Are ad-blocking programs legitimate?

[Cogito]

I use the Firefox browser, which comes with an excellent pop-up blocker. In addition, I use the ad-block extension, which gets rid of most if not all of banner ads on the sides and top of web sites. While it is very convenient, ad-blocking raises an interesting question: given that most free sites can only operate by putting ads on their site, couldn't it be considered an implicit condition of offering the website that its visitors actually see the ads? If so, might one be violating that implicit condition by blocking the ads?

[Robert J. Kolker]

I use the Firefox browser, which comes with an excellent pop-up blocker. In addition, I use the ad-block extension, which gets rid of most if not all of banner ads on the sides and top of web sites. While it is very convenient, ad-blocking raises an interesting question: given that most free sites can only operate by putting ads on their site, couldn't it be considered an implicit condition of offering the website that its visitors actually see the ads? If so, might one be violating that implicit condition by blocking the ads?

What you do in and on your own computer (i.e. not sending stuff to other computers) is your own business.

Bob Kolker

[Cogito]

What you do in and on your own computer (i.e. not sending stuff to other computers) is your own business.

Bob Kolker

Not necessarily. Webpages are on physical servers and are owned by people, and I can only access them if I have the permission of those people.

EDIT:

That permission is usually (almost always) implicit. But if someone bans me from a site or a site requires a username and password, I have no business on that site even if I somehow guess a password or get around the ban.

Edited December 3, 2007 by Cogito

[Clawg]

Advertisement which the user explicitly deactivates won't have an effect (or will have a negative effect) if you force it on him. So the revenue from people who don't want ads is low anyways. Any reasonable 'pay-by-view' program would never want to force ads on the user.

Technically it is also possible to program ads that cannot be blocked without blocking the site itself, these types of ads are used at some places.

So I would say: Ad-blockers are and should be legal.

[Cogito]

So the revenue from people who don't want ads is low anyways. Any reasonable 'pay-by-view' program would never want to force ads on the user.

This is completely true, but questions of rights don't come down to "will the owner suffer a financial loss" but rather come down to "is the owner being prevented from using his property in the way he wishes", in this case by having ads.

[Robert J. Kolker]

Not necessarily. Webpages are on physical servers and are owned by people, and I can only access them if I have the permission of those people.

EDIT:

That permission is usually (almost always) implicit. But if someone bans me from a site or a site requires a username and password, I have no business on that site even if I somehow guess a password or get around the ban.

Indeed. But once you have access, what you do with the data strictly within the confines of your computer is your business. You can store it in file (if you have the software) or you can just read it. Since the material may be the property of others, one does not have the right to transmit it freely to others. Which is why I qualified what I said with the phrase, "not sending it to others or another computer". Dissemination is not an unconditional right.

If the provider wants his adds to show he should contrive his web page so that it does not display at all if the adds are blocked. That solves his problem. If you want what this fellow is willing to send you, then you must leave the ads visible. Of course you don't have to pay any attention to them.

Bob Kolker

[DavidOdden]

Consider the fact that I don't give permission for the webpage owner to attack my computer with a pop-up. At any step, he only has permission to do stuff to my computer if I grant permission, which I only do by clicking something. Implicit conditions work both ways. Implicitly, by making a web-page available, you are warranting that it is free of harmful and noxious junk, so by salting your web page with pop-ups, you're violating the implicit warrantee of non-obnoxiousness.

The owner is being allowed to offer the ads and thus to use his property in any way he wants, and it would be improper for the government to outlaw pop-ups. But I don't have to accept the ads, which is why I use Firefox. It is not at all difficult to set up a web page where one must see the ad in order to access the web page at all (just put the ad at the very top of the web page, within the web page itself).

[DragonMaci]

Actually, Bob, you don't necessarily have the right to store it on your computer. Not permanently anyway. if it is, for example, a copyrighted image or story you have no right to permanently store it.

[Clawg]

This is completely true, but questions of rights don't come down to "will the owner suffer a financial loss" but rather come down to "is the owner being prevented from using his property in the way he wishes", in this case by having ads.

The data coming from a website is an open format and is not bound to a specific software to display the page. If the owner wants the site to be displayed in a specific way then he needs to ensure that the other party has the appropriate software. This can be done, at a significant loss of usability for both sides. This is why most website owners choose an open format (e.g. html).

It is not at all difficult to set up a web page where one must see the ad in order to access the web page at all (just put the ad at the very top of the web page, within the web page itself).

Depends. Most advertisers use javascript to reload the ad at the time when the user opens the website, i.e. a separate connection to a different site is opened. This can easily be blocked.

It is an issue of trust, most advertisers offer their services to websites which they barely know, so they want full control on who to serve what ads and what ads to count for payment.

Embedding the ad on the page without loading on demand requires more trust from the advertiser.

[Robert J. Kolker]

Actually, Bob, you don't necessarily have the right to store it on your computer. Not permanently anyway. if it is, for example, a copyrighted image or story you have no right to permanently store it.

Such a restriction is not enforcable. That is why, when you get samples from, say, Amazon.com, they will only show you a few pages, just to whet the appetite. The main thing is that one does not distribute items he has no right to, to distribute in such a way as to violate property rights or copy rights (which effectively means cutting sales).

When you borrow a book from the library, you can, if you wish, copy pages on one's own copying device. That strictly speaking is a violation of fair use under copy right. So? Will God come down from Olympus and punish me? If publishers were so anxious to protect their printed pages, they could chain copies of the books to the wall like it was done during the middle ages.

I figure if I could make hand written notes (and complete ones at that) from reading a library book, there is no more violation of the producers rights than if I used my Dell ™ A940 to do the same thing. Whose ox is being gored? If I were prohibited by some Mysterious Power from making notes or using my copier, then I would just borrow the book more often. The producer would not get an extra cent from me. So where is his loss? Should we close the lending libraries?

I am fully compliant with laws prohibiting copying AND distributing to third parties. When I copy (or store to file) stuff I am permitted to receive it goes no further. I have no wish to prevent producers from making a profit, which tends to assure me I will get more goodies in the future. I selfishly respect other people's property and will do nothing to inhibit or diminish their opportunity to make a profit. Their profit is MY benefit. That is the way it works.

Bob Kolker

Edited December 3, 2007 by Robert J. Kolker

[DavidOdden]

Depends. Most advertisers use javascript to reload the ad at the time when the user opens the website, i.e. a separate connection to a different site is opened. This can easily be blocked.

So when or how is it ever actually difficult to put the ad content within the web page itself? Like this? A web-page owner can thus require people to see the ads (as in my link), or can take their chances that a user will block the pop-up if they don't strongly want the user to have to see the ad.

[Clawg]

So when or how is it ever actually difficult to put the ad content within the web page itself? Like this? A web-page owner can thus require people to see the ads (as in my link), or can take their chances that a user will block the pop-up if they don't strongly want the user to have to see the ad.

Simple static pay-by-link ad programs can be included with no difficulty, yes.

But it's 'difficult' for pay-by-view ads and for ads that depend on the user's location or cookies (for example amazon.com). Those can easily be blocked.

Some advertiser programs for inline ads also have proprietary software, i.e. the script runs on their servers (e.g. google, some of the widgets of amazon).

[progressiveman1]

Consider the fact that I don't give permission for the webpage owner to attack my computer with a pop-up.

I think that's the main principle involved. An analogy would be when you walk into Walmart to shop, but you don't take those fliers that solicitors are handing out to the customers. You turn on your "anti-spam" mindset.

[LiberTodd]

So turning off the TV when commercials come on, is that illegitimate too? How about tearing the ad pages out of magazines when you get them for easier reading?

Ad-blockers are perfectly fine in my eyes.

[JMeganSnow]

I'm with LiberTodd. There is no *guarantee* by anyone to anyone that the viewers of a given website *will* be exposed to certain advertisements. All the websites are selling is the *opportunity* to *possibly* be seen. The only results of more people blocking or ignoring ads is that the ads will either become more clever/annoying OR the value of advertising space online will decrease. That's something that needs to be settled between the website owner and the purchaser of advertising space and doesn't involve anyone else in any capacity.

I suspect in a few years there may be an increasing trend away from annoying ads (which are expensive to design) towards paying for the word-of-mouth style of plugs/reviews.

Hmm. I really should do some research to see whether I can get paid for the "advertising" I do on my blog when I review books/movies/etc.

[DMR]

I suspect in a few years there may be an increasing trend away from annoying ads (which are expensive to design) towards paying for the word-of-mouth style of plugs/reviews.

I disagree. I think the future is unobtrusive, precisely targeted text ads.

I work for Google, and one of the things that the advertising department here is very concerned with is what is known as "Ad Blindness." The ad folks recognize that if you bombard the user with "Zap the mosquito and win a free iPod," they will stop paying attention, install ad blockers, and so forth. However, if ads are unobtrusive, but carefully tuned to the desires of the users, people are more likely to actually see the ads and buy the stuff.

For example, I was recently reading a mailing list on the Haskell programming language in gmail. The system noticed this, and displayed a small text ad indicating that a company near me was looking for OCaml (a similar language) programmers. This is the sort of ad I wanted to see. In principle, a sufficiently sophisticated ad serving system could show you only those ads which you would want to see. Advertisers do not want to spam and annoy you, they just want everybody who would buy their product to do so. If they can do this more effectively and/or cheaper without annoying you, they will. And if an ad serving system can be made to show you only those ads you want to see (or to approximate this situation sufficiently well), nobody will bother to design or install ad blockers. Everybody wins.

Paul Graham wrote, in the context of spam filtering, that spam is an unsolvable problem, and I think that so far as his argument goes, he's right. The only thing that will ever make spam, annoying ads, and the rest disappear is for intelligent advertising solutions to become so good and so cheap that nobody will pay spammers for their service. Sufficiently good AI could identify everyone who wanted to buy penis enlargement pills from sketchy websites and offer them this opportunity, and spamming everyone else would just be a waste of money.

[D'kian]

While it is very convenient, ad-blocking raises an interesting question: given that most free sites can only operate by putting ads on their site, couldn't it be considered an implicit condition of offering the website that its visitors actually see the ads? If so, might one be violating that implicit condition by blocking the ads?

No. And no.

Free sites could refuse admission to anyone using a pop-up blocker easily enough. The fact that they don't ought to tell you something. Besides, there are other advertising options online, such as Google's context ads, Amazon links and many others.

I also want to add that everyone shold know his market. People mostly tolerate and notice publicity that is voluntary. Few people complain about advertisements on TV, for example. Partly because these pay for all or a portion of the content they watch, and partly because they can switch to another channel while the ads play. But most people intensely dislike publicity when it's forced on them. You'll hear many bitter complaints about ads before a movie, or ads embeded on DVDs which cannot be skipped. Or simply imagine if your TV set didn't let you switch channels while ads are playing.

BTW no online ads generate revenue unless the user clicks on them. That goes for pop-ups too. I've seen very few sites, free or not, that require you click on an ad before letting you proceed inside. And the few I've seen have either vanished or have removed that feautre. Nobody likes forced advertising. There are sites that insert ads in the middle of a column or article, or that send you to a full screen ad before proceeding to the content you want. Most of the latter have a link in the ad for skipping the ad, too.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

Even though my website has a bunch of ads on them and the ad blocking programs are taking away some of my potential revenue, I think these programs are legitimate. One of the things that bothers me are the virus / cookie detectors that erase cookies that some of us rely on to make money on the Internet, by tracking who went to an advertiser's site via which cookie. But, after having my computer broken into a while back, I definitely have a firewall up and delete tracking devices from my computer. Unfortunately, due to the way the Internet got started -- free content and no one paying you to advertise their product on your website -- it's not like radio or TV ads where one gets paid before the fact of making a sale. Some places do this in small amounts, such as some of Google's ads, but I can't see some business actually paying you for an ad placed on your website in the big bucks the way one can do that for radio and TV. It's just the nature of the beast. I suppose if one gets many thousands to many millions of hits on one's website one can generate revenue from ads, but not at the level of hundreds to thousands of hits per week, which is what I get on my website, though little or no revenue is generated.

So, it is definitely a conundrum.

The only solution to making money on the web that I have discovered (by have yet to put into practice on my site) is to sell something unique that is only available via your website, or something that one sells directly via a store in which one has some control over pricing and can meet the market. One thing that some website owners due is offer free content or free trial runs (i.e. of software), that one has to eventually pay for in order to retain features.

But, I have come to the conclusion that trying to make money via advertising alone on the Internet just isn't viable unless one get a gazillion hits a day. And then if your ad links to someone else's website where the actual sale is made, people tend to bookmark that site, and then one no longer makes money from them.

I'm thinking about writing short stories or longer articles and selling them via my website for a buck or two, but I can't tell you if that works or not because I haven't tried it yet.

So, maybe we can discuss how those of you making money via the web are doing that, because I sure as heck would like to know

[D'kian]

It's just the nature of the beast. I suppose if one gets many thousands to many millions of hits on one's website one can generate revenue from ads, but not at the level of hundreds to thousands of hits per week, which is what I get on my website, though little or no revenue is generated.

I tried selling Amazon through an SF review site some years back. My family and frineds ordered through the site, and I think I had a couple of orders from site visitors. That was nowhere near enough to generate any real money. And that can mean any number of things, from my talent to the overall effort I put into the site.

The only solution to making money on the web that I have discovered (by have yet to put into practice on my site) is to sell something unique that is only available via your website,

And which a lot of people want and are willing to pay for. Check out Cafe Press, for an exmaple. Lots of people sell unique designs on Tshirts, mugs, and so on. Few make any real money at it. Mostly sites, IMO, that are already popular, and to the extent that they ahve a following. I wonder, too, how much money Cox & Forkum from sales of their cartoon collections.

or something that one sells directly via a store in which one has some control over pricing and can meet the market.

That is so 20th Century

One thing that some website owners due is offer free content or free trial runs (i.e. of software), that one has to eventually pay for in order to retain features.

I discovered casual games a few months ago (Dinner Dash, Bejewled 1 and 2,and such). You can play a time trial for free (60 minutes of play). If you download from various sites, you can extend it to a few hours. You can buy the games that interest you for $19.99 each. There's a site called GameHouse that sells you a "Fun Pass" for $19.99 a month. It allows you to play any of their "Fun Pass" games (about all the game son their site) indefinitely. That's a great deal if you're interested in such games. Unfortunately it doesn't carry all the casual games available.

I'm thinking about writing short stories or longer articles and selling them via my website for a buck or two, but I can't tell you if that works or not because I haven't tried it yet.

I've been thinking along similar lines myself. One problem is finding the time off from work to generate the content. Another is taking small pyaments without paying exhorbitant fees to a third party for processing. Yet another is making the site popular enough to generate revenue. There are other issues, like copy-protecting the texts, keeping the public interested, finding the time to effectively run the site (think complaints, correspondence, billing, etc, etc). Hell, just finding the time off my regular work to identify all the issues and to attempt to solve them is quite a task (I should mention I work an average of 11 hours a day).

So, maybe we can discuss how those of you making money via the web are doing that, because I sure as heck would like to know

Sure, I believe I already started anyway.

[Chops]

BTW no online ads generate revenue unless the user clicks on them.

While not a core part of your argument, this is false. While Google popularized the "pay-per-click" scheme, there are plenty of "Pay-per-impression" schemes, and other wacky systems. For two examples: Wowhead (a popular World of Warcraft site) charges by impression, and Project Wonderful (You'll want to disable "AdBlock" to view that page, as adblock stops all the images) charges on a per-day basis, with an odd bidding system.

So, some producers are paying just for exposure, without the intent of generating immediate clicks, but rather for brand recognition.

Edited February 11, 2008 by Chops

[D'kian]

While not a core part of your argument, this is false.

I stand corrected.

While Google popularized the "pay-per-click" scheme,

Long before Google even entered web parlance, I looked into banner ads for my SF review site, and they all required a click to generate revenue. So did all the schemes I've looked at since, including Google's. I believe Google's innovation came from placing the ads within the context of the page you're viewing (although sometimes they're egregiously wrong).

So, some producers are paying just for exposure, without the intent of generating immediate clicks, but rather for brand recognition.

That's well and good. I suppose, though, they only do this with highly popular sites. I doubt it would make sense to pay a site generating only a few thousand visits per day, for example.

[Dr. Radiaki]

I just have a quick question in regards to this topic.

As a user of a website, am I morally bound, under objectivist principles, to subscribe to a profit model, even if it is not enforced by the web site's owner? That is to say, must I look at ads to be ethical?

[D'kian]

As a user of a website, am I morally bound, under objectivist principles, to subscribe to a profit model, even if it is not enforced by the web site's owner? That is to say, must I look at ads to be ethical?

No. Are you unethical if you change channels on the TV when ads are on?

It would be unethical to steal passwords for pay sites, just as it would be to hack a cable box.

[Dr. Radiaki]

No. Are you unethical if you change channels on the TV when ads are on?

I would think not, but I don't have any logic to back this thought up, I'll admit, and would like to hear an explanation for my edification.

[D'kian]

I would think not, but I don't have any logic to back this thought up, I'll admit, and would like to hear an explanation for my edification.

Either on a website or on TV there is no specific terms of use agreement requiring you to click on or watch any ads. It would be silly to try to make one, because it couldn't possibly be enforced. Therefore your participation in watching or clicking (or, in a magazine or newspaper, reading) any kind of ad is entirely voluntary.

Notice the difference between that and paid content. Many sites tell you "If you want access to this content you have to pay a monthly fee." The cable company also provides content for a fee. There is an agreement in place there, money for content, which can be enforced.

Even when there's a captive audience, as at the movies, you still don't have to pay attention to any ads. I've noticed most people stay through the pre-show ads, but, aside from trailers, they talk freely, go to the concession stand or the bathroom, or just out, while they're playing. When the movie starts most stay quiet and on their seats.