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Comment by h1fra | Hacker News Reader

It always bother me that ads on tv/paper/radio are highly controlled, regulated (at least in France), with maximum time and restricted content. But ads in internet are just wild! You can have 1 minute of ads for less than 10 minutes of content, plus all the banners, sponsored content etc...

I wish the Europe would regulate this and impose a maximum exposition time for ads, like we have for tv. (e.g: in France 6-9 minutes per hour in average)

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In my country (Spain) there's an awful ongoing trend of betting houses popping up everywhere, both physical and online (sports bet, online poker, etc).

It's awful because the online ads are frequently directed at teenagers, using famous personalities like musicians or sport players as bait, and trying to sell it as the next step after gaming, and something math based where you can learn and use your skill to win a fortune.

I think they're trying to target the generation that grew up with lootboxes, and they're succeeding.

That sounds exactly like wallstreetbets.

It seems to me anecdotally as a free YouTube user that the number of ads I see on there have been cranked up. As often as once every 3 minutes. I remind myself that I'm not paying anything for their hosting and serving of the video, but it still grinds... particularly so when it's the likes of BBC content which as a UK license payer, has already been paid for and is being monetised on there.

I've seen a lot of individuals reporting the same thing. Also, it seems almost every video has ads now. I wonder if those videos you see in landing pages will get them too.

Also, it started showing a "please sign up" to me every hour or so, which is not only disruptive but also buggy, as it forces me to reload the page, losing the position of the video.

YouTube very recently (last 2 weeks?) updated their policy to where ads will be shown in front of videos that don't even qualify for monetization. So, the uploader is ineligible to collect money for "their" content but Google can...

The number of ads on YouTube seemed to increase enough recently to be annoying. So I installed uBlock Origin extension on Chrome. It's a great extension - kudos to the developer Raymond Hill.

Plus point - I don't get annoying adverts any more on YouTube, just a one second video freeze when an advert would have been.

Minus point - I don't want to deny ad revenue to other ad-supported websites that I browse, but I leave my settings the same so effectively I do.

The problem is when they start messing with content. Like content-blocking popups during the video with tiny "close" buttons.

You are complaining about "1 minute of ads for less than 10 minutes of content", and advocating "9 minutes of ads per hour in average".

But the first case is less ads than the second case.

I believe (but don't quote me on this) that the existing laws SHOULD also apply to online ads, but for some restrictions maybe. It may take a lawsuit for e.g. youtube to start following these restrictions.

IANAL but that's usually not the case for most European countries, these guidelines are mostly specific to radio and TV.

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