Ads, Ad Blockers...

[MatthewSchenker]

Greetings,

I'm curious where everyone stands in the whole debate about ad blockers.  It's an interesting discussion, with potentially pretty big implications.  Today, the NY Times published an interesting article that puts mobile ads into a clear context of load times, data usage, and costs to users.

See the article here

What do you think?

Thanks,

Matthew

[pwired]

Im glad that the German court several times now ruled Adblock and Adblock Plus legal to use.

The German court has essentially declared that users are legally allowed to control what happens

on their screens and on their computers while they browse the Web. I hope other countries will

follow.

[MatthewSchenker]

Greetings,

In the US, there is no legal barrier to ad blockers.  However, I have read a couple of reports that state that advertisers may choose to take legal action against Apple for ad blockers if it is deemed that Apple is becoming the one who decides who "gets in" and who does not.

My sense is, although advertisers might win legally, they would lose the bigger public relations battle, as consumers would be even more annoyed with advertisers who force us to see their ads.

I'm not generally a big fan of Apple, but I do think they have stirred up a good debate with their ad blocker decision.

Thanks,

Matthew

[LostKobrakai]

I can certainly see that that's a pain for advertising and everyone who's benefiting from it, but I see it like this article states it (in longer form: http://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you.htm). Advertising has turned their own industry to somethings really weird, that's just invading privacy to an extend which is just not bearable. Also in traditional media the one printing the advertising had to pay for the space/paper/ink, now it's the other way around and you could still "block" it with an "no advertising" label at your mailbox. If advertisers want to continue to be seen then they have to deliver something worth seeing. It's as easy as that. 

[teppo]

That article is way too long to read right now, sorry for that. Anyway, I'm going to agree with much of what LostKobrakai said there

Advertising per se is not evil, and a lot of media outlets currently depend on advertising for their livelihood. I'm not happy about the fact that this movement is driving hard-working content producers out of business, and my fear is that over the time it might actually affect the amount of freely available information floating around the net. Even more likely (and quite unpleasant) result is an increase in so-called "sponsored articles" .

On the other hand this is an obvious reaction to many advertisers going way over the top. Not only do ads invade your privacy, ad networks take no real responsibility for malvertising – neither of which is acceptable anymore. While advertising is here to stay, the revenue stream it generates will slowly diminish, and advertisers will need to find either smarter ways to advertise or other, hopefully less obtrusive, ways to earn.

The worst case scenario right now is that ad blockers getting more common will result in even more ads (and even more intrusive ads) which in turn will result in even more aggressive ad blockers – in other words an arms race between advertisers and ad blockers. That would be a bad situation for everyone

[LostKobrakai]

The worst case scenario right now is that ad blockers getting more common will result in even more ads (and even more intrusive ads) which in turn will result in even more aggressive ad blockers – in other words an arms race between advertisers and ad blockers. That would be a bad situation for everyone

Which sadly does compare to how we got to today's situation. It began with advertisers, which wanted to identify click bots and in the process our privacy got wrecked. 

@teppo That's also in the article But it's long I've read it in two times.