Adblock Plus, scourge of websites, seeks industry deal

YahooNews ^ | February 7, 2016 | Marie Julien

[hiho hiho]

Berlin (AFP) - For its users, Adblock Plus stands as a bulwark against intrusive advertising. But websites dependent on advertising revenue to remain free-of-charge see the open source software as a scourge.

Now the German firm behind Adblock Plus is taking a more conciliatory tack, reaching out to its adversaries to find an "acceptable" level and form of advertising on the net.

Adblock Plus' owners, Eyeo, have dubbed the discussions surrounding its plans to set up an independent committee for acceptable advertising as "Camp David", alluding to a 1978 peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

And that gives an idea of the scope of the difficulties in getting Internet publishers, advertisers and ad-blockers to sit around the same table and talk.

Developed 10 years ago and downloaded hundreds of millions of times, the open-source software Adblock Plus is one of the most popular ad-blocking programmes, aimed at preventing intrusive adverts from popping up on the screen and tracking a user's search history for commercial ends.

Its rising popularity is a red rag to a bull for Internet websites that can only remain free thanks to revenues from advertisers.

Adobe and Pagefair, which help Internet sites circumvent the blockers, have estimated that nearly $22 billion in revenues were lost globally last year as a result of ad-blocking software.

--------- "Clearly, Eyeo's primary aim is to get its hands on a share of the advertising revenues."

[SamAdams76]

I agree. I use AdBlock and I’ll happily unblock sites I regularly visit if all they show are banner ads. But if they are having ads pop up and block the text I am trying to read or worse, if they start playing unsolicited audio, I am either blocking that site or unbookmarking it.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

What’s Opera?

[McGruff]

Sorry,
Opera is a webrowser. Firefox is a webbrowser. Internet Explorer is a webbrowser. IE is probably the worst at blocking ads and such.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Maybe I’ll give it a try. I used Chrome for awhile but kept getting malware so I went back to IE/Edge.

[McGruff]

My bad. I said Opera when I meant Chrome. Must be super bowl mental lag.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

You’re all messed up this morning....hope you were a Broncos fan at least.

[JimRed]

Most ads are blocked on my PC; when the few that pop up come on I just close them. One time in a dozen will I even read beyond the headline to see what they’re selling.

[CurlyDave]

The only acceptable level is zero. I'm so sick of commercials on TV - and pop ups on the PC, I'm thiiiiiis close to canceling all of it.

So you think every person who creates content for the web should work for free.

This approach is way beyond even socialism. Essentially, you are a Gibsmedat.

[Teacher317]

This approach is way beyond even socialism. Essentially, you are a Gibsmedat.

I think that's unfair to say. Person A made some content, and wants to share it. Person B likes it. Person A wants to add in commercials, to get paid for his valuable time and effort. Perron B is allowed to say, "you know, I hate ads like those so much that I don't enjoy your content enough to deal with them. Thanks, but I'm out."

Both sides making fair and free decisions. No "gibmedat" about it.

[Balding_Eagle]

I'm not willing to tolerate auto-playing videos with sound.

Those people should be killed.

Once a few of them are taken down word would get around.

[for-q-clinton]

I’m using mvps.org.

It uses host files to block ads. It works great and it works across all browsers.

[for-q-clinton]

Here’s something even better: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

it uses host files so it works on all browsers and protects your machine overall from any other ways they may try to connect to these sites.

[ShadowAce]

This approach is way beyond even socialism. Essentially, you are a Gibsmedat.

So--you're a big fan of "Minority Report" type ads. Invade your privacy, snoop on all your transactions, and choices, and then push ads in front of your face so blatantly, you can't see the content you wanted to see in the first place.

You're also a fan of forced consumerism and the non-freedom to choose what you want to see/consume.

Good to know.

[Still Thinking]

Uh, no, that’s not what he said. He said he found the ads so unpleasant he was thinking of no longer bothering with the content. Doesn’t sound like a gibsmmedat to be.

[Drew68]

I'm perfectly willing to tolerate ads on a website. I'm not willing to tolerate auto-playing videos with sound.

Exactly. I didn't mind banner ads and understand that someone has to pay the bills but when these ads made websites unusable and slowed my browser to a crawl, it was time to block them.

Advertisers have no one but themselves to blame for Adblock Plus, etc.

[oh8eleven]

Upyourz

[TomGuy]

I'm so sick of commercials on TV

Just last week, I bought a TiVo Bolt tv recorder. It can record up to 4 programs at a time. For many recorded programs, it can skip commercials during replay. So far, that has worked perfectly. For programs that cannot be set up for skipping, the remote has a 30-second rapid advance. When pushed multiple times, the 30-second advance will automatically advance for each push of the advance button.

The annual TiVo service is about $150/year, which is comparable to my cable's 2-at-a-time DVR service charge.

I do have to lease a cablecard, but it is only $1.99/month.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

I'm honestly curious if they've done research to conclude that auto-playing videos actually bring in more business than banner ads that let you click on them.

I've clicked on some banner ads and ended up buying the product if it met a need. I just spent $1500 on an MSI computer that I found through a banner ad.

But those auto-playing videos lead me to just mute my computer when on the internet, which doesn't benefit anyone.

[SZonian]

Not when such an ad essentially hijacks my machine or is a conduit for viruses...

If sites using pop-ups would keep their ads “clean”, maybe I wouldn’t be such a villain.

[oh8eleven]

my cable's 2-at-a-time DVR service
I have that too, but I usually only record once in a blue moon. If it weren't for sports I'd pull the plug on all of it.
The other day, I channel surfed away from a show as it went to a commercial. I returned after 3 minutes to see an interruption in the commercials to remind the viewer what show they were watching. Unbelievable.