Is Adblock Plus unethical? Or at least a bad idea?

[rpgdemon]

So, I've made a few facebook statuses about ads that I've seen recently, and the comments are always like, "DO00D ADBLOCK PLUS!"

The only thing that I can respond to that with is, I refuse to use it, because the ads are my way of paying for the content. Currently, I have to pay with harmless ads. Noscript will generally get the malicious ones. If everyone starts adopting adblock plus, this won't be the case. The companies aren't getting the revenue from their advertisements anymore, and then they need to change their market strategy. Suddenly, instead of sitting through a five second ad on youtube, you have to pay a nickle to watch the video.

Which brings me to my point. Is Adblock Plus, or other ways of blocking and skipping ads, a bad idea? Is it stealing from the company, to use their product without giving them the payment they ask for it? You are, after all, using bandwidth, which isn't a nonexistant cost.

Is it just a bad idea? It's painfully clear that, if no one views ads, and companies don't get their revenue that way, they will need to reevaluate, and come up with a different (And probably worse!) business plan. Yet, everyone seems to look at the present and see, "I don't have to watch ads! It's great!", rather than realize that those ads are your payment for the service, and you will have to pay in a more real way, if you block them.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

When I wish to support a site, I disable adblock. If I encounter a flash ad with sound or video or any pop-up ad I will block that site forever. Sorry NPF.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

From my experience with fixing computers, training in cyber security, network security, etc. A great attack vector are ads. Considering how so many ads are flash based and need to run locally to display on the browser [and how much flash is a bloated security hole in general...I'm inclined to say no, it is not an ethical violation. Especially when it comes to Facebook.

There's a reason why the majority of the computers I've fixed on campus are infected by Facebook: java is also a huge attack injection vector as well. Combine that with an effin huge user base that generally puts little thought into the safety of their comps and even less about their FB security settings..yeah..bad news bears.

I myself use ad block, no script, and do-not-track plus because I hate visually intrusive ads, excessive background tracking sites running within a site, the ease of malware advertisement payload abuse, and frankly my browsing history is none of their fuckin business.

There are options in the ad block settings to allow white listed sites to display ads, but knowing what I know and what damage can be done real easily I say ethical gray area or not ads can fuck off and die in a fire.

[BitVyper]

Is Adblock Plus unethical? Or at least a bad idea?

No.

[Fifthfiend]

I'll start worrying about ethics just as soon as advertisers do.

[akaSM]

When I wish to support a site, I disable adblock. If I encounter a flash ad with sound or video or any pop-up ad I will block that site forever. Sorry NPF.

This, except for the sorry NPF part, I haven't gotten a single annoying ad here. Also,things were the ads are stupidly obtrusive like those in forums that have ads in between posts.

However, I used ABP for a more important reason.
Block annoying stuff.

Forums with annoying "register nao plox" pop ups? blocked.
Stuff that follows me around the page? blocked.
Stupid default avatars that appear for those that don't have an avatar set, and add extra scrolling to most of the posts? blocked.
Any social stuff like "likes" and "sharing" and whatever other stuff that I'll never use but wastes my screen space? blocked.


At first, I didn't have problems with ads but, they've been getting more annoying as times passes like:


I don't care if I was the Nth person to visit your site (ORLY?).
Ads with sound
Ads that follow you around
Ads that expand if you hover your cursor over them
Animated ads with shitty games (hit Justin Bieber 10 times to win an iphone!)
Oh, you want to watch a video? Watch this ad first. And then watch the same ad before every video that you want to see

[shiney]

Yeah I would appreciate if AdBlock is disabled here as the ads send a little bit of money towards me. Added benefit is I can always request blockage of any noisy or obnoxious ads.

Other than that I do agree that it is not in and of itself a bad thing - rampant commercialization has had a very detrimental effect on the fabric of society, and the infiltration of advertisement into every single facet of life is something that really irritates the hell out of me. So I'm on both sides of the issue...

[pochercoaster]

I'm all for people finding alternate sources of revenue. You might as well complain about people using DVR to fast forward through commercials.

[Osterbaum]

On that note, putting un-skippable ads and trailers in DVD's and games is so fucking dickish that nnnnngh...

[phil_]

no scriptDid you know that the NoScript guy has an awesome profile picture on Firefox's add-on site?

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/8272/dangerousterroristhacke.png

[stefan]

I'll feel bad about advertisement revenue the moment they stop using obtrusive ads that interrupt what I'm doing and block my screen.

if your advertisement negatively impacts on my enjoyment of a work, then you have lost your right to money.

[Azisien]

Towards advertisers and their "rights" I believe Shadows of the Damned can, once again, cover this for me. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_pVVeVnO_zE#t=39s)

[Doc ock rokc]

From my experience with fixing computers, training in cyber security, network security, etc. A great attack vector are ads. Considering how so many ads are flash based and need to run locally to display on the browser [and how much flash is a bloated security hole in general...I'm inclined to say no, it is not an ethical violation. Especially when it comes to Facebook.

There's a reason why the majority of the computers I've fixed on campus are infected by Facebook: java is also a huge attack injection vector as well. Combine that with an effin huge user base that generally puts little thought into the safety of their comps and even less about their FB security settings..yeah..bad news bears.

I myself use ad block, no script, and do-not-track plus because I hate visually intrusive ads, excessive background tracking sites running within a site, the ease of malware advertisement payload abuse, and frankly my browsing history is none of their fuckin business.

There are options in the ad block settings to allow white listed sites to display ads, but knowing what I know and what damage can be done real easily I say ethical gray area or not ads can fuck off and die in a fire.

(While I hate people that do this) This ^
Literally it's essentially my exact Thoughts on adds. They are intrusive annoying and security nightmares.

[POS Industries]

Literally it's essentially my exact Thoughts on adds. They are intrusive annoying and security nightmares.
I have to add to the chorus on this one. Ever since my experience with a positively delightful redirect script buried in a random banner ad on Dissidiaforums tried to install fake antivirus adware on everyone's computers, I've kept ads and every other javascript on the tightest possible leash.

It's unfortunate because it means I'm not supporting sites I like as much as I could, but the sad truth is that, if you don't have adblock running, you are never, ever safe.

So I make up for it by buying merch or even just kicking in a few bucks to keep the site running when needed.

[Aldurin]

It's not an ethical issue because many people are too dumb to have adblock and it's a "too bad" for the company losing our time of watching their ads if we block them for security purposes.

[Amake]

The categorical imperative would suggest if you want advertising to be an effective way to pay for stuff you enjoy, you personally should take responsibility for keeping it that way. In other words don't trust other people to watch ads for you because they are dumber than you; suck it up and watch them yourself.

I like ads, myself. They challenge my willpower and critical thinking. At worst they alert me to stuff not to buy because the ads are too annoying. And the ones too annoying to endure are good too, they force me to stay alert and keep track of what's in my tabs and what my speakers are doing. Sometimes a noisy ad will shake me out of a braindead browsing haze and get me to do something useful with my day.

Though most of the time I just enjoy the feeling of invincibility as ad after ad just slides right off the surface of my consciousness without making any impression.

[Magus]

About as unethical as fast forwarding a TV program.

So not really.

Like if shiney wanted some money to keep this site up and running a donation drive would probably work, though I'd be willing to disable adblock for this site and click on some stuff anyway, so that's a good idea for this particular site.

I guess a person could just go ahead and make a choice for themselves whether they feel they want to support a particular site without feeling like they are doing something wrong by not allowing ads on say, cnn.com or something.

Big sites will get their blood somehow anyway, by embedding ads in videos or what have you.

Really, I have had some sites with video ads that play automatically on a site or whatever suck up all my bandwidth, which for someone with a bandwidth cap is an incredibly bad thing. I've had to manually go in and put in the blockers for some of these things. It can be really unethical on the part of some of the websites really.

[CABAL49]

Ads generally don't bother me as I can ignore them. I am just tired of all the Russian/German/Chinese/Muslim singles waiting for me. And the Green Card ads. I am an American Citizen I don't need a Green Card to the US. Not that any of these ads are legit.

[synkr0nized]

I adblock the crap out of the Interbutts. It's even more rewarding on FB, as the advertisers already pay FB to datamine you regardless of how your browser renders content.

[akaSM]

On that note, putting un-skippable ads and trailers in DVD's and games is so fucking dickish that nnnnngh...

Not as bad as "piracy is a crime blah blah" in legally obtained movies. I think I've poked a couple NPF ads in the past, and they were actually useful! One of those was a Netflix ad, which I used for a couple months and maybe an ad for a lazors laser store, I love my green laser ^_^. Also, I may or may not have donated money to NPF but, I don't remember right now :sweatdrop

[Azisien]

Because of this thread I installed Adblock Plus. Now you should feel good/bad because you just caused wastage of advertiser money to increase in the universe.

[ZARAK]

There's nothing "unethical" about user-end content control.

That's like asking whether giving users the option to disable Javascript in their web browsers is unethical.

[TDK]

A bad idea? Nope.

Unethical? As fuck! But ethics are stupid, so who cares? Its not likes its immoral.