Is Adblock Unethical?

[Beriallord]

I honestly hate advertisers.

 

In case some of you don't know, they recently made cell phone #s public record in the US, which means all these advertising agencies now got your cell # and can run up your minutes, and even spam text messages to your phone, and a lot of plans don't have unlimited texting. If they call my phone, I will tell them **** you and keep cussing at them until they are the ones who hang up. I'll cuss them out every time they call me, and after awhile they stopped calling me, because nobody wants to get cussed at over the phone. I've personally been spammed by 12 text messages in the last week, and I called my provider and complained about it saying how they are running up my text cap, which is only 100 texts a month, which means if they spam me over that in one month, then I have to pay an overage fee. And they told me they couldn't do anything about it, and I told them to just disable texts on my plan, so I don't get screwed with overages if someone spams me and runs me over the limit.

 

I've been trying to get in contact with a lawyer about maybe pursuing a class action lawsuit against those cell phone spammers and people sending texts. They can maybe bring a class action lawsuit against the companies they are advertising via these calls/texts, because they are obviously paying these unscrupulous pricks money to spam people with calls and texts which makes them directly responsible for their actions.

 

The way I look at it is if I want something, I'll buy it. I can say with 100% certainty that I've never seen an add for a product that made me say "I gotta have that", I do my own research. In fact if a company annoys me with advertisements then I'm less likely to buy their product.

 

And yeah, I use adblock and will always use it in the future.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Beriallord

[Ghogiel]

how deep Adsense mines your data.

There is no secret in this, no one wants random ads thrown onto screens, not even advertisers XD. They want targeted ads. If you are reading an email in gmail and the email mentioned the keyword football for example, it's not a coincidence that there is a ad on the side that is football related. I keep getting mature dating ads, I think it's because I never give my real birth date and am ~100 years old according to most data.

It's not a virus related or anything, they are just profiteering on your behalf. Google, Facebook, youtube, if logged in etc all your searches, keywords and pages surfed are logged to your user. And even if you're not logged in, your IP is logged.

 

I'd turn off ad block if I had 1p for every £1 that was earned off of my data. I could surf all day and earn money by watching porn. :rolleyes:

Edited November 5, 2012 by Ghogiel

[ginnyfizz]

It's them potentially getting in my bank data that worries me the most, at present I ain't got enough in there to lose any of it.

[Syco21]

Pretty much this.

 

But, a blanket policy towards blocking all ads isn't fair for websites either.

I know it's not fair, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. For one, I have seen more trust worthy sites accidentally allow a bad advertisement through than I have seen them get hacked and a virus embedded into them. But even so, while viruses and the like are the number 1 reason I use adblock, they aren't the only reason. When it comes down to it, ads are just plain obnoxious.

 

In short: Malicious ads are the reason why I enabled it to begin with, the annoyance and constant threat of a malicious ad are why I keep it enabled on all sites.

 

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.

They did, it's called TiVo/DVR and for older shows, there's Netflix. :tongue:

 

In case you're wondering, DVR service can be expensive. But fortunately there are other options outside of pricey DVR services from service providers. Your computer is one great option. You will, sometimes, pay more upfront for a capture card, but after a while it'll cost less than the service. You also wont be forced to watch the videos on your computer. Personally I don't like watching videos on my computer, so I stream them to my TV through my PS3/Xbox. But there are TVs and Blu-Ray players now that can play video files too. Some can even stream from the computer.

 

The way I look at it is if I want something, I'll buy it. I can say with 100% certainty that I've never seen an add for a product that made me say "I gotta have that", I do my own research. In fact if a company annoys me with advertisements then I'm less likely to buy their product.

So you didn't see the Skyrim trailer and immediately think: "OMG YES!" ???

 

I certainly did. There are also other ads that have made me want something. For example, the glorious Bacon Bacon Cheeseburger from Jack in the Box. I see this had for this amazing, holy hamburger loaded with bacon and I think to myself what a wonderful world. :tongue:

 

It's them potentially getting in my bank data that worries me the most, at present I ain't got enough in there to lose any of it.

I think you missed the point, which was that advertisers aren't getting that information from your computer, but from the credit card company you applied for.

[Deleted472477User]

I use Adblock because last year I got not one, but TWO deeply rooted Malware instances that in both cases came though via ads on perfectly legit websites (Deviant Art and WoWhead) that cost me 200 dollars each time to have removed by professionals because they were the sort that basically held your pc for ransom unless you paid 50 dollars for the bogus security system. Doing additional research the second time (McAfee never did jack crap to catch or remove either instance) I discovered Malwarebytes, Adblock, and Firefox were the safest ways to go.

 

I can't afford to shell out tons of money to remove viruses and malware, so I have to use Adblock. I will also say that when the ads were running here, I did get another malware, but fortunately Malwarebytes was able to rid it. As long as I keep Adblock on, I'm usually safe (though I did pick up annoying Google Redirect garbage which sometimes takes you to sites riddled with even more viruses and malware and some virus that caused random sound clips to play and both of those had to be rid professionally as well, thankfully this machine was still under warranty).

Edited November 5, 2012 by nyxalinth

[Beriallord]

Avast pre-boot scan finds a lot of nasty stuff that some of the other antivirus programs overlook.

 

There have been a lot of Java security exploits recently, and I got 6 in 1 month and my Java was up to date, so I just uninstalled Java from my PC. Nothing I really need requires Java, so its nothing but a security risk for my PC.

[JanusForbeare]

It's about as unethical as muting your TV and going to get a beer during the commercials.

[Thor.]

Whats unethical tis the advertisement "Trackers" they sell your information to the highest bidder without your knowledge.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-cwcWiB8mU

 

 

here is what i mean, and a demonstration of what i am talking about.

 

Its not the advertisement in general i am against, its the tracking they do behind your back that i am really against.

Edited November 6, 2012 by Thor.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

I use Noscript, but it has more or less the same effect on ads. I generally don't mind ads that are tasteful and nonintrusive, but most ads just aren't simple little banner image/links anymore. Many of them expand, or have animations or sounds when moused over, so that in the process of moving to click on something else one might bump the ad and trigger something irritating. Java or flash based ads make pages take longer to load, and often load after the main content in such a way as to make it shift around on the page, thereby disrupting my experience of the content. That is also irritating... but only irritating. Not enough to warrant blocking. I find that those techniques make me want to avoid the product being advertised, but in-your-face ads exist because they have been proven to work. Even though I hate that business model, I can't say that it is inherently wrong.

 

The stubborn insistence on using intrusive advertising techniques is what frustrates me enough to block the ads. Last I checked, I did not consent to have my browsing habits tracked when I linked to your site (no, an ex-post-facto disclaimer at the bottom of a page doesn't count- the page would have to display a warning page before loading if it wanted to claim it had sought consent). I will concede the point that I consented to be advertised to by linking to a page that could have ads on it, but that does not give the page, its owners, or its advertisers the right to turn around and put things on my system. I don't give half a rat's ass how harmless a cookie is, if I did not ask for it (by, for instance, logging in or using a site feature), then I don't want it. Even if it's harmless clutter, it's still clutter, and it still makes a mess if it's allowed to stack up. It's just like junkmail- somebody else is puking their unsolicited crap into my space, then I have to go and clean it up. Once it reaches the point of something getting installed on my computer without my knowledge or consent, I draw the line. Since there is no way of knowing beforehand that a particular site's ads will or won't install cookies, I err on the side of caution and block the whole lot of them. I don't feel bad about blocking advertisements because the advertisers use unethical methods.

[Nintii]

It's about as unethical as muting your TV and going to get a beer during the commercials.

 

Honestly, that 's it in a nutshell ... I couldn't care a less how the ad company feels or about how many gazillions

they've spent on the ad or which social group they support.

Don't make your problem my problem, I'm also in business and the money we spend monthly on ads are very

wisely spent.

We only spend in our specific niche market and not scatter shot like a shotgun hoping to get a hit somewhere by

going to grey areas.

Too many companies hire lousey ad agencies who waste their money.

 

My philosophy is this; instead of spending more money and time looking for new customers, just try to sell more to

the existing ones, after all your foot is already in the door.

Or reinvent yourself like Kentucky Fried Chicken did.

 

Besides most ads are uninspired and boring.

Edited November 7, 2012 by Nintii