"I can't pay $12/month for every one of them"
And why would you ?
They're all basically just copying each others articles anyway !
It's time for a discussion about malvertising
I don't know that I can afford to read the news anymore. As a columnist for several tech magazines I find this somewhat ironic, but my occupation makes the truth of it no less real. Technology can solve this problem for me, but politics probably won't allow it. News can be consumed in a few different ways. The first through …
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Thursday 4th August 2016 16:56 GMT fung0
Re: "I can't pay $12/month for every one of them"
A far better solution than Blendie would be Flattr, or Flattr Plus, which allow users to set their own total budget, which is then split automatically among the sites they use most. The existing Flattr (co-founded by one of the creators of the Pirate Bay) lets readers use a button on each participating site, in order to allocate funds. Flattr Plus is in development, a partnership with Adblock Plus, and allocates funds automatically (using analysis performed on the user's system).
The nicest thing about Flattr is that 90% of the money goes to the site, the remaining 10% combining Flattr's profit and any fees to payment processors. The 30% 'Apple tax' rate is far too high for this sort of service. Apple operates a store, whereas here we're talking about simply doing a bit of back-end accounting for sites run by independent content providers.
There are obvious concerns with privacy, but I think Flattr may have the commitment to do it as well as it needs. Better yet, if this type of model catches on, I can't see any reason there couldn't be many overlapping monetization schemes operating simultaneously, offering different degrees of privacy - and, perhaps, setting different types of profit-sharing.
If nothing else, even moderate success of alternative monetization schemes - including Flattr, Blendie, Patreon, or whatever - would create a strong restraint on the activities of Web advertisers.
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Friday 29th July 2016 10:52 GMT nijam
Leaving aside the question of malware, there has to be some concern over how reporting can ever be impartial when funded from commercial sources. The UK is lucky enough to have the BBC which is relatively unbiased (given that all politician claim it's biased against them). OTOH, many US TV stations are notoriously averse to reporting anything that might upset their sponsors.
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Wednesday 3rd August 2016 20:13 GMT td97402
Speaking of the BBC...
Don't they get their from an annual TV license fee on every TV set? Along those lines, what if we had a mechanism where we charge ISPs for the content they download for their users that they have to pay to content providers?
Something along the lines of 25 cents per gigabyte or something. Every registered content provider would get a slice of the coin based on how much content they provide to the ISP's customers. Probably your NetFlixes and Hulus would continue to charge on their own for their premium media content but regular web publishers could dispense with most of their crappy advertising and other sketchy content.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:03 GMT Andrew Commons
A discussion has already occured
On May 15 2014 According to a US Senate investigation, the current state of online advertising endangers the security and privacy of users. You can get the report via this page:
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/online-advertising-and-hidden-hazards-to-consumer-security-and-data-privacy
It highlights the problems with the ad networks and the degree to which they are being abused. Unfortunately not much more seems to have come of it.
I have been confronted with an alert from a news web site demanding I turn off my ad blocker along with an alert from my AV software saying it blocked malicious content far too many times to consider dropping my shields.
My solution is to visit diverse news outlets that are reasonably trustworthy along with reliable free sites. In general the free sites are far better quality and actually contain news rather than click bait dressed up as news.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 13:52 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: A discussion has already occured
"Unfortunately not much more seems to have come of it."
Not much needs to come of it. We're capable of taking action individually without waiting for any govt. to act. In any case I presume that if any action came of a Senate investigation it would only apply in the US (no matter how they seem to believe they can legislate world wide) so for the rest of us it's even more important that we don't have to depend on them.
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Friday 29th July 2016 11:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
We can't tell them how much they should be paid..
... because running a true news organization has costs. Investigative journalism, broad coverage around the world are expensive. A "classic" newspaper here is costs you about 300-500 euro per year (if bought daily, no subscription). Could they sustain their organization with 50/100 per year per reader? What the number of paying readers for the break even point? Is it feasible?
Unluckily, even those asking you for a subscription are so eager to make money their sites are full of clickbaits. Which in turn makes them even less appealing to pay a subscription for, it that is the average quality. But no one dares to chance the approach, because they are continuously told on-line ads will make you rich - no one tell them the truth that only those who control online advertisement (Google and a few others) make money. All the others just lose. No one dares to call "the king is naked", though.
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Monday 1st August 2016 16:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: We can't tell them how much they should be paid..
>$100/month for proper, no-holds-barred investigative journalism? Sign me up. SIGN ME THE FNORD UP.
The problem is those that really need to be investigated usually have the ability to make those investigating disappear one way or another.
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Friday 29th July 2016 12:57 GMT Doctor Syntax
"Baby Boomers keep dying of old age and Millennials use ad blockers."
I find the first part of this deeply worrying. I'm slightly too old to be a Boomer so the thought that people younger then me are dying of old age.... Just no!
Nevertheless my advanced years are no reason not to use an adblocker.
The problem, and its potential solution, must lie with the publishers coming to understand their audience. They need to realise that it's the nature of the adverts which causes blockers to be used, not the ads themselves. Apart from malvertising, which is sufficient reason in itself, we have annoying animations, booming sound and all manner of other offensiveness, including tracking.
The publishers need to take control and ban any form of active ad: no sound, no Flash, no JS or other coding. Just embed them in the page then they won't get blocked and not so many that they become such an annoyance that readers just avoid the site altogether. Embedded ads, of course, can be tuned to the content of the page which itself is an indication of what the reader's interested in so no need to track.
I don't think there's a great deal of time for the publishers to turn round on this. At some point the advertisers - the real advertisers, those with a product to sell - will realise that because they've been driven to use adblockers others will also be using them, their ads aren't going to get through so there's no point in wasting money on the
snake-oil salesmenadvertising industry.-
Friday 29th July 2016 16:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
"there's no point in wasting money on the [...] advertising industry."
As advertising can be classed as a business expense it's tax-deductable, so the effective cost to someone wanting to advertise a product is considerably less than the price they pay to the advertising agencies. This is the underlying reason that there's so much advertising.
It also means that advertising is effectively subsidised by the relevant tax-collecting government.
TBH, I can't see many governments complaining about a reduction in unbiased and investigative journalism.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 13:57 GMT Doctor Syntax
"As advertising can be classed as a business expense it's tax-deductable, so the effective cost to someone wanting to advertise a product is considerably less than the price they pay to the advertising agencies."
Money spent to alienate potential customers is still money spent. It comes off the pre-tax profits. Let me translate that into business-speak: it comes off the profits. The govt. take on profits is a separate matter.
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Friday 29th July 2016 19:33 GMT Down not across
The publishers need to take control and ban any form of active ad: no sound, no Flash, no JS or other coding. Just embed them in the page then they won't get blocked and not so many that they become such an annoyance that readers just avoid the site altogether.
Exactly.
The appearance of an ad (or few) on a page is not the issue. It is the form the ads take, and the security implications due to the active nature of the ads.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 14:04 GMT Doctor Syntax
"KISS principle works here, simple static ads are not worth blocking or worry about the bandwidth they use."
I'm not sure of the exact point.
Embedded ads aren't going to be blocked anyway if they're coming from the publisher's server (although it's possible to block them if the publisher uses a different server than that used for the page content). As soon as the publisher hands matters over to a separate network they've lost control. Even if some advertiser tries to send simple static ads over that network they'll get blocked by ad blockers because, on the KISS principle, it's not worth the effort of differentiating them from the problem ads so as to not block them.
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Saturday 30th July 2016 00:31 GMT Trevor_Pott
Re: "The ad networks see no percentage in ensuring clean ads"
The problem with a market-driven approach is that, inevitably - and probably quite quickly - the "trusted ads" network will become a monopoly. Shortly thereafter they'll expand what they offer. Moving ads. Video ads. Scripts. The next thing you know we're right back at malvertising, except that there is now only one advertising provider and they hold all the cards.
So long as there is a percentage in using malware-like techniques to advertise at you, they will build a system to do so, and we will pay the price. The only secure alternative is to forgo those kinds of ads. That means NOT using a mainstream ad network...or using subscriptions/pay-per-view.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 14:13 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: "The ad networks see no percentage in ensuring clean ads"
"Shortly thereafter they'll expand what they offer."
Yup. That's why I wrote "trustable" in my comment. As for us all paying the price - no we won't because we'll not trust them enough in the first place to turn off the blockers. The advertising industry has done irreparable harm to its business model. It's time for the publishers to get out and work out their own salvation.
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Sunday 31st July 2016 14:09 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: "The ad networks see no percentage in ensuring clean ads"
"someone will come up with the concept of Trusted Ads...Then we will be able to turn off our adblockers."
Only if the ads are actually trusted by users, let alone trustable. I think the idea of advertising networks is now so broken than nobody's going to bother turning off blockers to find out.
Maybe a couple of years ago that was a possibility. The advertising industry has spent too long crapping in its nest so now, from the users' PoV, they've all got some sticking to them.
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Thursday 4th August 2016 17:08 GMT fung0
Re: "The ad networks see no percentage in ensuring clean ads"
Pascal Monett: "Someday someone will come up with the concept of Trusted Ads, and that one will take the market."
Ad Block Plus has had a 'Trusted Ads' system for some years, under that very name. It's referred to by the ad industry as "extortion," and by disgruntled users as a "sell-out."
The truth lies somewhere between. It's a worthwhile move, but only a very early one. When the number of Web surfers using ad blockers rises from its current 10-30% to, say, 50-70%, the ad industry will shit a brick and suddenly fall all over itself to clean up its act. Until then, it has minimal incentive to police the vast amount of content it serves every nanosecond, through a system that includes dozens of companies.
Check this 'infographic' - if you haven't seen it before, it will scare the pants off you. It shows what happens every single time someone looks at a Web ad:
That's a big industry, and it's not going to change its ways just because a few people complain.
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Friday 29th July 2016 14:11 GMT bozoid
I'm willing to turn off my adblocker and be served all the ads on good sites (e.g., Wired), because I value those sites. Unfortunately, most of those sites aren't satisfied with ad revenue, because they get a significant amount of revenue from trackers. I DON'T want to be tracked by their stinking affiliates.
So I can whitelist Wired (or many others) in AdBlock Plus, but I still can't view their sites -- they see Ghostery, they be hatin'.
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Monday 1st August 2016 16:06 GMT asdf
>- they see Ghostery, they be hatin'.
Maybe try Privacy Badger. It's not was extensive as Ghostery but also does a decent job of preventing trackers. It and also HTTPS Everywhere both from the EFF (non-profit online privacy champion) are the two addons I install always on every browser (as well as NoScript for FF derivatives).
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Friday 29th July 2016 14:47 GMT James Wilson
I don't block ads
I get it, there have to be ads to pay for the content, unless I have a subscription. Personally I don't even mind tracking, I'd rather have ads that are tailored to things I might want rather than being completely inappropriate. However I do block scripts, they aren't needed to show me an ad and it's far too dangerous.
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Thursday 4th August 2016 17:14 GMT fung0
Re: I don't block ads
I agree about scripts - there's no way I'm giving some unknown organization out in cyberspace permission to run software programs on my system. Calling them 'scripts' may sound nice and friendly, but they can still forget it.
But the fundamental problem with ads is that 99% of sites don't want to deal with them. They just sign up for a service, and the money comes rolling in. They don't see the ads, and in fact can't check them even if they wanted to - because they're 'personalized,' no two people will see the same ones.
The change has to come at the ad-industry level. And they won't change until they get scared that the goose is about to stop laying those platinum eggs.
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Friday 29th July 2016 17:51 GMT vir
Monocle, while not exactly a name you would associate with hard-hitting investigative journalism, does a very good job of incorporating advertisements into their publication. It looks as though they spend quite a bit of time and creative effort working alongside their sponsors to ensure that the tone and style of the ads blend into the rest of the publication. Obviously, this approach wouldn't translate directly over to internet sites, but surely big sites could have someone from their staff at least look over the ads that will show up on their readers' screens?
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
