Why Is Google Blocking This Ad-Blocker on Chrome? (opens in new tab)

(consumerist.com)

11 pointsdeep_attention9y ago11 comments

11 comments

> The issue may be that it works a little differently than your standard ad-blocker does: instead of just blocking the advertisements and trackers from rendering on any site you view, it also virtually “clicks” on them — all of them.

Oh, so it's click fraud. Yaay. I think as tech people we're so obsessed by our ability to do things we don't consider whether we should.

majewsky9y ago

The choice of method is very deliberate on the side of the developer [1]. It's not like they didn't consider whether they should, it's just that you don't agree with their reasoning.

[1] Quoting from the article:

> [The developer] said that AdNauseam is “definitely an activist tool” that intentionally and deliberately is “trying to show that this hostile disrespect for online privacy would be met with hostility on the part of the users.”

nailer9y ago

Tracking isn't "hostility and disrespect": it's remembering people to show them a thing they liked before. There are many easy ways for web users not to be remembered.

1 more reply

igetspam9y ago

Except there's no gain for them, other than to help promote privacy. Would I be in he wrong for clicking every ad myself, if I had no an to buy, just to fuzz the data collected about me? It would be the same "fraud." How is a tool to help me protect my privacy and penalize those who would violate it a bad thing? I never consented to being tracked and even opted out but advertisers do it anyway. Which is worse?

nailer9y ago

The gain is the ego boost from damaging someone else's business.

AstralStorm9y ago

Click fraud is when you profit from the behaviour. You as a user do not in general profit from clicking the ad.

crispweed9y ago

Interesting comment here (in one of the reviews for this addon for firefox): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/rev...

If you have a YouTube channel (s) and your logged in to that channel it will get your channel suspended for Violation of TOU #4 Section H

Google really doesn't like this one..

antihero9y ago

Because it fundamentally breaks their advertising model?

gaunwise9y ago

Google simply does not want any competition on the ad market.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

11 comments

nailer9y ago

Oh, so it's click fraud. Yaay. I think as tech people we're so obsessed by our ability to do things we don't consider whether we should.

majewsky9y ago

The choice of method is very deliberate on the side of the developer [1]. It's not like they didn't consider whether they should, it's just that you don't agree with their reasoning.

[1] Quoting from the article:

nailer9y ago

Tracking isn't "hostility and disrespect": it's remembering people to show them a thing they liked before. There are many easy ways for web users not to be remembered.

1 more reply

igetspam9y ago

nailer9y ago

The gain is the ego boost from damaging someone else's business.

AstralStorm9y ago

Click fraud is when you profit from the behaviour. You as a user do not in general profit from clicking the ad.

crispweed9y ago

Interesting comment here (in one of the reviews for this addon for firefox): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/rev...

If you have a YouTube channel (s) and your logged in to that channel it will get your channel suspended for Violation of TOU #4 Section H

Google really doesn't like this one..

antihero9y ago

Because it fundamentally breaks their advertising model?

gaunwise9y ago

Google simply does not want any competition on the ad market.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse