Ad Exec on Blockers: "Little Piss Ants" Threaten Freedom of Speech

[Covarr]

The web advertising industry is directly responsible for web ad blockers. Over the years, they have found ways to make ads more and more intrusive. Not merely annoying, but actively interfering with usage of a site. Auto-playing videos (horrible on mobile for users with limited data), ads with sound that plays on sites with other sound (Newgrounds is guilty here), popup windows, ads that expand to cover the screen, ads with scripts that break sites... All in the name of making them harder to ignore.

There's been this attitude of arrogance behind it all, as though users are so desperate for their precious content that they will put up with anything. But that turned out not to be true. Some users just abandoned sites that were too obnoxious with their advertising. Countless sites drove users away in the early-mid 2000s this way, and aren't around anymore as a result. But other users didn't just leave. They fought back.

It all started with popup blockers, the precursor to modern ad-blocking software. It's worth noting that this didn't block all advertising, or even most of it. Not by a long shot. It only blocked the ads that were most problematic at the time: popups. And it worked. Nearly every major browser has popup blocking built-in these days, and advertisers have pretty much abandoned them.

Unfortunately, big advertising didn't learn from this. They didn't ask themselves why people wanted to block popups, or make any effort to develop ads that users wouldn't try to block (except Google, who had a really big text-ad initiative; bless 'em). Instead, they continued to do exactly what they'd done before, exactly what had already backfired on them. They made bigger, more obnoxious ads.

So, advertising industry, here's my challenge to you: Don't make horrible ads that people will feel compelled to block, and people won't block them. It's basic cause and effect. Funny how that works.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Baresark]

If an company has freedom of expression to put ads in my face, I have freedom of expression to not look at them and even say I don't like and therefore do not want to see it. It's actually a two way street.

I use ad block, but I'm selective. I block ads on sites that have large banners that cover a third of the page or one's that automatically play sound, or ones that automatically expand when I mouse over them. If your site has a few ads on the side that don't diminish my experience on your site, or a commercial before a video, then I don't block ads.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Rothenberg said, "these ad blocking companies are little piss ants... run by a handful of people with silly titles and funny walks who are individually irrelevant." He added that they were diminishing freedom of expression.

Great use of freedom of expression there!!!
Just like countless samey sexualized ads that flash like they're trying to give me a seizure whilst flogging malware or other crap I'll never want. Internet ads are NOT Superbowl halftime quality, to make the biggest understatement of the 21st century. But at least we're tracked against our will and often illegaly to "improve" them, so there's that!

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I can kinda see where he's coming from, but advertisements can do way more harm than good, and they can certainly get out of hand. It may, or may not be on him to any degree that these ads have become unethical, but the fact that they have been corrupted means the freedom of ads stops when people believe it will cause harm to their property.

 

[BarkBarker]

Have a more appropriate business model for rolling out ads, then maybe people won't be so upset you are trying to stop them in their stride through their videos to ask me if I want something completely unrelated to what I'm viewing.

 

[Flames66]

Here's what I said last time this was discussed:

Acceptable:
-Banner ads on the top, sides and bottom
-Recommending something within the content (sponsored videos/articles (as long as it is clearly stated))

Unacceptable
-Any kind of tracking or targeted ad
-Any sound
-Ads in the way of what I want to look at
-Ads playing before a video
-Ads that link to other sites

My list has not changed.

Escapists, it's time for you folk to weigh in. Do you use ad-blocking software (no judgment!)? Where do you stand on this?

Alright then.

I use several ad-blockers. The internet is unbearable without them. I do white list certain sites that I want to support, but I will not allow those sites, Escapist included, to use any kind of tracker. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any ads that don't try to track users anymore, so all ads are effectively blocked even on sites I have white listed.

My message is this. If you want me to support you by consuming ads, it is up to you to make sure they are non intrusive and do not track me.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Huh. Guess he likes having his computer being infected with malware that hooks into some of the ads on websites.
Nowadays it is just too unsafe not to use them.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Yeah, looks like someone is using the Donald Trump school of rhetoric.

I'll never block this site, sites helmed by content creators I respect and want to encourage, and I'll especially never block volunteer organizations along the lines of modding sites. Everywhere else, though?

If I'm looking for local news, I want local news. Not ads. If I want to follow a family member's Facebook feed, I want to see only the content that's theirs. I especially have no time to spare for scam ads or viral bullshit portals trying to sell me on mundane stories I "won't believe" if I deign to click on their darn links. Your blaring background video about some Ponzi scheme you'd like to sell me on? Don't need it either. Considering, when someone tells me I'm denying their "freedom of speech" by not giving a crap about their dreck, I have to scoff and shake my head.

I'm denying your freedom of speech? Well, you're infringing on my personal space. Pot, kettle, black.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Sorry, the freedom of speech defense is for when people are repressing the message itself, not the methodology. Face it, to a point, we like advertising. We come to sites like this for it. Show me the commercial for the new Marvel movie. Tell me what games are coming out and make them look cool. Hey, A&W has a new burger. A sale from GOG.com. the new humble bundle. We want to be marketed to.

Sadly, these ad execs have gone well past the point of common sense. They'd whistle a brand jingle in our ear 24/7 given a chance, then get surprised we try and force them to stop. It's honestly amazed me how much it probably has hurt their own goal in the long run. Who hasn't avoided clicking a banner ad for what was probably a legitimate store because it might not be? Hell, that's probably why they are so intrusive. Who actually clicks on the obvious phishing scams and follows through anymore? Probably not enough to pay the bills of all these sites, but mined data on demographics can be sold and marketed, not to mention any boost from those needing to pay to get malware and ransomware removed.

Look, we're a soft audience. Make your ads good, varied, abut good products, and keep in mind the technical limits of most computers so that whatever you do doesn't kill the machine, and we'll watch your ads almost willingly. Data mining, malware, obvious scams, those should be obvious issues you need to clean up to even be reputable, then we can talk about auto playing video at max volume, ads resizing just as you try and click another link, and how often I can see a WoW ad before I'm sick of it. And to the sites using such advertising, I get you need to pay the bills, but ask where the money comes from sometime and if you want to make it from a company advertising "make $5,345 per month at home" on your site, or trying to get people to update their browser while really installing a virus. Yes Escapist. Those have happened to me here.

 

[RJ 17]

To be fair, certain ads - usually auto-playing ones - have a tendency to completely screw with a site. Take the Health Theater ads currently running on this site. Thanks to them and their crappy scripting, every time I've come here over the past couple weeks the site has been laggy as all get-out and often-times just straight-up crashes.

......not to mention that it's an ad that actually gets interrupted so that another ad can play...before resuming the original ad. That's some Adception shit right there!

But I'm a good little Escapist. I don't pay for a premium membership, and as such I don't use an ad blocker. I like this site and its content so I want to support it...I just can't really afford a subscription, so allowing ads to devour the page is the next best thing.

...even though I do fucking hate them.

 

[Johnson McGee]

I have one thing to say about internet ads:

_)_)===========D~~~~~~Fuck Off~~~~~~

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

He added that they were diminishing freedom of expression.

Is that what they're calling it now? I call it "enhancing freedom of smooth internet browsing".

More like "enhancing freedom to NOT GET VIRUSES from ads"! Seriously, I was on regular gaming sites (Screwattack, GameFAQS, etc) and I was constantly getting warnings from my anti-virus software of viruses and malware trying to jack my computer.

Install Ad block? GONE. No Viruses anymore. My parents complain about malware and viruses from legit sites? ADBLOCK AWAY, and the virus warnings disappear and they stop getting tons of malware.

...That said, I whitelist a lot of stuff if I know it's safe. Because good content creators are worth watching ads for, so they can get paid for their work.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

The web advertising industry is directly responsible for web ad blockers. Over the years, they have found ways to make ads more and more intrusive. Not merely annoying, but actively interfering with usage of a site. Auto-playing videos (horrible on mobile for users with limited data), ads with sound that plays on sites with other sound (Newgrounds is guilty here), popup windows, ads that expand to cover the screen, ads with scripts that break sites... All in the name of making them harder to ignore.

To me all the is small potatoes compared the most egregious case, Ads that can sneak in malware/virus into your computer.

To which I have been the victim of one time. And I got one on a website I thought safe from this, case in point Destructoid and that was by the mere PRESENCE of the background ads. The moment I entered Destructoid that day Google Chrome showed me a Malware Alert Notice I a left the website, but I checked my Virus Scanner and it detected 1 and it came from Destructoid.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

So being forced to have obstructive, performance draining and sometimes malicious content shoved into my face is freedom of speech now? News to me. I would have thought that having to ability to whitelist sites and content creators I actually like and respect is as close to the pinnacle of freedom when it comes to ads, but that could just be me being a big slack-jawed fuckwit. Yeah it's probably just that.

 

[LordLundar]

Oh, are we actually allowed to have a discussion about Ad blocks this time? Or is this going to be like last time where supposedly there was permission to do so only to have the mods go ban happy?

No, I'm not saying anything about this anymore because quite frankly, I don't trust the latter to happen again.

 

[infohippie]

Well, technically we don't have "freedom of speech" in my country. So now what, advertising asshole?

 

[Asita]

To be perfectly fair, I do empathize with the need for ads. If a site isn't directly charging you for using it, those ads are usually an integral part of getting the funds to keep that site up and running. I get that and I usually don't want to negatively impact the site's ad revenue for that explicit reason. On the other hand, we aren't living in the days of passive ads any more. We're living in the age of the autoplaying and autorefreshing video ads, and an age where at the very least a significant minority of ads are packed with some form of malware or another. I follow a link on Google News and my antivirus software pings me 2-5 times that it blocked a threat by the time the damn page finishes loading, and it seems like one of the ads redirects me to a new page[footnote]usually one pretending to be from a legitimate source like Mircosoft or Adobe[/footnote] maybe once every dozen or so sites on a good day...and then I get the messages (or very similar ones) again every two minutes or so that I'm on the page because guess what? The ads either refreshed or tried to execute the damn files again. And let me reemphasize: That's from browsing news sites, not high risk sites. Yesterday. And I actually have gotten malware[footnote]including a nasty piece of work named Vundo some years ago[/footnote] through ads, so while I try not to use adblock myself, I do tell my less tech savvy aunt that she should view it is absolutely mandatory for her own browsing purposes. That's not a matter of convenience, that's a matter of making sure that malicious software piggybacking on ads doesn't destroy her computer.

And then of course there are forums...autoplaying/autorefreshing video ads have become ubiquitous enough and detrimental enough to my browser performance that I've had to take to drafting messages in notepad because the reply function won't register my key strokes and my posts end up readig sometiglik tis unless I spend about five times the time and effort going back and filling in the missing keystrokes again. Occasionally, they'll even stop the dang page from fully loading. And then it takes the damn browser a good 5-10 seconds to process that I hit the 'close' button. I don't even want to think about what that means the ads are collectively doing to my bandwidth. Nevermind if I'm actually browsing the net on my phone where it seems to be becoming more and more common for ads to pull me off the webpage I'm reading and send me to a blank webpage whose only function is to close my browser and open the App store page for Candy Crush or some other Application...and when I navigate back to the page it does that again.

My heart goes out to the site owners, content creators, and people in marketing, but we're rapidly approaching the point where ads might well become indistinguishable from malware in how they affect your computer. And I can't in good conscience condemn the people who are proactive in the defense against such things just because I indulge in riskier behavior (at the cost of enormous frustration and regular malware scans). I might be so inclined if I knew that internet advertisers as a rule had their houses in order with proper safeguards, but that is not currently the case.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't like it when the Escapists posts a news article about Ad Block because it's really hard to discuss the topic without inviting a ban.
Also if this guy can't speak in a professional manner I'm not inclined to want to listen to him or take him seriously. Additionally I HATE advertising on the internet. It slows down websites and gets in the way of the content I'm trying to enjoy. Finally it seems we have another person who doesn't know what freedom of speech/expression means.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Some one doesn't know what an actual threat to freedom of speech/Expression is. He's just pissed cause every one is tired of the adds slowing shit down and being used to exploit security loop holes.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

When those advertising pissants clean up their industry so that we don't have to worry about even the New York Times and Forbes ending up serving out malware via third-party ads, then they can come insult people for using ad-blockers.

I freely recognize that advertisements are necessary to keep Internet content free (or at least low-cost), but advertisers started this war of escalation.