cost to push bandwidth to a viewer.

However, there is a middle ground somewhere, as most browsers do already have pop over/under ad blockers.

Given the advertisers are the ones that actually fund the internet I don't think anyone is keen to kill the golden goose... as with Firefox... I thought Google was promoting that big time... the only benefit I could see if they used it to stop Yahoo and MSN moving into their patch... but that would be counter productive...

[shadowlock]

That is their choice if they want to pay for a website then it's their responsibility, the viewer has no requirement to click any ads. The viewer also can control what comes up on their end.

[1OFMANY]

Actually, I remember hearing about a study in which they tracked people's eye movements while viewing various sites with ads, and people have essentially conditioned themselves to avoid looking at them and instead concentrate on the contents of the page. I wish I could link it, but I have no idea where it was...

LOL..My son and I were walking in front of our mailbox one day ( he was about 13) and I reach in and pull out a handfull of regular bulk mail flyers etc...He says Don't even pulls those out dad, they are just pop-ups...I throw them away.

:lol:

[xhaan]

It's sort of a weird question and I think everyones hit the nail on the head with the TV services not being able to force viewers to watch their ads. At the end of the day television advertisers have had to work hard to make their ads appealing and they spend a fortune doing so. The internet advertising racket could learn alot from their counterparts.

Personally I don't mind clicking on ads to see what they're about (I love the current iPod ads - actual apple iPod ads not the you have won and iPod) but I wouldn't ever buy anything I saw advertised on the internet or TV just because. At the end of the day advertisers shouldn't be going after their customers they should be going after the dodgy companies like the scan your computer advertisers who will embed a load script and a javascript prompt forcing the user to view there crap regardless of whether the user presses Yes or No.

If you're going to advertise realize that not everyone is going to be interested in your product and instead focus on the people that would potentially buy from you.

If you leave for every commercial, is that theft? If you ignore banner ads without clicking them, is that theft?

The ONLY problem I see with banner ads in connection with anything even remotely near theft, is the fact that banner ads often pay 'per hit', i.e. every time the banner loads, it counts as a view, clicking on one is 'better' but simly being loaded counts also, and ad blockers prevent this from happening, so the ads aren't 'worth as much' since they are loaded less often.

Also, if a person is blind, or uses a text browser, they can't even see the stupid ads anyway, so it's like the host getting money for nothing. (and yes, blind people do use the internet, in spite of seemingly popular belief)

My main problem is with the ever increasing amount of shady ads, the ones that try to trick you into thinking it's something else in order to get you to click on it, this borders on, and may very well be, fraudulent, IMO.

[Vortex]

Theft is the removal of goods from Party A with party B receiving said goods. As such, its impossible, by definition, for you to digitally "steal" anything. The entire notion that visiting a site without loading 3rd party adds is "stealing" is ridiculous and not grounded in reality.

[BadMojo]

I have no problems with banners. But how many remember the old pop-up days? It was hellish to surf the Internet back then.
Therefore no. I don't think its theft. They could do the ads more bearable like ad-words or something like that.

[Hdier]

I would say that it could be considered theft. As was pointed out, websites accept money for the adds, and your cost of viewing it is having to put up with the adds. Therefore, the people that the add was for is being cheated out of their money, and if it gets to be a big enough problem then internet advertising may stop all together (an extreme, but reasonable in about 30 years, in my opinion), causing the webmasters to not receive the money.

Disclaimer: I am not taking this stance, I simply decided to argue it. I am undecided on what I think.





Hdier added to this post, 2 minutes and 38 seconds later...

It's not theft, cos you aren't getting anything in return for looking at a webpage. If you don't want to see bits of it, that's their hard luck.

Yes you are. On News pages, you get information. On game pages, you get entertainment. And so on, and so forth. Just because you don't get anything tangible doesn't mean you don't get anything.





Hdier added to this post, 3 minutes and 2 seconds later...

Personally, I don't think blocking advertising is theft. After all, no one can force you to look at billboards. Of course, that works differently on web pages, since you could filter them out all together...

This is different. You don't have the opportunity to see the adds this way. Something might actually catch your interest, and I've actually found a great site for buying Magic cards off of adds.





Hdier added to this post, 2 minutes and 26 seconds later...

So by that logic, when you're watching television and you get up during a commercial break to go into the other room for some water, you're stealing from the television station that is currently on? Or would that only work if you made the screen blank during the commercials?

No to the former, yes to the latter. Leaving the TV during a commercial break is similar to not looking at adds. However, making the screen blank during commercialls would be the equivalent of adblock.





Hdier added to this post, 1 minutes and 15 seconds later...

Yeah, but how many people actually click on ads and buy something from the website?

At least one. See above (about Magic).





Hdier added to this post, 5 minutes and 42 seconds later...

Theft is the removal of goods from Party A with party B receiving said goods. As such, its impossible, by definition, for you to digitally "steal" anything. The entire notion that visiting a site without loading 3rd party adds is "stealing" is ridiculous and not grounded in reality.

You are speaking as if the goods had to be tangible. If someone found a book before it was released, copied it, and released it on the internet then that would be theft even though he didn't take anything tangible.

[xhaan]

I have no problems with banners. But how many remember the old pop-up days? It was hellish to surf the Internet back then.
Therefore no. I don't think its theft. They could do the ads more bearable like ad-words or something like that.

Heh, I remember when you could make runaway popups that would crash (or lock to the point of inability to input any action) a computer by running it out of memory.

[Vortex]

You are speaking as if the goods had to be tangible. If someone found a book before it was released, copied it, and released it on the internet then that would be theft even though he didn't take anything tangible.

That would fall under a variety of laws, such as copyright infringement, invasion of privacy (you just don't "find" unreleased books), probably some more I can't think of at the moment. And it would be theft if he took a physical copy of the book. But copy it off a server? Thats not theft. Theres no missing property.

[Tsuru]

Yeah, I don't see how it could possibly be considered "theft" unless there were specific user agreements beforehand that wouldn't let you go further unless you agreed to not block or click on the ads (which would obviously be pretty worthless and pretty sketchy). The financial model consists of attracting people with content and supplying advertisers potential exposure to those people, just like TV. There is no explicit or implied agreement to pay attention to advertising. And obviously if someone has ad blockers they have no intent on paying attention to or clicking on ads anyways. I think I've probably clicked on less ad banners than I can count on 2 hands in my whole life.

If webmasters and ad agencies want to make money from ads they need to stop bombarding us with idiotic "punch george bush to win a free ipod" banners or obnoxious flash windows that drop down over the page - they need intelligently targeted ads instead (content-related commission sales and google's targeted text ads probably are the best models to work from).

[Hdier]

Vortex, two things:

I didn't think that we were speaking from the laws point of view, as then the answer would obviously be no as theft is illegal but adblock is not. I was speaking from a 'would I consider this stealing' point of view (remember that I'm simply being Devil's Advocate right now).

Second, I was using a hypothetical situation in a vacuum. But, if I must, I will give reasons why this might happen. There is a copy of a book and it gets sent to the wrong person (soft copy) or the person loses it (hard copy). Again, though, I was speaking in a vacuum, I was not considering other laws.

[BadMojo]

Heh, I remember when you could make runaway popups that would crash (or lock to the point of inability to input any action) a computer by running it out of memory.
Yes! And make the screen shake violently... Program a reopening webpage with shake-effect and send it to your friends. HAHA! Oh the joy ;D

[E148]

"Users do not particularly want to see advertisements, but except in a few cases where advertisements are extremely annoying, will for the most part put up with the ads in order to view the Web content that they are seeking."

This is a bit presumptuous. How do they know that people are willing to 'put up with it'?
Even so, should the users have to 'put up with it'?

Personally, if I want to buy something I will search for it.

But to answer your question. It is not stealing. As has been said here, it is like TV and not watching the commericials, which I do try to avoid. Advertisers put their ad and hope people see them and buy their product and service.

[dandylion]

I don't see why they care so much. Why don't they just get a second job? Geez.

[ssfanatic]

No, its not theft. Maybe it would be if we didnt have our freedom, but we can say/do what we want in the US of A, so screw teh obnoxious pop ups!

[DeadSpace]

i don't consider it theft, i block most adservers through firewall, sites look pretty bare that way, but effectively stops the ads and most all cookies from them. I don't want their cookies, pop-ups or other visual garbage. Slows down my web experience, loads up my cache, and generally makes me avoid ad heavy sites.

[Mountain Lion]

I am stupefied by the nature of the question and its implications :stunned:

[deepFlow]

Yeah, crying "theft" doesn't seem like a very effective way of making the world voluntarily pay attention to more advertising. :)

[fortyseventh]

Actually, I remember hearing about a study in which they tracked people's eye movements while viewing various sites with ads, and people have essentially conditioned themselves to avoid looking at them and instead concentrate on the contents of the page. I wish I could link it, but I have no idea where it was...
Banner Blindness (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)?

Just How 'Blind' Are We to Advertising Banners on the Web? (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)





fortyseventh added to this post, 50 minutes and 22 seconds later...

The only reason I use Flashblock (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) is that a number of sites have ads done in flash that slow down my browser and the CPU utilization goes up to 100% which kicks up the fan speed resulting in my laptop getting hotter and noisier.

I consider TV and web ads to be a good source of information in terms of
1) What new products/services have been launched
2) Scams
3) New multi-level marketing schemes to avoid
4) That it's time to find out why some big company is spending a lot of money on advertising a new or an old product

I used addblock for a short time but it blocked out information that helped me decide what to avoid so I stopped using it.
I wouldn't use flashblock if they stopped hogging resources on my computer.

[Theodoric]

I've already installed adblock for FF, so it is safe to assume that I don't think its theft. This is as ridiculous as the TV networks telling me I'm stealing when I mute asinine commercials.

The primary reason I installed adblock is due to the fact that I hate those obnoxious flash ads that continuously loop. The worst offender of these were those 'Lower Mortgage Rates' ads. Not only were they annoying but were also visually offensive. :p They are terribly distracting for me, to the point where I would just leave a site that used them. It was even worse when these ads would be placed not once, but more than 3 times on one site. Maybe webmasters should learn to stop using these ads / have only one on a page / have it play once and only once.

Lastly, it seems ridiculous to alienate 30% of the market just to make advertisers happy? If I was in the position of webmaster I would not feel bad letting a user who is blocking ads on my site when an advertiser paid me money to display them. It doesn't hurt me and honestly, the demographic that is blocking said ads is generally not going to bother clicking on them anyways.

[meanlittlechimp]

I wouldn't say it's theft, but just don't whine when you're favorite site goes under because it can't pay it's bills. But realistically it won't happen unless a high enough percentage start doing it as well - which in that case, I think sites would indeed start blocking firefox.

[ehares]

Do you think blocking advertisements on websites is wrong?
This is actually a more interesting and far more useful question than the absurd "is adblocking theft?" nonsense.

I only respond to very focused advertisement that is closer to a personal recommendation (sponsors carefully chosen by a trusted editorial staff, or targeted ads in incredibly niche material), in fact I will white-list a domain in my ad-blocker (display all ads) if I trust them in this manner. This all left my personal ad-blocking not only of trivial effect, but indeed entirely irrelevant.

For a long time I would have thought to extend this behaviour to a generalisation concerning ad-blocking side-effects, but with solutions like the Firefox extension referenced it is becoming so accessible that I could easily see people that may actually be inclined to click on ads instead blocking them.

So...I am left less certain than I thought I was when I came into this thread.

I would say it is less that the act is wrong, and more that the model is broken.



Do you think the webmasters who are attempting to block Firefox will actually be successful in gaining more revenue for their websites?
No, Firefox has a tiny market share and every browser has multiple ad-blocking solutions available. There can be no targeted blocking of people using ad filters.

[thod]

There are companies out there that offer you all sorts of goodies if you agree to install apps that display adverts. This shows that there is a market value involved with add viewing. Thus one could argue that in displaying the ads they are defrauding the viewer. They should be paying the viewer. Certainly when you click a link you have not explicitly agreed to view the ads. You visited some site for information, the ads are from a third party site.

There are even third party bots that auto handle the whole add viewing business earning you cash. So I doubt any case involving ad blocking would count as theft.

[ehares]

Here is something interesting I just came across:
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I haven't seen anything like the text in the sidebar to the right addressing the failure to display an advertisement.

Note that my script blocking is purely for security reasons, and the image shown was captured in a browser without ad-blocking.

[HackerX]

Either:
<noscript>Display nasty message</noscript>

or a JS function that runs on page load that removes the nasty message. Pretty easy to do really.

[vad1981]

In One word : YES. Advertisers rely on commercials to finance their more commercials and executive salaries. $$$$ So, it our obligation to always watch all of them. I also believe going to the bathroom to take a leak during commercials on TV is theft, that's why I always a diaper when watching TV, well actually come to think of its actually because I like to walk around in diapers :)

[schwartzie]

harvard prof. ben edelman has done a lot of research and writing on the security and privacy problems created by online advertising, as well as on click fraud abuses that cheat the advertiser. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
I recommend not only adblockplus and noscript extensions, (or disabling javascript in IE) but also customizegoogle, since google--with its truly wonderful toys--is gathering huge amounts of data on us. Even intjforum uses googleanalytics, which is a terrific tool, but the price is that google gets visitor data.

[Radamisto]

From the natural law point of view adblocking is not a theft. Here's why: the website owner has no automatic property rights in the computers used to open it.

[Snowdragon]

I know that Rogaine, Viagra, and Ron Paul 2008! have their places but not on the message boards. Ad's are very annoying and no one reads them. No one like spam. Stealing is when you take somthing that doesn't belong to you. All adblocking does is filter out spam. No, adblocking is not theft.

[gg666]

I think that it is quite, odd that the webmasters would say "ad blocking is theft" especially when
1. No one has taken, anything from the ad's except learning to avoid x product.
2. The ad's(flash ad's) slow down your comp, especially those sites with tons of them(how slow the comp is...... cant even do anything!)

Wow, it seems like the webmasters are not even running their web site, as intended, more like running a site to make income! They should have already known that by operating a site, they have to pay for this amount of bandwidth, if they are not prepared to, than why even bother?

On another note, I still think it is, not illegal,we are not stealing, so we should be able to block the ad's for the sake of protection, or just not wanting to see that junk.

I bet, they would make more money by stating. "We need donations to keep this web page up" than trying to argue about "How blocking ad's is a form of theft"

[jesse]

Why would adblocking be theft? Most of the time web advertising is unsolicited and very annoying when they block the content until you close a pop-up window or flash advert. Fortunately there are quite a few useful methods to cut down the amount of distracting content on many common websites. I'm not even that bothered by some advertising when it is clearly labeled and kept apart from a site's own content, but some places do make it a painful experience without filtering.

Webmasters who claim they need advertising revenue to keep their site running probably have hired unfavorable hosting plans, or they are trying to make a quick buck in the process. Nothing like hiding behind online charity ;)

[zibber]

Why would adblocking be theft? Most of the time web advertising is unsolicited and very annoying when they block the content until you close a pop-up window or flash advert. Fortunately there are quite a few useful methods to cut down the amount of distracting content on many common websites. I'm not even that bothered by some advertising when it is clearly labeled and kept apart from a site's own content, but some places do make it a painful experience without filtering.

Webmasters who claim they need advertising revenue to keep their site running probably have hired unfavorable hosting plans, or they are trying to make a quick buck in the process. Nothing like hiding behind online charity ;)

If the ad revenue actually does pay for the server costs and is (at least partially) responsible for making the site free of charge (as opposed to requiring paid subscription, no matter how small the fee), adblocking certainly is theft, to a certain degree. You can't very well call pop-ups or banners unsollicited, since you are apparently visiting a site whose webmaster(s) chose to incorporate ads, hence solliciting any content offered by that site. (I definitely adblock, FYI -haven't seen a banner in ages, let alone a pop-up-, but it's silly to suppose that it's not ethically slightly problematic.)


On another note, I still think it is, not illegal,we are not stealing, so we should be able to block the ad's for the sake of protection, or just not wanting to see that junk.


No, this is just a false justification. The way to protect yourself would be not to visit sites that contain advertisements, and leave them if you happen upon them inadvertently. Consciously visiting sites and blocking the ads simply cannot be justified by your argument.

ps. "ads", people, not "ad's".. sorry :)

[Aronnax]

If the ad revenue actually does pay for the server costs and is (at least partially) responsible for making the site free of charge (as opposed to requiring paid subscription, no matter how small the fee), adblocking certainly is theft, to a certain degree.

Interesting position.

Does changing the channel, leaving the room or turning off the sound when a TV commercial comes on constitute theft as well?

[azelismia]

Interesting position.

Does changing the channel, leaving the room or turning off the sound when a TV commercial comes on constitute theft as well?


you could also posit that we being robbed when our computers are laden with malware slowing our computers down to a crawl and possibly losing valuable information when a total wipe of the computer is needed, as well as bandwidth stolen for nefarious activities by unscrupulous hooligans.
Nay, choosing to not buy what a scamlord is pushing is the moral upright thing to do.

[Aronnax]

This argument could be extended to books and music. Is reading a borrowed text or hearing music you don't own "theft"? After all, you're not giving the creator income but you're enjoying the product of their labors.

I want to be a good citizen, I'll remember to plug my ears and hum if a car playing music drives by. Well I'm off, I've got to stop public libraries from lending people books they didn't pay for.

[schwartzie]

If the ad revenue actually does pay for the server costs and is (at least partially) responsible for making the site free of charge (as opposed to requiring paid subscription, no matter how small the fee), adblocking certainly is theft, to a certain degree. You can't very well call pop-ups or banners unsolicited, since you are apparently visiting a site whose webmaster(s) chose to incorporate ads, hence soliciting any content offered by that site.


The problem is that the legal construct (theft of property) was created pre-1700s to address problems involving tangible things like cows, timber, gold, trade goods, etc. Stuff that can be used by only one "possessor" at a time. This is wildly different than website visits.

Visits to websites do not entail tangible things of value, but only (perhaps) intellectual property that, by its nature, has some roughly similar value to each user, whether it is used by one person or is simultaneously used by a multitude.

Perversely, in fact, the value to each user, as well as the site operator, is often much greater if a site is used simultaneously by a multitude of "freeloaders" e.g. youtube or any social networking site.

And, even more perversely, a single influential "freeloader" at the center of a social network might create much greater value for the site operator than would be created if that individual watched ads. Maybe a non-virtual analogy is the critic. A favorable review can be worth much more than the cost of one free dinner/ticket, etc given to a reviewer. Thus, the value of many websites is created and measured by the aggregate of the collective use, not by a single non-ad-watching visitor.

18th century property concepts just aren't useful for determining much of anything about the internet, where value can be created by activity, not of the individual, but of the collective. "Creative commons" work differently than private property.

This isn't news. For almost the entirety of the period when software has been distributed, freeware and shareware models have been the norm, and visitors/users have always contributed voluntarily. Viewing an ad is simply another form of currency, and it is only voluntarily given.

To my mind, the person who paid the money to attach the device to the network is entitled to some control over the device, free from businesses and criminals who try to capture control without his or her consent.

[HackerX]

Websites are a service, not a good. You are not paying for a tangible object, you're paying for the provision of a service (a website being provided).

Well, at least by that definition, you could argue that ad blocking is failing to pay for a service provided. It's hard to argue though that, unless the site explicitely states that the ads are required as part of that contracted service, that blocking the ads causes you to break that service agreement.

I don't know if I agree with that, but if I had to argue it, that's the way I'd go about it.

[gg666]

No, this is just a false justification. The way to protect yourself would be not to visit sites that contain advertisements, and leave them if you happen upon them inadvertently. Consciously visiting sites and blocking the ads simply cannot be justified by your argument.


I'm sorry, but claiming that, the way to protect your self would be avoidance, is not good enough. Due to different types of advertisements that are forced to be downloaded to your computer contain a security risk, such advertisements may contain harmful software ie trojans, malware etc embedded within it, no matter how legit the site is.

So lets not even bring up a point stating you should have anti-virus protection because if its a new virus your dead! There is no protection but prevention is the key, to prevent the execution of unknown elements, and thus also preventing unknown transferring of ambiguous files embedded within these advertisements, will put a stop to this madness.
You might as well tell us to unplug our ethernet cable, so that we are not prone to viruses, advertisements, etc



According to security researchers, banner ads that try to install malicious programs are running on social networking site MySpace.com and search portal Excite.com.
In related news, Sandi Hardmeier, a Microsoft MVP and security researcher who blogs about the latest spyware threats, found malicious Shockwave Flash content embedded in banner ads running on search portal Excite.com.
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This is a security issue, if we did not have software to block off these advertisements and scripts, we may have a chance of catching these nasty bits of code, no matter how legit the site is.

Also to repost, what this user has posted within that blog, as many has stated over and over


Along with patching ALL software, the best defenses are a limited user account and a blocking hosts file.

The Importance of the Limited User, Revisited - Security Fix
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Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File
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Posted by: TJ | January 4, 2008 9:48 AM


ps. "ads", people, not "ad's".. sorry :)
Damn it the grammer police officer has caught me once more :(