Should adblocking be against the law?
- Thread starter aimeeandbeatles
- Start date
Fine, I'll forward all the spam from my inbox to your email address and tell the companies that stuff my snailmailbox with flyers to send that your way, too.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
I was about to make a similar point with video taping your favorite TV show and then fast-forwarding through the commercials.
Gustave5436
Emperor
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2008
- Messages
- 1,319
Needs an "advertising should be against the law" option.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
Yes, that would be a genius move. Now tell me how you'd find where the grocery store is, because signage is advertising.
Gustave5436
Emperor
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2008
- Messages
- 1,319
Save the reductio ad absurdum for an actual debate. I don't literally mean outlaw all advertising, I just mean that just as there are pro-advertising options, there needs to be anti-advertising option(s).
I don't think I've found a single shop in Edinburgh via advertising, I've either seeked it out, or explored.
Maybe word of mouth could be advertising (that knocks one or two shops out, not many though).
Yes, there are quite a few sites and video streaming services that either won't work or display a notice when an ad blocker is being used. It's certainly doable
It certainly shouldn't be illegal and I don't see how they could possibly enforce that kind of law
It may not be entirely ethical but then again neither are most ads and scripts that I block, such as
- Pop ups
- "You're the 3,205,356,193rd visitor. Congrats you've won!"
- "Click here to claim your FREE* iPod (*not free)"
- Bright, flashing banners
- Ads hosted by some shady Chinese company that are vulnerable to malware and exploits
- Porn and other NSFW ads
- Mouse-over flash ads that either play some incredibly annoying sounds (like those "next-gen smilies") or resizes itself so that it blocks half of the screen
- Scripts that go through the entire web page and transform some of the text into hyperlinks that show "relevant information". They make it hard to tell real links from ads and are usually performance killers
azzaman333
meh
Adblock should be improved so that aimee's posts cannot be seen.
I can just imagine a police state with a guy behind you with a gun to your back, forcing you to obey the law of reading each and every spam e-mail that you receive as well as give it some thought.
*click, moves on to next one*
"I didn't hear contemplation!!" *gun
**click* "Ooh, good deal, but I'm not looking for a house right now..."
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
Then it would be wise of you to say what you mean from now on, rather than making broad statements that can easily be taken either out of context or explained to be ridiculous.
I'm confused as to how you think sites which don't obtain revenue from selling things should be able to support themselves. Donations aren't reliable enough.
My god they are annoying. I wish there was an option on MSN to get rid of those perpetual resizing adverts at the bottom. Even if you drag the window so that the advert is off the bottom of the screen, the clever bastards ensure that when you reopen the window it's back near the centre.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
Yeah, well, we have a right to free speech, Bill!
Mise
isle of lucy
That's not true -- some adverts are indeed pay per view ("impression"). Some companies are advertising products or information and want the user to click the advert and come to the site. But others simply want their brand or product to be viewed and made familiar to as many people as possible. It's the same thing as traditional paper, TV or radio advertising, where there's nothing to "click", and is just an exercise in brand recognition. Sometimes, it's not even about brand, but just about getting information across, such as government campaigns to stop smoking etc (I call them "nagverts", cos they keep on nagging you to do something). These adverts are usually designed in such a way that fewer people will click on them, so will generate less revenue for the website; a website might either drop those adverts entirely or charge the advertiser per impression instead of per click.
I'm assuming either the apatch or any messaging client other than the official WLM fixes this... I've been using MSN for years, and have never seen what you're talking about.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
You must have an old or hacked version then - or are not looking in the right place (right at the bottom of your contacts list) - it cycles through videos and news stories I could hardly care about - such as "Britney's leg gets chopped off in horrific accident", "Brad Pitt takes huge dump", etc.
It didn't exist in the old versions, but these adverts have been a feature for a while now. Perhaps it only came into being when they renamed it "Windows Live Messenger", I'm not sure. If you're running WLM, check below the slightly less but still pretty annoying "What's new" feed.
Obviously, I'm either running the apatch, or am on an alternate client, and have been for all the years I've been using MSN...
Similar threads
- Poll
