AdNauseam Browser Extension Quietly Clicks On Blocked Ads 285
New submitter stephenpeters writes The AdNauseam browser extension claims to click on each ad you have blocked with AdBlock in an attempt to obfuscate your browsing data. Officially launched mid November at the Digital Labour conference in New York, the authors hope this extension will register with advertisers as a protest against their pervasive monitoring of users online activities.
It will be interesting to see how automated ad click browser extensions will affect the online ad arms race. Especially as French publishers are currently planning to sue Eyeo GmbH, the publishers of Adblock. This might obfuscate the meaning of the clicks, but what if it just encourages the ad sellers to claim even higher click-through rates as a selling point?
All for poisioning the well (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
So your profile could look like you want hello kitty, mercedes cars and dating sites.
Re: (Score:2)
As oppose to having absolutely no profile information, in which case they'd just display random Hello Kitty, Mercedes cars, and dating site ads anyways. The net effect of the end user hasn't changed, but you've still managed to screw over the advertiser in a small, relatively meaningless way.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see a down side to poisoning the data-mining well especially with the metadata collection that goes on. I have managed to get facebook to believe I am a gay unmarried Jew living in Hiafa or at least that would best describe the ads it serves up to me. I find that after giving up on TV after the digital switch over where I then found myself in a dead area my desire that I need some new wonderful thing has gone away. There are things I do and spend money on (go go cardboar
Re: (Score:3)
One downside would be that since it clicks on everything what is being told to advertisers is that you are interested in all that stuff.
So your profile could look like you want hello kitty, mercedes cars and dating sites.
That is a poisoned profile. The problem is that you will soon get targeted ads for very rare things because you are one of the three people who clicked. Another and bigger downside is that those ad companies not only get the clicks, but get to follow you around the net, and if they ditch the clicks, it might give them a very valuable profile.
Re:All for poisioning the well (Score:4, Insightful)
And if you don't want people to be able to use your site in different ways than you intended, don't put it on the internet. it's that simple :p.
It's always easy to say don't use something if you don't agree with it, but a lot of things are just too big to ignore and if you can just work around the issues and enjoy it how you want it, why the hell not?
Re:All for poisioning the well (Score:5, Insightful)
If you lack the technical skills to prevent me from blocking your ads, don't piss and moan if I do. If you do have the technical skills to force me to see ads, you'll never see me again because your site will be complete crap.
It's a self leveling problem.
But don't act like you are legally entitled to me seeing or clicking on ads and allowing all of the trackers and analytics companies to provide you with information. That's not my problem.
If you're a big and successful site, you won't notice the small amount of reduction in ads from me (which I was never going to click on anyway). If you're a crappy and struggling site ... well, that's kind of your problem.
Blocking those analytics and ads companies is what I'm gonna do. You do what you want to do, and either your web site will succeed or fail.
But I don't owe you advertising revenue. I don't have an obligation to your advertisers. I don't owe you a damned thing, and you don't owe me anything.
Either I can view your site with the crap blocked, or I can't. But the internet is full of other websites. Just don't expect that I'm going to give permission to 3rd parties to track me just to help you pay the bills.
Re: (Score:2)
This is not blocking, this is actively attempting to screw with the sites revenue by making ads worthless. I can see absolutely no justification for that.
Re:All for poisioning the well (Score:4, Insightful)
The justification is that it's not the site's revenue, it's the advertisement company's revenue. What you're doing is stopping them from harvesting your private data. The dick move is the company trying to grab my data, not me trying to stop them.
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? You think the sites allow the ads on there for free? It IS their revenue.
Re:All for poisioning the well (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't mean they're entitled to good data. Or any data at all.
In the old days, people paid for advertising, and you have no way of knowing if it worked unless you asked people. Everybody saw the same ad on TV and in the newspaper.
The modern analog on the interweb is kind of like having a bunch of advertisers put a tracking device on your car, or a tag in your ear like livestock so they can track everything that you do.
Why the fsck should we accept this just because it's digital? The answer is, we don't need to.
You want to put ads on your site? Go ahead. You think I'm not going to block them then you're a moron. You think I owe your advertisers good analytics data just so you can make money? Yeah, fuck that.
People shouldn't be willing to accept tracking, analytics, and violation of their privacy just to see a website. We don't know your privacy statement (assuming you have one), we don't know what you do with this data, and we have no recourse for what you do with it.
We wouldn't accept this is the 'real' world, but we're supposed to accept it in the digital one?
Which means the only sensible thing is to either deny them the information, or make sure their information is useless.
If your poor website goes under because your advertisers can't figure out if I wear boxers or briefs ... boo fucking hoo .
Re: (Score:2)
I am largely with you, but keep in mind that we don't want Pyrrhic victory. All-time anonymous and add free Internet is not a desirable outcome if it all goes subscriptions and walled gardens.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? Because I can see absolutely no justification for a these ad sites to be able to track everything I do on the internet or why I should accept that as normal.
This is about far more than the revenue of an individual site. This is about a bunch of companies who have a business model which more or less amounts to spying on every damned thing you do a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's great that your own websites are 'crappy' enough that you can pay for them out of your own pocket.
What if one of them stops being crappy and ends up with 5 million users with millions of daily hits, and you suddenly have to get new hardware and support increased bandwidth expenditure? Are you going to continue to pay, say, $1,000 out of pocket to keep it up? Or would you rather kill it than supplant the costs with advertising?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:All for poisioning the well (Score:4, Interesting)
AC is right. Instead of 'running ads', you are the ad.
Also, you're assuming that every site exists to sell a specific product. In my case, I ran a pure service in which users (who are generally less-militant against ads for games, peripherals, and at least somewhat tolerant on "related" products like snack foods) could track and compare their progress on a popular gaming service.
I did it for fun initially, but the numbers I gave from my original post weren't pulled out of thin air; this actually happened. I needed hosting, I needed hardware, I needed consulting (because my DB modeling skills were terrible). While I actually did end up paying out of pocket for my hosting during its final year, I never could have scaled with demand without advertising. Being an uninterested third-party, it's easy to say "well your site didn't deserve to exist", but I am confident you would feel differently if it was your own blood and sweat at stake.
The point of all this is that not every site is equal. Not all of them are click-bait, copy-pasta "journalism", or someone's blog about their cat. There are many people out there doing labor-of-love projects that, for whatever reason, end up being useful for a number of people. Some of them have the ability to monetize them into products, like games and what have you, and others may make the end-user the product (Google, Twitter) - but there are others who may not have that ability. In many cases, advertising is simply the best and/or only business model that is viable. The web is vast; these sites deserve to exist, and there is room for them to do so.
Actively boycott those who you feel are taking advantage of its users (80 ads on a page, bad ad networks, etc), but don't damn the entire system. People willing to pay to get their message out has worked for hundreds, if not thousands of years. There's a huge difference between that, and 'punch the monkey' shit that started this 'war'.
[* Sorry for potentially putting words in anyone's mouths, I'm basically covering all the bases from every conversation I've had within ad-blocking threads on Slashdot - You can see my post history]
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Does that including hiding the body afterwards? Can you post your rates?
Re: (Score:3)
Hahaha. Mod parent up! That was a solid comeback.
Re: (Score:3)
What if AC is a lady?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: All for poisioning the well (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The justification is to undermine a system which makes the world worse, thus making the world better. Personally I see "making the world better" as the best possible justification for an action. How do you see it?
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed.
Until blocking ads or screwing with their dynamics becomes illegal, it's my computer and I make it do what I want it to do.
Re: (Score:3)
See, I'm far from a freetard who thinks he's got the right to other people's work. But...
If your business model is to make content freely available, with no contract, in a format that's trivially modified, where it's known that there are tools for hiding advertisments, then, you're doing it wrong.
If I walk through a mall, I'm perfectly at liberty to hold up my hand and cover up people's adverts so that I don't see them. The same is true on the internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody said anything about blocking ads. YOU are the one who said it was a good idea to 'poison the well'. Yes, you can not look at ads as you walk through the mall. You can not go and paint over all the ads so nobody else sees them either, which is what this idiotic 'poisoning the well' is attempting to do.
Re:All for poisioning the well (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually he's not painting over the ads. What he is doing is lying to the ad company about who he is, what he does, what he likes and other personal info about himself. Lying to advertisers is a right. I don't have to tell them anything and I'm under no obligation to tell them the truth. Other people who come there are not affected by this. They are free to either block or cooperate with being tracked and spied upon. If my lying to the admakers causes them harm that's too bad. I am under no obligation to cooperate with them.
Re: (Score:2)
If I walk through a mall, I'm perfectly at liberty to hold up my hand and cover up people's adverts so that I don't see them.
AdBlock for prescription lenses would be the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have no doubt that it will come one day, and probably be necessary with Minority Report style beaming of ads directly into your retina.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've seen the pleasedontblock ads. All those sites are now in my blacklist. If they don't want me on their site then I don't go there. Simple.
Re: (Score:2)
Is a page a cohesive product, ads and all? The law is very unclear on this.
Uh, only in the sense of copyright is this a legal concern. It's your browser and your pipes; they can only cripple their own layout, not enforce your victimhood.
On a side note, what are people using currently for mobile browsing on Android? Every once in a while I'll pull up links friends send me, and after about 2 seconds of scrolling around some misaligned full page overlay shows up with the close button off-screen. I'd like to step up my blocking game on the phone...
Re: (Score:2)
Leading by Bad Example? (Score:2)
I am not sure if on purpose or not but their website is a classic example why ads are bad and distracting. Their website is loaded with ads for their campaigns, social media buttons, links to the extensions and stuff. The entire design looks almost like a terrible online magazine, that derides their article just so you will see the ads. It may that it is a bold sarcastic statement or they are hypocrites.
Re: (Score:3)
Have quality, non-annoying, fast loading ads, relevant to the content, placed on quality content/sites, and I will be much more likely to not block them, and in some cases I may actually look at them.
I can't be the only one (Score:2)
Gotta love the creativity. (Score:2)
You gotta love the creativity the geek community comes up with time and time again. It is plainly obvious that you can't sue adblockers away, but it's fun to watch the battle unfold in front of us anyway. I'm grabbing my deck-chair and my popcorn just now. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
The lawsuit is in France... Things are less obvious there. :-)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
france, the place where liberty was born, and where it went back to die.
Terrible idea ... (Score:3)
I want to block this crap.
I want to block their cookies. I want to deny them the analytics or even know that I visited the page. I want the advertisers to piss off and die.
Sure, you can shit in their well and give them crufty data which is useless.
Or you can just block this crap outright, never see it at all, save your damned bandwidth, and leave the parasites out of the equation entirely.
So, Quantserve? Scorecard Research? Google Ad Services? All that crap which is embedded in every page you see? I'll take tools which prevent them from getting traffic from me or any information in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Saving the bandwidth is job #1 for me. I don't care if sites know I buy stuff, really, unless they mail me more kindling. I have enough already, thanks. Stop killing trees, fuckers. But the best internet connection I can get is 5MBps on a good day...
Re: (Score:2)
I don't really need the postal system. I only need parcel service, and internet access. Let's let POTS and the USPS die already, and get universal internet access instead. It's a lot more useful.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually the US post is the only way to send a message where they have to get a warrant to read it.
Re: (Score:3)
Of course they can always break the law. Let them bring anything they find there into a court of law though and it's a different matter. No warrant, no evidence.
Re: (Score:2)
I have over 200 America Online CDs. I wonder what that cost in manufacturing, handling and postage. I never ever even looked at AOL once and my IRC bot automatically kickbanned anyone with an AOL domain. I'm sure they got plenty of money out of it though, there are about 10 suckers born every second. AOL, American Organization of Lamers.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you on dial-up? It's been a decade since I had any noticeable lag on a website. Except for the computers at work of course, they run like they're on dial-up.
Endless escalation (Score:3)
You think flash cookies are bad? Wait until AdNauseam forces Google to cut anti-NN deal with telecoms in exchange of ISP-level in-stream identifier insertion.
More details plz (Score:2)
Does this plugin simulate a click, or does it actually load the entire target page offscreen, and if so, is there any possibility for recursion here? Suppose there are banner ads on the page being "simul-clicked" on? Does the plugin proceed to them as well? How does this affect bandwi
Re: (Score:2)
A simple mark and sweep would solve the recursion issue. Hash table of places you've visited, although it's tough to say if it should be by domain or by URL. If by domain you may only click once per ad network. If by URL, you could still hit recursion if a page generates random URIs. A recursion depth of 1 seems easier to implement than any of that though, requiring that each page load be configured to either apply the clickspoofing feature or not apply the clicking feature.
Re: (Score:2)
While I am not the developer of the extension in TFA I did find the idea interesting. Even if this implementation fails it seems likely to me that this idea is a logical escalation in the online ad arms race. If the idea gains traction it will be just a matter of time before a decent implementation emaerges. The reaction from Google should be interesting if a Chrome extension appears.
The Click is Dead Anyway (Score:2)
I work in marketing analytics and, specifically, in measuring the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns at a customer level. Straight up click tracking is dead and this will do nothing which is purports as organizations begin moving away from siloed measurement of IMP -> CLK within single channels at an aggregate level and instead go down to the very granular cross-channel customer-level attribution.
If you really want to avoid detection and behavior tracking, I highly suggest you entirely disable c
Re: (Score:3)
Why on earth would it not be worth it? Especially with whitelisting. Unless I have an account with a company there is no reason to have them save data on my machine.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you really want to avoid detection and behavior tracking, I highly suggest you entirely disable cookies entirely (yes, I realize this is not worth it at all), otherwise you will not have accomplished what you had hoped.
Self-Destructing Cookies [mozilla.org] is pretty nice for those who find it impractical to disable cookies entirely.
How about a URL reference to denote a "lost user" (Score:3)
How about appending:
yourdamnad.com/?BLOCKEDBY=AdBlock (or whatever)
to the fake click. THEN get the word out that customers should ask for BLOCKEDBY ratios vs. actual clicks.
Phony data (Score:2)
I had an ad company try to sell me an online ad space. So I asked the salesperson what the click-thru rate was for the other advertisers on the site and she said she didn't know. I said, "It's 2014. This is the kind of data you should have at your fingertips. It's not like a print-ad where you have no clue how many people really look at an ad."
I don't use an ad blocker, (Score:2)
Ads weren't the problem for me (Score:2, Interesting)
Ads weren't the problem for me. But here are the problems
Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score:5, Interesting)
But I do agree, if I was an advertiser, and this caught on, they could see a potential spike in clicks, and therefore a big jump in advertisement expenditures.
That might lead to drastically reduced payments per click for websites, or maybe the end of pay-per-click, or who knows what else?
Re: (Score:2)
Most likely lawsuits alleging false reporting of clicks for profit by the advertisers. It's like Facebook reporting false user base numbers due to the vast number of fake, duplicate or non-human accounts. Facebook is careful to provide those numbers now, because when money changes hands based on them they have to be right.
Re: Isn't that click fraud? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ianal, but even the definition they put in their FAQ states that intent to harm the advertiser is click fraud. The do not track purpose seems like a thin veil over causing massive amounts of false clicks that harm their advertising revenue. We should certainly be able to block what gets served to our computers, but this add-on definitely crosses the line.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Isn't that click fraud? (Score:5, Informative)
It would only be criminal fraud if the intention was for a competitor to gain an advantage, to demand payments for it to stop, or to extract more money from advertising agencies' clients ...
It might be illegal for merely trying to interfere with business between others (website and advertiser). Tortious interference [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3)
The addon user did not give explicit permission to the advertising companies to do business with the website through himself. Websites generally don't even have EULA. If they then are prevented from doing this questionable business through non-consenting parties, that should be fine.
My understanding is that tortious interference is about a 3rd party (the user in this case) interfering with business between others (website and advertiser). The third party does not need to be part of any agreement in order to be interfering. Users of this addon might be at risk if so.
Re: (Score:2)
A false representation of a matter of factâ"whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosedâ"that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury.
This sure sounds like it very well could fall under that definition. The question is for (me at least, IANAJ) does an HTTP get represent a page view? Who agreed to that interpretation? Perhaps the advertizing firm and the site operator agreed those are equivalent but I never did. My guess is though the "by conduct" part is going to cover it. I mean in this case an individual has downloaded software specifically designed to disrupt statistics gathering that is know to be used for paying on ad views, and
Re: (Score:3)
I'd at least wait for the user to execute a script on my landing page before counting click-through type payments.
Re: (Score:3)
For example, Fraud from bots represents a loss of $6 billion in digital advertising [reuters.com] @Reuters says
I think getting "clicks" from actual targeted customers is a non-problem in the face of all this other fraud. When it comes to security research (my f
Re: (Score:3)
Again, the main point is that auto clicking can have unintended consequences. Its naive to think its just going to screw up advertisers and not provide and entirely new avenue for exploitation.
Shouldn't it be fairly simple to write the plug-in to "click" on ads, download the ads, and then direct the download results straight to /dev/null? Downloading an ad shouldn't have to mean actually interpreting the data or rendering anything and certainly not executing any downloaded JS code; all the advertiser needs
Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see anything here that suggests this will employ some form of AI to determine which ads would be annoying and only click on those.
Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see anything here that suggests this will employ some form of AI to determine which ads would be annoying and only click on those.
Some people are annoyed by all advertising. But other people have the checkbox set to permit unobtrusive ads. Since this extension "clicks" on ads which have been blocked, that means that the unobtrusive ads won't be false-clicked.
I find pretty much all advertising obtrusive. It doesn't necessarily make me buy shit, but advertising does influence mood. Some say only if you are malleable, but I have this nagging suspicion that it's more than that. They say that if you don't yawn when other people yawn, you may be a psychopath. I don't know that not reacting to colors and motions in typical ways makes you a psychopath, but I do think it is related to a lack of presence and alertness. Being brought to a state of alert by motion is a feature, it's what helps permit you to not get run over by some distracted moron in a parking lot for example. But it also means that moving advertisements (for example) are particularly annoying. Advertisers also exploit known effects of color to get attention and influence mood — whether it induces a sale or not, it still affects you. Or, again, if it doesn't it's because you've built some sort of structure in your brain which deadens your sensation. Otherwise, you couldn't possibly watch Ow, My Balls with 8/9 of the screen dedicated to ads.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't mind simple ads. They are fine with me because I can look at them or not as I please. The ones that flash or jump onto my viewing area or otherwise intrude into what I am doing do annoy me greatly. To the point I hate the people that are selling the shit. It has caused me not to buy products that I might otherwise have bought. To be assaulted by this crap while trying to browse really infuriates me. I can't believe any fool actually buys shit from these people. I would love an extension that
Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
But other people have the checkbox set to permit unobtrusive ads.
I don't, and everyone I set up doesn't either, and it isn't because I hate all Ads. It's because I hate Removing Adware and viruses.
All of the unobtrusive ad's I've seen from adblock plus contain some link to a malicious download. Don't believe me? do the VLC Test.
1) Turn on Unobtrusive ads
2) Go to Google (or Bing, or Yahoo, Or Ask, ETC.)
3) Search for "VLC Media Player" (As a side note, DuckDuckGo is the few Search engines that do this right, but still serves malicious ads once in awile. Use "Libreoffice" or "Openoffice" Instead of VLC for an example)
4) Click on the first link you see. If the first link you see is an ad, click on it.
5) Download the installer ***WARNING!! Do not run it unless you Enjoy Cleaning viruses for fun!***
6) Go to virustotal.com, and submit the file for analysis
7) Watch the detections go off the charts.
I get roughly 3-7 pc's a week in our shop infected by adware caused by malicious ads that would be otherwise considered unobtrusive. If ad firms would clean up their act, and refuse malicious content ads or obvious scams then I would be more receptive of turning it on. Until then They're no different than a trojan downloader to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't sound like that much of an edge case to me. These things may only need to be downloaded once on a given machine, but I assume that almost everyone who does so, does so via a browser. This sounds quite plausible to me without the need for exaggerating about using the browser "exclusively" for this purpose.
Also, GP was giving this as an example, not as the one and only case in which malicious ads get through AdBlock.
Re: (Score:3)
But the example is flawed.
The very first links are to the official videolan site.
Further down the page, you have softonic.com, filehippo.com, downloadastro.com, win-install.com, 01net.com, safe-setup.com (if you believe that, well ...), keweek.com, etc. Download at your own risk.
Now, as for the whole topic of click fraud, it's been known for years that between 25% and 50% of all clicks are fraudulent ("you can make money surfing the net" pay-to-click scams, bots, competitors, etc). Knowledgeable adverti
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
So as we, the Internet users, do everything in our power to slowly but surely starve you out and make your business model a thing of the past just remember, it didn't have to be this way
There still is another way, there always has been. If browser extensions such as the one I linked to take off perhaps it will occur to advertisers that their reputation is important. Despite running AdBlock I still do see ads, just not the attention seeking disruptive ones. I really do want the sites I like to make money. Real time black hole lists forced those using email to advertise to think again. I expect this browser extension idea will make online advertisers rethink their approach. Eventually. In th
Not all advertisers are evil -- no, really (Score:2)
Wow. Got a little off your chest there, buddy? :-)
It's worth remembering in these discussions that "advertiser" includes basically every business and for that matter every open social group in the world. It includes the emergency plumber you call when your home is flooding at 2am. It includes the band your kid wants to go see for their birthday. It includes your grandmother's knitting club.
There is nothing inherently evil in these people advertising. Their ads provide a useful social function because other
Re:Not all advertisers are evil -- no, really (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
# Problem too trivial to need AI.
return ad is not None
Re: Isn't that click fraud? (Score:2)
Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, these are the same people that complain when you fast-forward through commercials, and have tried to make legal arguments to prevent one from being able to do that.
Re: (Score:2)
As a user, I've been pissed at advertisers for nearly two decades now.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
(1) Nonsense, people cheerfully pay for all manner of internet services. Spotify, Netflix, etc. etc. Even Google, the patron saint of spying on people to advertise effectively, has finally started the process of simply allowing people to give them money so they don't have to bother with ads.
(2) Yes. Because, despite the enormous amount of effort the advertising industry has made to try and stop people noticing: Advertising is not the only way to make money off a website. Adverts are a tired, unpopular, inef
Re: (Score:2)
Adverts are a tired, unpopular, ineffective way of raising cash.
2 out of 3 ain't bad. I'll give you tired and unpopular, but hell no on ineffective. Sure it's not the only way, but it is an incredibly effective way.
Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the reality is ... you as an advertiser don't get a vote what I do in my browser.
You want me to view and click ads? Well, you'll have to pay me. Paying some other guy to embed shit in his web pages which I'm "required" to view? Kind of bullshit, and not happening.
If you're not paying me, then you don't matter, and I don't owe you a damned thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed.
The basic idea here is that the http protocol doesn't mandate what to do with the information stored on a given URL. That is left to the user to decide. It is just information you use in any way you want. Removing the ads is just one application of this concept, rendering text for blind people is another possible application.
Protocols with DRM (Digital Rights Management or actuall Digital Restrictions Management) functionality try to mandate what you can do with information. They didn't work. But eve
Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you put stuff on an URL, and then you make the URL public (and put it on search engines), you are agreeing with the http protocol. The contract is:
"At this URL you can find public and freely available data".
That's the way http works. There is no click through contract to get to an URL and the standard is made so data can be processed easily (there are content, presentation and behaviour separated parts, and each part is designed so it is easy to extract only a subset of it). So, again, clearly the intent of the http protocol design is: "At this URL you can find public and freely available data in a format easy to process so you can use any subset of the data any way you want".
Seen in this way, an advertiser has agreed with the http "contract" by publishing the data. It should be illegal than an advertisher tries to subvert the nature of the http protocol and force you to consume content in a way that further's his interests.
This is similar to what is happening with net neutrality. People trying to subvert the design to convert a protocol into something it is not so to achieve control in the ways the protocol is used, removing control from the actual users of the protocol. They should call it something different, like "filtered internet".
Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed.
The basic idea here is that the http protocol doesn't mandate what to do with the information stored on a given URL. That is left to the user to decide.
The thing about this point is that advertisers seem not to have understood this basic concept yet. I have no idea of the quality of the browser extension I linked to in TFA. However the idea that an extension could be used to automate the deliberate poisoning of advertisers collected user data seems to be a powerful one. In my view this is a logical next step in the user vs advertiser arms race.
Re: (Score:3)
I was about six years old when I received a t-shirt with a logo on it (a Nike swoosh, I think, or something similar). I don't know where it came from but somehow I had the maturity to ask whether I would get paid to advertise for that company.
I still feel the same way. If Tiger woods can get ten million dollars for wearing a Nike swoosh, then I can get paid ten dollars for wearing a Nike swoosh. Otherwise I'm not going to wear a logo unless I personally already love the logo for some reason.
Fuck you, advert
Re: (Score:3)
1. No, it's not click fraud or anything resembling click fraud.
2. This thing only matters if it becomes very popular. Otherwise it's background noise.
3. If it does become popular, it will probably have some kind of detectable signature to it and will get filtered out.
Advertisers really won't give a fuck about this.
Re: (Score:2)
One of the most popular browsers is controlled by an advertising company, I'm not sure how popular such an extension could become.
But yes, if we add lots more clicks that can never be converted to every page visit that will dilute the value of clicks. I think it's brilliant, but it is an arms race. And there is a better infrastructure for advertisers to use a cost per action model, I could imagine them all jumping over there if cost per click model is exploited.
Perhaps automatically ordering something with
Re: (Score:2)
Automatically clicking on all of them means that the advertisers can't tell when a legitimate sucker clicks or when the program does. So click counts become worthless. Currently the ads work on some people and not on others, and they can tell which is which.