In reply of a great discussion @mojoJojo started on Google's advertising ethics...

GOOGLE Already Pays AdBlock Extensions to Unblock Their Ads. This has been going on for years. Most of the large tech conglomerates have no morals and no ethics, if you ask me. To everyone saying "Oh, Google wouldn't do that" - they already do.
http://businessinsider.com/google-m...

(Seriously, go read @mojojojo's rant, it's interesting.)
https://devrant.com/rants/1217511/...

I just block them all with hosts file

I honestly think they aren't wrong, let us see, they profit from ads, if someone is blocking them, well they won't profit.
Google, Microsoft and etc are companies, not non-profitable organizations
They have employees to pay, money to get and costs to pay

A proper ad consortium would be entirely independent, and would only communicate with ad providers in a public manner.

I don't mind one or two banner ads on a site. I just don't have time to filter things that aren't intrusive. The sheer number of intrusive ads means that I block all ads.

Also the comments on mojojojo's rant are a trainwreck.

This isn't news. I've heard this for years. Those plugin-makers add started trying to monetize or allow in non-invasive ads.

uBlock Origin is the plugin you currently want (not uBlock, which has started doing some of the same shady things). I don't think the uBlock Origin maintainer will sell out any time soon, but you should keep up with ad blocker news or get involved on their github projects.

uBlock Origin plus uMatrix for those who want a lot of control over what their browser loads.

I've got a pihole running on a dedicated server (in a vm) which wildcard blocks at least Google, Facebook and more :)

@illusion466 That's the only service I've got unblocked but I do YouTube stuff through tor mostly :)

Working an auto updating music library though! (through YouTube but at least not through my home network)

@linuxxx seriously, how do you live, somebody from work or a friend emails you a link to google sheets you need to see what do you do?

@Wiciaki I don't open the link, also out of principle :)

For work, fair enough. Got a laptop from my work though and I put that one on an isolated part of my home network!

Let them do it. What the fuck is wrong with a company trying to make profit? We’re software engineers who work in the industry too. Not the revitalization of the all noble open source software initiative (which companies like Google heavily contribute to?)

@monr0e A proper internet wouldn't have ads, at least not in their current form.

I don't mind ads where a YouTube creator is endorsing a product/service they have always been a fan of anyway. I don't mind blogs with donate/patreon buttons. I don't mind straight up paying or subscribing to content, provided the price is right.

And there's no problem with giving away content for free either, not everything has to be profitable.

Random ads are the lowest form of financing in my opinion, I will never have any respect for it, and will always block ALL of them.

@growling I don't mind a company making profit at all.

I do mind it when I actively have to take measures in order to stay out of a companies database while doing normal stuff (also take in mind that Google is integrated within the prism mass surveillance program).

So yes, I mind google.

@bittersweet an internet without ads is unrealistic. How would anyone get noticed anywhere outside of their circle of friends? Advertisements are part of life, even outside the internet. The problem comes with misuse - advertisements in real life are heavily regulated, whereas on the internet they are not. This is why we need an independent consortium.

Well, I think it is unethical for you to use their services without giving anything in return.

Fucking ads. I can't believe people are dumb enough to click, buy, and and let these companies make more $$$ with their invasive crap

@monr0e exactly correct. If ads weren't so cancerous all the time, I wouldn't have an issue. But too many sites have cancerous ads so I don't bother to give ads a chance

@Jantje19 It has gotten to the point where people — people with a good instinct for technology, using common sense — have fallen prey to malware through ads.

There have been ads exploiting weaknesses in flash, pdf readers, Javascript, and now even ads which use nothing but CSS to keylog passwords.

This happens not because the content creator is malicious, but because they outsource advertising to a party which doesn't personally select ads based on ethical standards.

Ads would be OK if they were hand selected and hosted by the domain itself, but they rarely are.

Thus, blocking ads is a security measure, it's unethical to expose users to potentially malicious code.

I am responsible for security at a 230-employee company, and while we don't force a single OS, browser or even virus scanner — we do require full encryption on all laptops, a password manager with 20+ char passwords on all professionally used webservices, and privacy badger + ublock origin in every single browser.

That combination alone has kept us pretty safe so far.

@bittersweet That's not what I am saying. It is just wrong to think it is unethical for Google to want to display ads.

@Jantje19 And on top of that, we have vowed to never advertise ourselves.

Yet we have grown to a million users, of which 25% paying subscribers... purely through the power of people telling friends.

I still feel that if your product needs advertising, it might not be good enough. Truly good innovative products grow on their own, very steadily.

@Jantje19 It's not unethical for Google to sell ads, but I do think it's unethical that for years they've had a very hands off automated approach.

That approach, where advertising parties got a lot of power over what they're doing on someone else's domain, and as a website owner you have limited power over the ads that are shown, has made the internet less secure, to the point where I think blocking in protection of your company's devices is more ethical than not blocking to provide creators with income.

To all creators I'd say: replace your ads with donation options, merchandise, whatever. If what you are doing is good enough, you will be able to generate an income from that.

@bittersweet thank you.

I remember when they found (for the ****th time) malware within Google's ad platform ads on nu.nl. That's just unacceptable!

Also the tracking is something which bothers me as it's done in an opt out way.

@Jantje19 also agree on that one. In my defense, except for YouTube, i block anything Google out of my network so I'm not much guilty of that one.

Why wouldn't they do that? If you as an adblock developer can be bought, you will be bought.

@linuxxx dude, does YouTube has decent "speed" through tor?

@azous For me it's good enough mostly nowadays! The speed has increased :)

@linuxxx nice, good to know :)
Thanks