AdBlocker ATS may be breaking EU law

a reply to: Sargeras
then you should love the internet, since it's still rather cheap to advertise on it compared to other media. especially if you know how to. the problem is so many jump in without any clue how to do it. that's where the pop up ads, and crap comes into the picture.

originally posted by: ispyed
Advertising on the internet is an emotive subject for many. I read a dreadful article earlier in a newspaper reporting on a survey conducted by an advertising company claiming that adblockers were breaking the internet The article is a load of rubbish as it was written by an advertising company.

I work in this business, and although I hate ad-heavy sites I absolutely agree with the notion that ad-blockers are going to significantly damage the internet.

People have gotten used to the notion that all these sites are here as charities, that somehow they manage to pay for their servers with pixie dust or unicorn turds. The truth is that 99% of the free sites you visit only exist because they earn an income from advertising or sponsorship.

The Tubes you watch have banner ads to make money.
The blogs you read have ads to make money and write posts for sponsors.
The forums you're a member of make money through ads.

Unless you are paying a subscription to a site, it makes its money through advertising.

I think this is a generational thing and those who remember the Internet of the 90's, and indeed life without it entirely, seem to understand that nothing is free. Younger people seem to imagine that the vast expenses of a site like ATS is all magically dealt with by some mystery means they are unaware of.

If ad-blocking becomes the norm, and sites like this one can no longer earn enough to cover the costs, these sites will shut down.

The only way a site like ATS could manage to continue would be through a subscription service, or through sponsored posts. Even then, the revenues from that would be greatly reduced and likely mean that the site would have to close.

You don't get these sites for nothing, this is not a charity, if you want to keep using free sites like ATS you have no option but to accept ads.


Edited to add:
As I'm in this business I know that many sites are looking at ways to divert ad-blocking visitors from viewing their content. In the future, if you go to a site and you choose to block the ads on it, you'll likely be sent to Google instead, until you turn off that blocking. If I'm running a blog and my income comes from ads, why should I let you use my site if you block the only way I can make money?

a reply to: Rocker2013

Well said!

Was not that long ago when the ads on tv were all by the company that sponsored that particular show.
That's how our tv shows were delivered to us with at no cost to ourselves.

Not sure how the kids today would react to that, Lol.

a reply to: quercusrex

most of the tv channels are still funded by advertising, only now we have to pay the cable company to deliver them.
same with radio. even newspapers, who obtain a large portion of their funds from subscription and sales of the newspaper, rely on advertising to increase their revenue. why should the internet be different. I'd love to know the amount of revenue ats gets through donation compared to the actual cost of the site. and I have to say, the hackers attacking sites left and right just increases the need for added revenue, thus ads.

a reply to: ispyed

". If the internet was not so expensive to use I would not use a blocker but I do not see why I should pay to receive ads and waste my bandwidth allocation thank you very much. "

I only run a pop up blocker (for very good reason), but wow, I really do agree with the bandwidth thing. I'm rural, on LTE/cellular and it eats up bandwidth to the point that last month I used up 10 gigabytes and had to turn off all cellular for the last few days of my billing period, even after buying an extra gig.
Plus Canada, rural, is one of the most expensive places for internet cost.
I'm guessing this month will be similar.
I'm working on my internet addiction- can't afford the advertising. 😕

Disable adblocker for ATS. Click on a link or video on ATS...Adverts, adverts adverts....

originally posted by: DAVID64
...ATS has to make money to run the site

Yes.
Here's an idea that will meet and exceed the advertising company's requirement to read the ads.

If a gamemaster would like for me to do this, sure, i'll do it.

I can write a macro or an applescript script to continuously "click on," "click thru"
an advertiser's ad, down as many levels (derivative UIC's) as required, to trigger a
reward to ATS via the advertising company. The macro would click thru, clear the web
browser (rinse and repeat), pick another proxy server, and start over.

I can run the macro all night long or all week long or whatever, let it proxy around, and produce hundreds and hundreds of clicks thru in order to more than satisfy the
advertising company's employee staff.

Surely, this would meet and exceed the requirements imposed by the advertising company.

Regards.

Just read this ... www.theregister.co.uk...

a reply to: Adonsa

I'm not sure that it is but somehow that feels a little unethical to me.

From that article:

Alexander Hanff, a privacy campaigner and programmer, says he has received a letter from the European Commission confirming that browser-side web scripts that pick out advert blockers access people's personal data (ie: the plugin stored on their computer). Thus, just like you need to give permission to EU websites to access and store your cookies, ad-blocker detectors must ask for permission before probing your browser.

That part underlined (by me) above shows where this may fail, as the easiest method doesn't need to get a list of plugins.

PS: getting a list of plugins is worthless if we don't know the names of all plugins or if the browser code itself blocks ads.

originally posted by: ispyed
I read this article this morning which seems relevant to ATS users in Europe. The EU thinks that the running of an anti ad-blocker script which I assume the ATS site does is against EU cookie law.

It's only specific to EU-based websites that run scripts to see what plugins/add-ons are installed in the browser. First, we're not EU, so it doesn't apply. Second, we're not looking to see what plugins are installed, only for the specific action an ad-blocker plugin would take.

Advertising on the internet is an emotive subject for many. I read a dreadful article earlier in a newspaper reporting on a survey conducted by an advertising company claiming that adblockers were breaking the internet The article is a load of rubbish as it was written by an advertising company.

It's not a load of rubbish, and is very true. Especially true for smaller independent online publishers such as ATS.

And yes, there are many cases in which the ad blockers break the intended functionality of some web pages that aren't displaying ads. It's a rather serious issue with some out-of-the-box forum software solutions.

originally posted by: Adonsa
I can write a macro or an applescript script to continuously "click on," "click thru"
an advertiser's ad, down as many levels (derivative UIC's) as required, to trigger a
reward to ATS via the advertising company.

First, all our ads pay on visible impressions, not clicks.

Second, there are several vendors in the advertising ecosystem (DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science, Ad-Juster, Media Trust, AdExpose, TRUSTe, to name a few) supply chain that prevent both click and viewability fraud. For example, if you've ever seen an ad banner that's blue with white clouds, your ad impression has been tagged as possible fraud -- it typically happens with Internet power-users who visit hundreds of pages in the course of a couple hours or less.

originally posted by: quercusrex
a reply to: Adonsa

I'm not sure that it is but somehow that feels a little unethical to me.

It is, and ad serving companies know how to recognize it, and ban those doing it from using their services.
By doing something like this you would only be damaging ATS's chance to use ad delivery services to make money.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: ispyed

In what way would ATS be governed by EU laws?

Considering it's an American company? I'm pretty sure SO has already posted about this being a non issue due to a variety of factors.

~Tenth

It simply because when a company wishes to conduct business in any country that company is subject to the laws of that country. This is not debatable.

originally posted by: Rocker2013

I work in this business, and although I hate ad-heavy sites I absolutely agree with the notion that ad-blockers are going to significantly damage the internet.

People have gotten used to the notion that all these sites are here as charities, that somehow they manage to pay for their servers with pixie dust or unicorn turds. The truth is that 99% of the free sites you visit only exist because they earn an income from advertising or sponsorship.

Without going into too much detail (I do respect my own privacy) but I'm one of the people that helped build the (public) Internet in the early 1990s. We did NOT have ads. We had VERY high costs. We not only had to pay for our own servers, rackspace, routers and modems banks (yes, we still had these) etc. but we also had to help create the then non-existing national Internet infrastructure out of thin air. Nobody ever earned a dime, we were volunteers and proud to be.

We had to invest heavily: time, money, all from our private funds. Actually - hard to believe now, but it's true - we weren't even able to loan a dime from a bank whom simply said that "the Internet" was nothing more than a toy for engineers, and the public would never use it (!). We bought some servers from our own money, we begged and got old left over stuff from Unisys, NCR and Cisco - we even employed the oldest still working Cisco router in Europe for a few years - all without ads.

And we pulled it off. We set up a foundation, and we had members, that payed for our services per hour. No ads. Whenever possible, we'd lower the fees - no ads. We were strictly non-profit- no ads. In the end we were able to offer full Internet access for a fixed, low price - no ads.

Ads are NOT an "essential part of the Internet". They are obtrusive, often quite dumb and consume bandwith and time - all exactly what we, the pioneers, tried to avoid.

By all means, do as you please - but don't tell lies about the ads being "an essential part of the Internet".

originally posted by: JohnthePhilistine

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: ispyed

In what way would ATS be governed by EU laws?

Considering it's an American company? I'm pretty sure SO has already posted about this being a non issue due to a variety of factors.

~Tenth

It simply because when a company wishes to conduct business in any country that company is subject to the laws of that country. This is not debatable.

Of course it's debatable! ATS servers are in the USA. When us Europeans visit the site, we're accessing the site through the US servers. I'm sitting in England and all my posts exist in the USA end of cyberspace.

originally posted by: Kandinsky
Of course it's debatable! ATS servers are in the USA. When us Europeans visit the site, we're accessing the site through the US servers. I'm sitting in England and all my posts exist in the USA end of cyberspace.

You are a British citizen and as such, to you, British law applies. So, if the Brits decide that you aren't allowed to post something in the US, you can't. Even if you're in the States, it does not matter: as a subject of the Queen you are bound to her Laws. If it would be illegal for a British citizen to support an intrusive system that posts ads on other folks computer, you would be punishable under the Law.

Courts and lawmakers are still developing a body of case law and legislation addressing online rights and obligations and not all courts and lawmakers agree. But there are some general rules:

• If you create or exercise physical control over Internet content (such as words, pictures, designs, etc.), you will likely be responsible for damage you cause, as would be the case in any other medium
  
• If it is within your power to exercise control over content and you learn it is infringing another's rights or a law, you will likely be liable if you do nothing about it
  
• If you directly or knowingly infringe the rights of another, such as violating someone's copyright (downloading music, plagiarizing writings, etc.), you will be liable for damages caused
  
• If you unintentionally or indirectly infringe the rights of another after exercising due diligence, you may still be liable but there may be a reduction in damages awarded by a court
  
• If you use the Internet to commit an act elsewhere that is illegal in the UK you can still be held responsible under British law
  
  So, if you assist an American company when they infringe the EU laws, you could be held liable under British Law.
  
  (This is not to be seen as legal advice, usual disclaimers apply).

a reply to: Kandinsky

So if you are watching kiddy porn, from a US server, you are not breaking UK law?


I should have let ForteanOrg handle that ridiculous reply. I went to UNM.

a reply to: JohnthePhilistine

UoL here

a reply to: ForteanOrg

There is nothing to prevent the ATS owners from identifying people using adblocker. Whether you agree or not, the owners will continue to dissuade members from using adblocker.