Ad Blocking: A Primer
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
> There are only two methods to compensate content producers:
> pay directly or get free content in exchange for ads.
The BBC and ABC (of the AU, not the US variety) are two examples. They are paid / subsidised by the respective populations. Users typically aren't subject to advertisements - low quality or otherwise, and which probably contributes to why the services are perceived as high value.
and:
> Advertising is a great model, but what is fundamentally
> wrong today is the implementation.
So in terms of compensation I would argue that your example is just direct payment. Instead of attention-via-ads proxy, you're paying the publisher directly but in this case it's state owned. Even if it wasn't and was just funded by donations or taxes or whatever, it's still a direct transfer of currency from you as an end user to the content owner/producer.
The internet is a perfect demonstration of how advertising is a great model. It funds a lot of content and services (of tremendous value like Google, Facebook, etc) without costing the end user anything. Many people can only build the companies they do because advertising is viable, whether they're a media company or some other business.
It's also fast, anonymous, and egalitarian. Your wealth doesn't determine your access and there's no loss/refund issue if you consume content that you feel isn't valuable. I can't think of any other that model that comes close to that much freedom and flexibility.
It's not egalitarian. People who are tech savvy enough to use ad blockers are subsidised by the less technology literate. Those people are also the ones most likely to fall for the malware adverts which make up a huge proportion of online ads. Just about every software download site is full of ads with fake download buttons. Google searches for software often return ads leading to malware as the top result. That's all very lucrative for the scammers and ad networks and sites, but it's not egalitarian. It's a tax on ignorance and inexperience.
A lot of the people enjoying 'free content' on the internet are doing so only because that content was indirectly paid for by a 70 year old with a computer full of malware.
The advertising model is egalitarian. Everyone, regardless of who they are, can see the same content as it's indirectly subsidized by advertising.
However as you've described, there are certain real-life issues. Users who block ads are at fault for, well, blocking ads and not taking part in the value exchange, skewing the business economics. Ad networks that run bad scammy ads are at fault for a lack of standards. Advertisers who spread malware are at fault for being criminals who want to infect users. These are all issues we face and are similar to any other industry where the ideal mechanics are affected by bad actors.
I absolutely agree that this is mainly brought about by the lack of standards, regulation and enforcement that has led to such a consumer backlash. However I dont believe that this is the end of advertising but rather a very good opportunity to finally force the change that's been sorely overdue.
Those services are funded in the same way that broadcast TV is funded.
It's also perhaps a smidge disingenuous to suggest there is no cost to the user for having advertising inflicted upon them. Hence the interest in ad blockers. Which I think is where we came in. : )
For the BBC, can you explain what you're referring to specifically? I know their site does run ads and their iplayer content is region locked to the UK so assuming non-circumvention processes, I'm not sure what you mean. Of course there is completely free access to content sometimes but this is usually because the publisher has the luxury of income from somewhere else, so that can explain the BBC situation for you and how I can read abc.net.au from the USA.
And yes, nothing is completely "free" - I'm just arguing about monetary access. Ads means you're paying with attention which has it's own costs and externalities.
http://mimiandeunice.com/2010/07/27/pay/
That truth still doesn't mean nothing can be free. There are free things in the world, and there's a vested interest by some parties to convince people otherwise. If you sell things, you want to convince people that no free options exist.
The logical consequence of such statement is that the ad brokers/trackers/data miners pay themselves by printing their own money.
Of course this makes no sense, and thus the statement is certainly flawed. There is a cost to end user -- it's just very well obfuscated.
Just wrote that in another comment. For the mainstream audience of 3 billion people online, the monetary cost outweighs the rest.
I would say this is a perfect example of the future of advertising...
Everything other than that paragraph is objective and educational... what part do you think is "fluff"? If you already knew all of it then that's understandable, but I do sincerely hope it helps clear up some of the information about ad blocking.
As for the article itself, it's a well-written, factual, detailed piece on ad-blocking. My affiliation as a guest writer is at the top of the page in the byline. The 2 sentences can be seen as promotional perhaps but they have no effect on the rest of the text and are actually on-topic in the section they're in where I'm discussing better approaches to the current status quo.
I submitted this to TechCrunch and it passed all their reviews. I did bring up the fact that I included my company in the article but they had no objections and I defer to their judgement as the owning publication. Maybe the byline should be bigger but that's out of my control.
Regardless, thanks for the feedback. Can you let me know how it would've changed your perception if I didn't include those 2 lines?
EDIT: Judging by the downvotes I'm saddened by how many HN readers can't seem to let content stand on it's own merits.
There is an interesting irony in this: By using client-side blocking more widely, we (the users) force evolution of analytics towards methods that are less introspectable and less blockable from our side.
And without JS tracking is very hard to do at all – a large part of the current tracking from Google depends on JS and/or Flash for detecting unique identifiers of the user.
As far as JS tracking, you're right that it does allow for more fidelity in the information retrieved but the server also receives plenty of data that it can use. Many of the device fingerprinting techniques are actually workarounds due to the blocking of 3rd party cookies, but if the site you're visiting is collecting information server-side, then they can just set 1st party cookies which aren't blocked and track you that way. No need for fingerprinting. Even easier if sites have a registration system.
You may not even set a cookie or store their IP before you have that approval. Direct approval is needed, and, in some cases (like insurances, banks, etc) your site even has to work without tracking.
1. https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection...
2. https://theintercept.com/2015/11/04/what-the-intercepts-new-...
From talking to several companies that specialize in this (via a friend privately, and by interviewing at some) that is already happening. Basically using all tricks you heard from https://panopticlick.eff.org/ are used, fonts, canvas, webgl fingerprints -- everything.
There's an exponential cost and very diminishing returns trying to get everyone's actual real identity - and this is actually why Google and Facebook are the biggest adtech players, because everyone has a login with them.
The use of all these headers and user-agent info is for device fingerprinting which has matured because of the loss of the 3rd party cookie. If sites start using server-side analytics then they can just set 1st party cookies and get around the whole need for fingerprinting.
> Why would someone use an ad blocker?
The only reason I use an ad blocker is because I don't like being blasted with words and images designed to get me to do or buy shit that I don't want.
You can see proof of concept projects like the Raspberry PiHole [1] now, but I think are going to explode in popularity with any organization that's already doing content filtering (government agencies, corporations and universities) as it's such a small technological step and the justification of "it will stop malware and save on bandwidth" is likely to carry the day.
While I think the HN crowd is generally in favor of ad blockers, it's interesting to note that the next thing being deeply affected is any kind of analytics service (even first party).
I do think it'll get more filtered at the network level for security reasons at certain organizations but then there's the issue of encrypted traffic and embedded sponsored content.
> Ads in native mobile and desktop apps are mostly immune as they have no extensions
But using a "network blocker", be it a PiHole, Privoxy, or a simple HOSTS file, ads and tracking services are blocked at the network level and no native or desktop app is immune to this effect. I believe that's what michaelbuckbee is referring to. So the whole "Where ad blocking doesn’t work" section is in need of more clarification, as there is almost no place where an ad blocking system won't work in one way or another.
However embedded ad content will be hard to extricate if it comes pre-rendered by the server rather than using client requests.
But there are diminishing results. At this point, the people doing this are in the same bucket as those just using text-based browsers. This goes back to the filtering/censorship argument if it's deployed at a big enough scope (like a carrier) so it'll likely be individuals or small groups doing this on their private networks.
Now you are claiming that people using PiHole, Privoxy and the likes are merely "Lynx" users, as if that would discredit the original point, or maybe it will water-down the consequences.
You are also severely underestimating the power of individuals and small groups, see: the initial surge of Firefox install base, anti SOPA and PIPA protests, Ubuntu, and (ironically) the early days of TechCrunch.
There is nothing wrong with this article, as what you have written about is "Browser ad blockers". Hopefully you can write a second article and explain the fruitlessness of trying to play a cat and mouse game with network-wide ad blockers.
I did mention network level blocking in the article but just didn't have enough space to cover all the details regarding how it works in apps. This is why I used the word "mostly" for those apps. Even network blocks can be overcome though when using closed platform apps like Apple News which runs it's own iAds over the same secure backend. However, thanks for the feedback, I'll definitely strive to make things clearer in future content.
As far as network blocking, my comments were regarding 2 issues: how widespread this type of blocking is and how in-depth the blocking will occur.
I do agree that it will increase in usage but as soon as it gets to any major sized organization, the issues of net neutrality/censorship might come up which is why I think it will remain used by individuals with home networks and small businesses rather than large enterprises and network carriers. Considering the use of adblockers is almost perfectly correlated to the ease of installation, I just don't see widespread adoption here of router/network level blocking given the expertise and effort required. Even if the entire HN audience uses it, that's negligible part of the entire online audience.
In regards to the blocking depth, network blocking still works the same as most blocking does now, by using domain/dns block lists. This opens up the possibility for embedded advertising content to come through and while I understand that HTML can be parsed and edited, it's a far more challenging to implement and maintain that kind of filtering reliably. Domain block lists also remove the vast majority of ads so going further in page processing is what I meant as very diminishing returns for the amount of effort involved.
The entire post is a native ad.
I see now that perhaps those 2 sentences out of the entire article might be out of place but I couldn't resist. I think the rest of the text stands on it's own and I hope it helps provide readers with more insight into the whole ad blocking situation.
There's no rule that says native ads can't be informational.
For most ad networks this also starts to look more like fraudulent bot traffic which is another major problem in the industry. Several network security providers do have analysis techniques to figure out normal traffic patterns and http headers and determine if a user is spoofing/hiding.
I guess I'm just coming from the perspective that wasting peoples time with probably shitty ads is where we are now in advertising, and if we can do better in making the overall experience better while also not wasting time and resources, companies might perform better. At least from my experience with getting people to download apps and pay a subscription online (not through the app store) for access to more of the content they want.