Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love. (from 2010)

reply to post by seagull


Excuse me I believe you called me a liar, not the other way around, I was merely pointing out that I was not. Im sure there are plenty of regular users who never suffer a problem, it will depend on various factors including you geoip location and what times of day you use the site.

I know as well the site admin have gone out of their way to try and resolve the problem, but perhaps if they didnt stick quite so many over the top intrusive adds on the site in the first place the problem would never have come up.

Originally posted by Kr0n0s
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

If doing whats necessary to prevent something malicious from ever reaching you PC is lazy, then the same could be said for the people running Mcafee or any other program that intercepts a virus before it has a chance to execute.

And i guess that configuring my router to filter out certain scripts is being lazy too?
by the way its called being proactive, not lazy.
Didnt your grandma every tell you that "an ounce of preventions is worth a pound of cure?"

Prevention is one thing, but removing the revenue from your favorite websites because one or two adds a year give you some sort of minor problem, then it is lazy.

I mean seriously, the only way you know if something is trying to get in, is because your software that is BUILT to prevent such things from getting in tells you, so it's already dealt with at that level. What's the point of blocking the adds other than the visual aspect?

~Keeper

I only block ads that make noise.

Everything else does not bother me at all.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

good thing i have silver status.

I have not seen an ad on ATS in a looong time.

I almost miss those little faces saying

OMG NO WAY!!!

actually, no i don't.

I dont run add blockers though, i see add-ons, or any kind of add-on strips away my computers resources.

Yeah I don't see adds, exept for the banner on the side. The chick with her mouth wide open, which is pretty comical actually..

The path to no adds starts with contribution to the website. People forget the more you give here the more you get.

~Keeper

[edit on 3/7/2010 by tothetenthpower]

Originally posted by gYvMessanger
I wont leave myself open to malicious software though.

We've constantly exemplified a responsible and proactive approach toward our ads. When we receive verifiable reports, we kill the ads. Have you helped us by providing data by which we can track-down and remove ads that behave inappropriately?

We're also paying a sizable sum to have all our ads scanned several dozen times an hour for hits in consumer malware scanners, as well as Google Safe Browsing domain hits. This is being done by the leading firm in banner ad accountability.

Finally, we're not using any ad networks that are notorious for a low-level of oversight such that malicious ads sneak through (though it can still happen from time to time), and have never used "ad exchanges" that allow anyone with a credit card to place online banner ads... the source of 99% of all malicious banner advertising.

Originally posted by gYvMessanger
...but there are plenty of regular community members who will tell you a very different story.

Since I'm the one being constantly public about maintaining a trusted environment here on ATS, why aren't you and those "regular community members" telling that different story to me?

I'm sorry, but unless you're feeding me data of what's hitting you, I'm reluctant to believe you. That's just the way it is.

I do most of my browsing on ATS on an HP laptop, running Vista and IE7, with low-level protection -- and I do nothing else with that laptop. Additionally, when I'm busy with other items, that machine runs an automated script that cycles through all our ads from all our providers. While I've received "potentially malicious domain" alerts from a few ads (but still loaded the ad), I've never become infected with anything malicious.

We have two members openly declaring they are violating our Terms And Conditions of use by employing ad blockers and essentially free-loading off their fellow members.

They are now banned for violating the TAC.

The only way this site (and thousands more like it) can stay up and functioning is by generating revenue from advertising. To safeguard our members and visitors we go the extra mile and pay additional money every month for a contract company to scan each and every ad that gets presented here for any malware.

In the past (before we hired this service) there have been three, that's right only three, confirmed ads that slipped through the cracks and caused some problems. Once we had useful data to track them down with we eliminated them and fired one of the ad networks that were serving them.

The vast majority of the complaints were actually viruses that were acquired via email or "nasty sites" that laid low until the user logged onto one of their favorite/bookmarked sites (ATS in this case) to make it appear the malware came from the site.

The most recent bout of genuinely bad ads that slipped through was a huge campaign that affected whole networks of sites big and small. The dreaded ".pdf".

It was carefully crafted to be undetectable and because of that craftiness it really didn't do anything other than drive the infected a little mad. It couldn't actually harm your hardware it could only make your software wonky.

We immediately took action once we actually KNEW (finally) what we were looking for.

The bottom line is this, if you use this site and you enjoy this site, allow the ads. If you don't, you are cheating what you like out of its ability to survive.

We know it's the advertising network's responsibility to make sure the ads they serve are clean, we also know they aren't very good at it in some cases. That's why we signed on with Gorilla Nation and are working diligently to get the majority of our ads from direct sales and served by our trusted partners rather than the huge networks.

Nothing is perfect and as long as the scammers and spammers can make money off pushing malware we will have to fight the good fight. Rest assured we will.

Springer...

Originally posted by Springer
We have two members openly declaring they are violating our Terms And Conditions of use by employing ad blockers and essentially free-loading off their fellow members.

They are now banned for violating the TAC.

Hey Springer, whilst I'm all for the upholding of the T&Cs, especially in light of keeping the site afloatm I'm not sure that your action here was necessarily ATS-y.

We also get members here who proclaim they are from planet X and are here on a mission of Y as well as 100% predictions that never come true as well as those from a higher plane and...well you know the drill. All talk no evidence.

Is it not possible that those 2 members who claimed to be running adblocking software were doing just that - 'claiming'?

Again I'm behind you here - but either let those who claim without proof all get banned or let everyone claim without proof and, well, get away with it.

I know I'm in the camp of ditch em', but I also know that claimers generate traffic for the site, and traffic means ad hits.

So claimers are just claimers and are entitled to their delusions which are unverifiable or claimers who claim something which you can't verify but goes against your own grain get booted?

Which is it?

-m0r

Got to say, I have never had any problem on the site as regards to the ads.. I think if you enjoy the site and get plenty out of it then what is the problem in allowing the ads to appear?? Its either that or watch your favorite site disappear....

It really IS a very tiny price to pay for access to a site where you have the privilege of of interacting with some of the most intelligent people in the world who are experts on many subjects... You get more out than you put in...

reply to post by m0r1arty


If your dumb enough to break the rules, or pretend to, out some weird misplaced sense of authority, then you deserve to get banned.

Period.

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Again, I'm behind that, just can't we extend it to all the others that claim nonsense too?

Just saying since proof is proof and people are innocent until proven guilty (well at least in a proper democracy).

-m0r

Originally posted by Springer
We have two members openly declaring they are violating our Terms And Conditions of use by employing ad blockers and essentially free-loading off their fellow members.

They are now banned for violating the TAC.

Not very smart in my opinion. You have just made it impossible to talk about the problem with Adblock on this site, leading to no change in behavior for your members.

The way to get through to people is to discuss why ads are necessary and explain why its important that they dont disable them if they enjoy this site.

Is the pop-up blocker that comes with Firefox considered a add blocker , or are they two different things?

reply to post by Copernicus


Did you read the rest (huge majority) of my post?

Springer...

reply to post by bluemooone2


Logged-in members don't receive pop-ups, and guests will get no more than two in a 24 hour period.

But generally, we're not concerned about pop-blocking.

reply to post by bluemooone2


No, addblock is an add on, the pop up blocker is not against the T&C as far as I am concerned.

~Keeper

Admin,

You guy's might want to send member wide U2U to see this, a lot of people might not read it. If the effects are this devastating to the site and possible banning of members, it is an important issue.

I admit it had been quite a while since reading the T&C, and I started running adblocker pretty recently and did not realize I was in violation. I turned it off for ATS

Originally posted by Springer
reply to post by Copernicus

 

Did you read the rest (huge majority) of my post?

Springer...

Yes I did, and I knew you would say that.

But this thread will soon be gone and forgotten. If you instead explain why ads need to be allowed by people instead of banning them in the future, you will get much better results from this community. People will feel encouraged to help the site get revenue instead of feeling worried they might say something about Adblock that gets them banned.

Sites are easily whitelisted in Adblock. People just need to understand why they should do it for the sites they like. Threatening to ban people will make them keep the adblock and just dont tell you about it. I think you know thats true.

Send out a mail every month and explain why ads are needed. You may be surprised at the number of people who will start to accept the ads, increasing your revenues in the future. Or maybe Im naive. But its worth a shot.


[edit on 7-3-2010 by Copernicus]

There are plenty of sites on the internet with higher traffic ranking than ATS who do not need to resort to advertisements in order to bay the bills. I think it's pretty disgusting that a site would prohibit the use of adblockers in their t&c and more so for actually banning users who opt for them. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. Why not set up donations and let people pay what they feel is appropriate for the value the site gives rather than shovel ads down their throat.



[edit on 7-3-2010 by fumanchu]