It does feel shady, but on the other hand I can't really argue with their logic:
- ads are an important revenue stream on the web, so allow unintrusive/inoffensive ads by default
- to do this, companies need to agree to keep all ads under a certain URL pattern "unintrusive" by ABP's definition
- investigating and enforcing the nature of the ads in the whitelist costs money, so make this service free for "small to medium" businesses but charge large ones.
Companies may be hurt by people choosing to block ads, but they're not hurt by Adblock Plus offering them a chance to have their ads unblocked. And users aren't hurt either, as if they don't like the whitelisting they can simply turn it off. It seems to me that if you're ok with adblocking, there's no reason to protest ABP's whitelisting practices.
Agreed. Most countries have an organization to regulate broadcasts, removing advertising that is too obtrusive, obscene, or otherwise unfit for mass consumption. Likewise, filtering malware sites, porn ads (in improper places), and flickering banners seems like a win to me. I am in favor of Adblock Plus' mission, I just wish they were more transparent about their business practices and revenue. This seems like the purpose of a non-profit organization moreso than the job of a few developers.
I don't like it either, but on the other hand, ABP works pretty well, and I can uncheck the "allow unobtrusive advertising" on the main settings page. Is it worth making a stand on this issue? What should I do or use instead?
[edit] Hmm, I'm not just talking to myself here, the post I replied to is gone. Not sure how that happens, but in any case I was responding to a comment about how ABP whitelists certain ads (such as those from the companies that support the ABP servers, apparently.)
Well, I'd suggest using nothing (or noscript if you're actually just concerned about exploits), but if this Internet community is like any other Internet community, I'm probably in a very small minority.
I actually have pretty strong opinions on the matter, but they're entirely tangential and irrelevant, and not really in the spirit of HN, so I'll keep them to myself.
FYI you're being downvoted because your comment basically amounts to, "I'm not going to contribute to this conversation," which is self-admittedly worthless.
Heh, if you look into my comment history you'll see the community much prefers I not participate in these long and drawn-out conversations.
I actually agree with the downvotes, as my comment was mostly off-topic, but I felt it needed to be said.
It's also preferable, in a moment of egotism, to get 3 downvotes on that comment, rather than the torrent of dozens of downvotes on the ensuing potential conversation. I've recently lost all faith in this community to respect an attempt at an honest debate.
The argument is that they're not blocking all ads, but they're blocking ads of poor quality, are overtly disruptive (ostensibly the name of the game in advertising) or are potentially harmful to users.
Which is why you can opt in/out of things like Google Adwords.
Adblock Plus has created a group of 'guide lines', companies who agree to follow their guide lines will have their ad's hosted.
The problem is every company does not want to work directly the Adblock Plus. So a company (Pagefair) created adblock plus get around as a service, where if you work with them they get your ads around adblock by registering with Pagefair and adblock plus signing off on 99.5% of all all pagefair ads.
Basically adblock is attempting to create a standard for ads, or at least sells that they are. The problem is the volume of ads that PageFair hosts are beyond the review of single entity. There is no intensive to review these ads, as it would hurt their income AND require more labor (or at least require an analytic investment).
Ultimately all that Adblock Plus does is give Eyeo a monopoly on ads.
Presumably if Pagefair, in their role as curator, allows too many shitty ads under their wing then Adblock Plus will block Pagefair, and pretty much destroy their business. They do have an incentive.
Not sure why you were downvoted. Assuming that wikipedia entry is correct (which is sometimes questionable) then it looks like both AdBlock and AdBlock Plus are being shady as hell with their "strategic partners".
