Is Adblock Unethical?

[AliasTheory]

I've been looking around the net and noticed this subject came up in a few places. It's an interesting topic, so I'm curious to see what people here think.

 

Adblock general info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus

 

Ads are used to generate revenue for some service, such as a entertainment website or some Youtube video for example. Many ads work on a pay per view service, and of course, not viewing ads results in less money generated. Are we as consumers in any way morally obligated to view these advertisements, which for most of us is probably just a minor inconvenience?

 

Discuss, share opinions, etc.

 

[EDIT] Added an "other" option.

Edited November 4, 2012 by AliasTheory

[marharth]

Getting spammed with ads isn't fun.

 

You can advertise in non invasive ways that adblock won't stop.

 

If you have a YouTuber you like or something, then you probably should turn it off and just ignore the ads to help them out.

 

So ads should be blocked unless you otherwise decide to unblock them for some reason.

[McclaudEagle]

A third option I would have made would be something along the lines of "depends on the circumstances". There have been times where I've been flooded with adverts, some including viruses or scams. There was infact a time where I used Adblock on the Nexus, the reason being that when Dark0ne first put in the ads, a lot of them were a security threat to many people's computers, and I wanted to avoid risking a security breach on my PC. Since going Premium, I haven't bothered with Adblock on any site, and there's a great deal of satisfaction knowing I'm supporting Dark0ne maintaining this fantastic site.

 

Edit: Voted on "Other" - Reason is because as I said, some ads presented a security risk and Adblock helped defend against them.

[IsharaMeradin]

I don't think adblock is unethical. I know there are a lot of sites that use advertising etc... and even with adblock I still see lots of advertisments just none of the ones that are known or have been known to cause problems such as excessive pop ups, pop unders, redirects, and even piggy back harmful stuff like viruses.

 

What I think is unethical tho are sites that refuse to allow you to even view public portions of their site without you agreeing to turn off any type of ad block service. However, I will defend their right to do so, so long as they recognize my right to block what I have experienced to be "bad" forms of advertising.

[JimboUK]

No, if ads were kept at a sensible level and didn't also serve you with viruses then there would be no need for ad blockers.

[Syco21]

Absolutely not. Among many reasons, the primary being that advertisers have shot themselves in the foot with the terrible ads, flooding you with ads and ads containing malware.

 

I block ads because they're the number one security threat for me. Sure there are places where the ads are mostly safe, but mostly don't cut it and even 100% guaranteed safety, I just don't care.

[Vagrant0]

Absolutely not. Among many reasons, the primary being that advertisers have shot themselves in the foot with the terrible ads, flooding you with ads and ads containing malware.

 

I block ads because they're the number one security threat for me. Sure there are places where the ads are mostly safe, but mostly don't cut it and even 100% guaranteed safety, I just don't care.

Pretty much this.

 

But, a blanket policy towards blocking all ads isn't fair for websites either. Even with blocking ads, you can still get malware and other things. Even with good browsing sense and security, all it takes is some site you signed up with to get hacked to have some information obtained or for there to be some breech. There are relatively few people out there that generate a unique 30+ character password for each and every site they visit, even among throw-away sites that you only join once in order to download something.

 

Most people online use:

 

1). A few passwords that they can remember usually the same password for several sites along the same theme or thread, and subsequently lose a good majority of everything if they should be hacked or infected, becoming entirely reliant on those sites to sort things out and restore accounts.

 

2). A handful of passwords that they can remember, but differentiate between services and sites so that any damage done is usually limited unless the attack is personally aimed at them.

 

3). A computer saved listing of passwords (post it notes around monitor) with unique passwords for major sites they use, but a handful of simple/memorable passwords for sites they access outside home.

 

Fewer practice anything below #1 for very long, or anything much more involved than #3 unless they're only using a handful of sites and registering with dummy credentials.

 

Malware can be removed and blocked separately. Scripts can be enabled manually for each site so that you only allow ads from companies you recognize. Cookies can be limited to where you are prompted for any 3rd party access. With good security practices, there is no reason why you cannot allow some ads to go through for the sake of keeping those sites you frequent up and running, or able to meet growing demands.

[IndorilTheGreat]

I used AdBlock for a long time, and then I didn't since it wasn't really helping any of my favorite websites and YouTubers. But then the political ads started to infest YouTube, and it went right back on.

 

It's going to stay that way too until the majority of these poorly assembled political hate adverts are gone. It's got annoying, real quick.

 

On-Topic; AdBlock is not unethical, since you are not "stealing" income from someone (unless of course they work in advertising :rolleyes: ).

[mizdarby]

Absolutely not unethical. I have no interest at all in advertisements of any kind, so anything that blocks them is a good thing in my eyes. If they ever make an adblock for television, I would certainly use that as well.

[ginnyfizz]

Absolutely no way is it unethical. I acquired it after a particularly un-nerving experience on another site that had ads introduced on it that made me wonder just how deep Adsense mines your data. I had recently applied for a credit card...and started getting ads for the very same credit card that I had just applied for. Adblock was duly introduced, I virus scanned and malware scanned and changed passwords on all sites where my financial data is ever entered.

 

This is why it makes me very angry when the suggestion ever comes up to ban people who use AdBlocker. Some of us have very good reasons to be suspicious of ads. It's not just a case of beeing peed off with them being annoying.