Reddit's Technology Subreddit Ponders Banning Wired & Forbes For Blocking Adblock Users
from the block-the-blocking-of-the-blockers? dept
Over the last year there have been a growing number of websites that have decided to "deal" with the rise of ad blockers by blocking ad blocking users entirely. Blocking the blockers was the recently recommended course of action by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), which suggested the best way to have a "conversation" about ad blockers was to try and prevent them from being used. And while sites like the New York Times, GQ, Forbes and Wired have all happily pursued this course of action, their actual implementation has ranged from frustrating to downright comical.Mike has noted he doesn't use an ad blocker, yet is somehow blocked by all of these sites completely. I do use an AdBlocker and whitelist websites I care about, but even after whitelisting the entire Wired domain, this is what I see whenever I've tried to view a Wired story in 2016:
"On an average day, more than 20 percent of the traffic to WIRED.com comes from a reader who is blocking our ads. We know that you come to our site primarily to read our content, but it’s important to be clear that advertising is how we keep WIRED going: paying the writers, editors, designers, engineers, and all the other staff that works so hard to create the stories you read and watch here."Wired's ingenious solution to this problem was to impose a system that's so shitty, it can't detect whether you use an ad blocker or not? A solution that's so ham-fisted it's actually pissing off and blocking users that have never even considered using an ad blocker? Like paywalls, Wired's also alienating editors and writers that might otherwise link to its content, but decide not to for risk of annoying their own readers. Wired's "solution" causes far more problems that it fixes, and so far the company's been mute to user complaints, likely in the hopes that annoyed users will just pony up $1 a month for its "ad free" option.
Since users being sent to these websites are increasingly annoyed, moderators over at the technology subreddit have announced they're considering banning ad block blocking websites from the subreddit completely. They don't even mention that these blockers don't work, but they do point out that websites like Forbes have been pushing malware at users should they lower their defenses:
"It has come to our attention that many websites such as Forbes and Wired are now requiring users to disable ad blockers to view content. Because Forbes requires users to do this and has then served malware to them we see this as a security risk to you our community. There are also sites such as Wall Street Journal that have implemented pay-walls which we were are also considering banning. We would like all of your thoughts on whether or not we should allow domains such as Forbes here on /r/technology while they continue to resort to such practices."It's entirely possible that the mods face pressure from higher up to avoid this route, but it remains an obvious indication of a growing annoyance among consumers, many of whom see ad blocking technologies as just another privacy and security tool. And like any such tool, the rise of ad block blocking has simply given birth to another game of cat and mouse -- the development of tools to help ad block users block detection more easily. Yeah, we're now busy blocking the blockers of blockers. This is the glorious "solution" to a problem that started with websites pushing too many poorly designed ads and intrusive technologies?
So what has trying to block ad block users actually accomplished outside of annoying potential readers, reducing traffic and making your website look tone deaf and foolish? Here at Techdirt we let users disable ads, but simply ask they try to support us in other ways (the Insider Shop, Deals Store, or one of our crowdfunding campaigns). That seems like an easier route than forcibly trying to dictate what tools consumers can and cannot use. Meanwhile, if websites really want to have a "conversation" about ad blockers, the first step would be to really listen to customers when they explain why they're using them.
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Filed Under: ad blocker blockers, ad blockers, ad blocking, internet ads, links, social media
Companies: forbes, reddit, wired
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Compromised ad severs are a well known vector of drive-by malware.
Fix that first, then we can talk about obnoxious adverts.
Your move, advertisers.
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Whenever I work on computers, installing an ad-blocker in one of the standard security measures I take to help keep their computers secure and work faster/smoother.
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Response to: Baron von Robber on May 9th, 2016 @ 11:48am
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Re: Response to: Baron von Robber on May 9th, 2016 @ 11:48am
Ads are one big vector for malware but a second big vector are directly compromised websites. Somebody finds a zero-day in WordPress and within hours there are tens of thousands of websites directly serving up malware.
Block javascript and for all practical purposes you are immune to all forms of malware regardless of the source.
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About That Name
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Re: About That Name
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Re: About That Name
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Re: About That Name
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Here's The Thing
With Malware
We don't get it: Malware isn't what you're here for. But not being responsible enough to exclude malvertisements is what helps us keep the lights on.
So, add us to your malware whitelist or pay $1 per week for a version of WIRED with less malware.
Either way, you are supporting malware, hackers and botnets. We really appreciate it. (even if we have no clue what a botnet actually is.)
And you're privacy, is our number one concern!* So please enable cookies.
*(a concern that comes right below how much we can make by selling your tracking information to anyone who can pay).
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http://www.wired.com/2016/05/meet-ad-blocking-hacker-making-browser-paranoid/
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Please disable your computer's protections to use our site
I'm guessing most people would not think that the above would be an acceptable price to use a site, and with malware hiding in ads ad-blockers effectively are anti-virus programs, protecting you from malicious programs that could infect your computer.
'Asking' someone to disable ad-blocking software(especially if you happen to be a site that's been caught serving malware ridden ads in the past) is simply not going to happen at this point, and the sites and ad services need to realize this. Ads have become so bad, and present a very real danger such that ad-blocking has gone from anti-nuisance to computer security, and only a fool disables that.
They're welcome to explore new options as to how they get the funding for their sites, but the ad-blocker stays up, now and forever. Ultimately I value my computer more than I value any site I might visit, and if I have to give up a site because they insist that use of it requires disabling the ad-blocker, then that's a site I can do without.
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Arms race
Wired blocks users who block ads.
Reddit blocks Wired for blocking users who block ads.
So what is next:
Wired blocks users who come from (redirect-from) Reddit?
And would anyone care? If a siteA sent no visitors to a siteB that blocks visitors coming from siteA, would it make a sound?
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Re: Arms race
Reddit talks with users about these problems.
Wired talks at users about these problems. When they decide to take an unsympathetic stance, it shows how they're less interested in relating and more interested in exploiting.
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Re: Re: Arms race
But what I was getting at is that if Reddit blocks, say, Wired, then what could Wired do?
Wired could block users coming from Reddit. But what users? There would be none.
I suppose Wired could run JavaScript in your browser, snoop through your browsing history, determine if you've ever been to Reddit, and then say you must promise never again to visit Reddit before you can visit Wired. At this point, I'm getting into the absurd. But hey, we're talking about advertisers here.
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Re: Re: Re: Arms race
Of course they need to do it every time you click anything in their site also.
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Why I run an adblocker
I have no problem with sites earning money through ads and, where the ads are unobtrusive (don't crash my browser, don't force me to watch before content, etc.) I willingly whitelist them. But forcing me to do something? Well, I guess someone else deserves my eyeballs and not them.
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Re: Why I run an adblocker
I'm waiting for an ad provider to start up that provides only text and SVG images. I might not block that site.
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Re: Why I run an adblocker
To block ads.
Now, to be fair, I must say that I don't have a problem with ads -- as long as I don't have to see or hear them and can be basically completely unaware of their existence.
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Re: Why I run an adblocker
So of course I turn the ad-blocker back on. The reason I was going to whitelist the site is because I liked it, but without the ad-blocker I no longer like the site.
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Re: Why I run an adblocker
It was such a blatantly user-hostile act that I had to take defensive measures.
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... and also nixing the clickbait-y sites that poison its content too would be awesome, for that matter.
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But would that be a conflict of interest? Yes. But would it be illegal?
I don't know. Nobody forces you to use Google. You presumably use Google INSTEAD OF OTHER SEARCH ENGINES because you prefer Google's results -- including this hypothetical blocking of Forbes.
But after Forbes' "what SCO wants, SCO gets" in 2003, I don't really care what happens to Forbes. Long memory.
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Next generation
How about someone makes an adblocker that doesn't block the ads from being downloaded, but neither does it show them. Is that possible?
I agree that this still wastes the bandwidth needed to download the items, but maybe it becomes more difficult to block the blockers?
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Re: Next generation
But isn't it easier to just not visit that website? There are a billion others.
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Re: Re: Next generation
Ultimately, this made *some* people happy, but ads still consume bandwidth, so loading was still slow while the ads were being downloaded simultaneously with the rest of the site content.
Eventually, Chrome's extension layer got better - meeting the demand.
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If you don't buy our product, you won't be cool, smart, beautiful, or rich. But if you buy our product you will be all of that and more!
ALERT: Malware has been detectified upon your computers.
To preserve your valuable informations please to be installing our anti-malware product quite immediately!
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"We advertised our snow shovels the week before the blizzard warning and they sold like hotcakes. Advertising clearly works!"
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Wired Blocks Those Use Use Tracking Cookie Blockers
(including 13 of the 14 that show up on this page)
Wired gives me the same "Here's the thing about ad blockers" page when I try visiting their site.
Presumably, their ad blocker detection technique involves changing one of these tracking cookies and seeing if that change sticks.
Now, Wired could still serve me the page and serve ads. Perhaps they would use a different ad inventory that specifically is geared towards those disabling tracking cookies. The fact that they don't speaks volumes about their real motivations here.
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Re: Wired Blocks Those Use Use Tracking Cookie Blockers
What is funny is that at least until recently (I haven't checked in the last couple weeks, they may have changed it,) blocking Javascript prevents their (Wired) "Here's the thing about ad blockers" page. If you block javascript on their page, you don't get the warning and can read the page unhindered (but nothing on the site works much so don't expect links or other content to work.) At least you can read their content. I don't know if Forbes works the same way.
I've pretty much avoided Wired and Forbes, but with the block of the Wired javascript, if I accidentally click on one of their links, I can at least read the content that brought me there.
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Re: Re: Wired Blocks Those Use Use Tracking Cookie Blockers
I run NoScript, Ghostery and uBlock Origin. I can access Wired just fine. Forbes does see the blocker and won't let me in(which is fine). Some sites seem to implement their ad block detection in a very haphazard way and others go so far to the other extreme that it isn't funny. Either way, like many of the readers here, I won't compromise my system security just to read an article. If the information is that important to me, I'm certain I can find it elsewhere
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Re: Wired Blocks Those Use Use Tracking Cookie Blockers
It lets websites set cookies all they want. But when you navigate away or close the tab, *poof* it deletes them.
It is a great idea because someone who just outright blocks cookies draws attention to themselves as being different. This way as long as you are on the website they can't tell the difference between you and some dumb schlub who doesn't care about their privacy.
The add-on could use a better UI for whitelisting, but otherwise it is just about perfect.
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Re: Wired Blocks Those Use Use Tracking Cookie Blockers
Haven't been to that site in months. Guess they would rather have no visits and no ads served versus ads served without tracking. Or maybe they don't know how to run a website well enough to distinguish.
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Re: Wired Blocks Those Use Use Tracking Cookie Blockers
Wired will block you if you simply have the 'do not track' tag activated within your browser.
That is simply past the 'please let us display our shity ads' and well into 'illegal interferance with our business model' territory
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If the ads weren't intrusive, auto-running scripts that consume vast quantities of bandwidth and acting as a vector for malware, then I might consider allowing them.
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... or does it require JavaScript enabled to operate? I run with JS blocked by default (NoScript for the win!).
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I just close the page when this happens - they might as well be upfront about it like forbes.com - hooking me into their content and then taking it away just pisses me off more.
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Unobtrusive
What these sites fail to understand is that we of the internet have options - we can visit other sites, or drop the title into a search engine and find the exact same content on some other site.
I block them right back, frankly - I add them as 0.0.0.0 to my etc/hosts file so that if I accidentally try to follow a link I get no content. Makes it simpler.
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look at Wookieepedia for how to do bad ads
their no standard for the ad business online at all.
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Article #1 is about the latest nasty form of ransomware that is being spread through exploits in banner ads.
Article #2 I couldn't access because I have an adblocker.
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So, I'm actually doing them a favor, see. By blocking them Ads, I make sure I'm not negatively influenced by it in case it's a product I would normally decide to buy.
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dONT HAVE TO SAY MUCH
There are very good reasons..
Why wont/dont they understand this?
UNTIL they Screen and clean the 3rd party adverts..
I wont allow them.
Unless they WISH to declare that they will be responsible to 3rd party(as well as their OWN) inclusion of CRAP on my machine...I wont go there.
I run adblockers and NoScript...There are sites with so many SCRIPTS, that you really wonder if a site KNOWS how to program..
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I actually subscribe
I had (note tense) wired in my RSS reader, but once they implemented the "block users who block ads" rule I simply dropped them. Now I learn about things a bit later (a month or two), but I eventually get it, although I might not renew the paper subscription since my boys are aging out of it, and since I don't see it every day I don't think of it as much.
At least ArsTechnica hasn't switched; *that* would annoy me to have to turn off.
Wired has every right to implement their business model the way they want to. More power to them, even. That doesn't mean I have to do business with them.
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Re: I actually subscribe
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Re: I actually subscribe
I was fine with simple ad banner on the top of the page, but it's gone so far past that where you're downloading more Ad and tracking data then the topic you want to read. The web site is grabbing garbage from 20-30 different sites and dishing it out to you. It's beyond crazy. I didn't asked to be tracked. I don't want to see a flood of ad's all around, left, right, top, bottom, in the middle of something I want to read either. It's just not worth it. Now you can get infected with this garbage because it's become automated to the point where no one is checking anything.
No thanks,.. Block away,. I'll go away. I'm fine with that.
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An adblock-blocker-remover?
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NoScript blocks this behavior
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Reader View
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I had a wired subscription
Recently I added AdBlocker Plus for the express purpose of stopping the always security suspected Flash. I still have no idea why advertisers think it is acceptable to suck my bandwidth for and with crappy ads.
Then Wired gave me the "Here's the Thing" pitch. What irritated me was they stole the page, whited out the entire article with their push. I closed the tab. I thought about it and the next day (or so) white listed them. The very next time I visited what did they do? They whited out the article to thank me for white listing them. I closed the tab and have not returned. Except a few minutes later to black list them again.
Ham fisted champion of the web, Wired.com by a nose.
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Nor have advertisers asked me to use my bandwidth. With caps starting it has become very important where my bandwidth goes.
Then there is the matter of datamining that has gotten increasingly problematic with a nosey government quite willing to pay for what it doesn't get itself. I'm not a card to be spindled nor mutilated.
I'm good with the idea Forbes doesn't want me there as they consider me a thief of their income. If I get accidentally linked to it, I just close the page. I don't want them count my eyeballs when they go to figuring up how much to charge for advertising spaces by traffic.
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I'm WIRELESS now!
I hope they're happy.
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noscript
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$1/month would actually be reasonable
As for me, I just installed an ad-blocker hider.
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Here's the Thing with Adblockers
This is my way of telling you, the website operator, that if I were to see any ads, I see, I would not ever click on them. I think you'd agree that it's my decision whether I click on an ad or not.
By using an adblocker, I'm cutting out the middleman. By telling you that I don't even need to see the ads, because I will never, never click them, I am saving you bandwidth. Because you don't even need to serve up the iframe. And your advertisers don't need to serve up their image, animated gif, embedded video and tracking scripts, thus saving them money that they can pass onto you!
And by the way, you're welcome.
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What do these guys think they know that we don't?
These guys are thinking they can constrain access to their own content and make MORE money. The only reason to think that would be that they think there will be some future means of constraining the availability of competing content, MORE than they constrain the availability of their own.
What I'm suggesting, is that at the executive level, these decisions would require some anti-competitive behavior either with the search engines or with the carriers to have any reasonable expectation of maintaining ROI, let alone improving it.
Entropy is not on their side. So what do they know that we don't?
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But that time will probably be around the same time Hollywood realizes that the internet is a good thing and streaming is a good thing and copyright doesn't need to last hundreds of years and be more draconian every year.
Uh, yeah I'm not holding my breath either.
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So they don't want that 20 percent of traffic?
So they've decided that that no longer want 20 percent of their audience? That's kind-of a slap in the face.
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Adblockers and the world of walled gardens
The worst potential solution and the one we are seeing the most of now is the idea of "pay to make the ads go away". It's a version of the walled garden, call it the quiet garden. Pay us a nominal fee that makes us whole on the money we would have made from you watching ads, and we will give you the content without any issue.
The other choice is integrated adverting (aka, Golden Frog spam on Techdirt) which is harder to filter out. Thankfully, that tends to be self filtering, because smart operators realize how much publishing spamvertising posts can hurt your brand in the long term.
Note: For what it's worth, if you mobile visit Techdirt on a Sunday, generally you get ZERO actual stories. The first loading page is top list, history, spam post, etc. More and more Techdirt supports itself with these posts, but more and more the risk is in overdoing it and detracting from the real content (here's looking at you, Gizmodo!)
"So they've decided that that no longer want 20 percent of their audience? That's kind-of a slap in the face."
The issue I guess is one of value. If you have to pay for too many freeloaders, is it really worth it? The lowering of ad views and click thrus tends to lead to intensification of the ad products, making them pop out, auto play, fill the page, auto expand, and so on - all in the name of making up for the lost revenue from the freeloading crowd. There is a point where the entire product for everyone may be harmed trying to give the 20% (or more now) a free lunch.
It's a question of respect in both directions. It's been lost for a while, and adblockers have just upped the angry ante.
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Re: Adblockers and the world of walled gardens
It's not 'upping the ante' to protect yourself from malicious code, which unfortunately is what it's come down to. When even major sites like Forbes get caught offering malware laden ads then you have to be either ignorant of the threat or seriously reckless to not use an ad-blocker, it has nothing to do with 'respect'.
Sites do need money to stay afloat, that's true, the problem is the 'standard' way of making it, that of offering ads has been poisoned by the ad services and the sites caring more about their welfare than the welfare of their visitors. If the ones running sites don't care about the security of their visitors then they don't get to complain when said visitors take their security into their own hands, and if the sites have troubles because of that then they brought it on themselves with their indifference.
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Re: Adblockers and the world of walled gardens
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Re: Adblockers and the world of walled gardens
You've been acting the moron here for this long, and you only just realised that there's no news posts on a weekend? Wow...
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Install Privacy Badger
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NoScript
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Lame ad-blocker detection
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Re: Lame ad-blocker detection
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keep the money flowing
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encryption blockers
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Fuck me, copyright cockgobblers are absolute shit when it comes to taking their own advice.
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Former Subscriber
Since they started blocking my access to the web site (using Firefox, Adblock Plus, Ghostery, NoScript) I haven't been back and won't renew the subscription.
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The non-dev's solution
Yes, sites usually need to show ads to make money. I don't object to that. What I do object to is the way the technology behind the ads spies on people viewing the sites to make the ads more able to manipulate the viewers.
So, if I find a link to an article I want to read on a site that won't let me because my main browser has ad blockers - I open it in Tor. They can show ads all they like, but they won't be finding out anything about me, so the ads will be water off a duck's back, just as they were before intrusive ad technology was introduced.
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My children had many questions...
Adblocker for life.
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Plenty of free content out there
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Bye bye ads
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Ads that don't alienate your readers and might actually sell
I use adblock to disappear hover headers such as the one Youtube uses as a searchbar - some of those take up one third of my laptop's screen after I enlarge text with Ctrl + ...I block the intersite promotions Cracked has above the article, next to the article (unless they have since stopped doing that), and twice below the article. I loved "Recommended for your pleasure" when those links were all text, but now it's pictures, and combined with Quick Fixes Section beneath a Quick Fix articles, those promotions are scroll's length longer than the content I came to the page for. So I block those - but I actually leave in the sponsored content ads! For now, so long as it's not intrusive or gives me a virius.
I have my Adblock set to allow ads as long as it's not intrusive. I read a my community newspaper which depends on ads, and I actually clip out businesses I want to check out and magnet them to my fridge. Ads are not bad as long as they are informative (what are they selling?) and not offensive or triggering (I hate skin whitening ads, and condo ads with sexy woman on it and nothing else reminds me of the 'furniture' in Soylent Green).
Security is why I will not drop my adblock to read newsite, I see the stupid adblock overlay up, I close my window and add Forbes to my blacklist. Newspapers uses way too many third party stuff they have no clue about. I have long whitelisted 4chan because 4chan knows what they are doing.
A way to get around adblock which block by element, and to NOT infect your userbase with viruses or let third party ruin your rep, is to manually insert ad at the end of your article. No flash because it's annoying and eats bandwidth, just text and a still image that's attractive, at the end of the article - I often scroll pass stuff when I'm reading an article, whereas at the end, I'm half thinking about what I just read while the screen with the ads at the end are still up.
Ads 'personalized' with the aid of cookies is creepy and inaccurate, but ads should be personalized to the average audience of the webpage it's displayed on. It's really not hard to figure out your demographic's interest as long as you allow comments, you don't have to know their age or gender or race, but comments reveal interest and sometimes buying ability
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