> Modern online advertising companies are malicious entities that actively harm users, and I absolutely classify them as malware.
This is exactly the response for anyone that is frustrated by blocking ads impacting revenue for web publishers. Had the ad tech not become so invasive and pernicious, users wouldn't be going out of the way for solutions like this. The advertisers have essentially forced our hand.
Where I feel my hand was forced was when a friend wanted help promoting a professional conference in the area of data and tech. I went to the website and, in the center of the page, there was an ad for cellulite cream.
OH! C'MON!!! I believe in the conference, but I'm not going to share the link with that ad on it.
It's been explained to me that the website owners don't know what ads are being served up. All they know is they signed up for an ad service. If that ad is a redirect to a porn site, the website owner has no clue unless people complain.
And that's why I ordered a raspberry-pi to set up a pi-hole.
I get that a lot of my friends won't like this. They're in advertising and marketing, and they insist that they're one of the good ones. Fine. But the bad ones are REALLY bad.
Also. I've spent HOURS opting out of tracking cookies. Then I heard that my effort is only as good as the entities that respect that I opted out. OH? WOW!
So, when I hear people complain that we're hurting them, and they're one of the good ones, it ignores the real problem. Look ...
if I was bitten by 10 dogs out of 50 dogs, I'm gonna have a problem with dogs. Period. You can insist on how friendly your dog is, but no. Talk to the other dog owners before trying to get me to take another risk.
> if I was bitten by 10 dogs out of 50 dogs, I'm gonna have a problem with dogs. Period. You can insist on how friendly your dog is, but no. Talk to the other dog owners before trying to get me to take another risk.
Exactly my stance on whitelisting advertising. I am sure there is a good amount of fair advertisers out there, but the area at large is full of scum.
I would start with a full-on disable of 3rd party JS but I know that would break a whole lot of other and actually needed functionality. So I have no good solution except not to trust anyone. Pi-Hole is my next stop as well.
Exactly. I believe Troy has another post about this topic where he discusses why he's able to justify selling the single, static banner ad at the top of his site.
This is exactly the response for anyone that is frustrated by blocking ads impacting revenue for web publishers. Had the ad tech not become so invasive and pernicious, users wouldn't be going out of the way for solutions like this. The advertisers have essentially forced our hand.