Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users - Press Gazette
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They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.
Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.
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This is easily solved by not using 3rd parties and tracking data for ads. If the ad was just part of the page (similar to an ad in the newspaper) then ad blockers would not be able to detect them at all. A YouTuber saying "before we get started, this video is sponsored by [relevant related company]" does not get blocked by ad blockers.
However, in order to do that websites would be responsible for the ads they display. If they don't do their due diligence they won't be able to pass it off as "we're not responsible for it, it's our ad company that put it there." They don't want to be responsible for the ads they show, but they want you to be responsible for the ads you don't watch.
A YouTuber saying "before we get started, this video is sponsored by [relevant related company]" does not get blocked by ad blockers.
Well, there's sponsor block which uses crowd sourced timestamps to skip those segments, but yeah you're right.
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Ads in the 90's and 00's would just layer toolbars onto your browser. Is still have a a nervous twitch when I see a thick toolbars or animated cursors.
The toolbars came from scam software on the '90s. Ads being able to install things came well into the '00s.
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They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.
Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.
25 years of adblockers and that is the single most important thing that keeps me from cutting myself off the web.
I've donated money to adblockers and will continue to do so until I die!
I send emails to the web sites that ask me to remove the blocker to tell them I will not and that there are many other sites that welcome my adblocking ass! -
“The growth of dark traffic undermines the ability of publishers to fund the production of quality content, or even operate as a business. We must recognise users are not the main driver causing this.”
And Scott Messer, founder of publishing adtech consultancy Messer Media, added: “Dark traffic is unlike anything we have seen before. It’s demonetising publisher content at scale without user consent.
Are they trying to present it as if poor innocent users need to be protected from the vile ad blockers?
Definitely. They are likely laying the groundwork to make using an adblocker a criminal offense.
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the big turning point I remember was a combo of popups and interstitial ads
Popups we all know and hate as they still exist and are disgusting. They were obviously gross and ate up ram and stole focus and shit
But the interstitial ads were also gross. You’d click a link and then get redirected to an ad for 10 seconds and then redirected to content. Or a forum where the first reply was replaced with an ad that was formatted to look like a post
Like adblocking was a niche thing prior to the advertising industry being absolute scumbags. The original idea that allowing advertising to support free services like forums and such wasn’t horrible, put a banner ad up, maybe a referral link, etc. but that was never enough for the insidious ad industry. Like every other domain they’ve touched (television, news, nature, stores, cities, clothing, games, sports, literally everything a human being interacts with).
The hardline people that blocked banner ads way back when and loudly complained allowing advertising in any capacity on the internet would ruin everything were correct. We all groaned because no one wanted to donate to cover the hosting bills (which often turned out to be grossly inflated on larger sites by greedy site operators looking to make bank off their community) but we should have listened
The turning point for me is when banner ads added sounds. I would tolerate and ignore the flashing lights and the fake "games", but then I encountered one that any time my mouse went over top of it an emoji screamed "HELOOOOOOOOO!!!" at me and I couldn't download an ad blocker fast enough.
It's never enough for these assholes unless they have all of your attention all of the time.
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The toolbars came from scam software on the '90s. Ads being able to install things came well into the '00s.
yeah, there was quite a long time where useful software was bundled with toolbars or, the worse option, malware that hijacked your browser, which was a pain in the ass to remove. I was the techie in the family, and i got pretty good with tools like hijackthis and knowing by heart what services and background programs should start on a standard win98 or xp installation. (in this time i also was THE guy to ask at my job when issues with 56k modems came up, diagnosing a lot of issues by listening to the dial-up tones)
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Ad blockers are the fight. Those users who can't be bothered to learn a bit about the devices they spend so much time on aren't owed anything.
What does "fighting the good fight" even look like to you in this context, anyways?
those users who can’t be bothered to learn
snooty tech elitismWhat does “fighting the good fight” even look like to you in this context, anyways?
We built the entire infrastucture, we can poison it's business model.When the first banner ad appeared on the web, the condemnation was not loud enough and it was allowed to fester.
At this points these entities have become large enough that the evil practice that could have been snuffed out, is now being accepted.
Now every slimey thing on the internet is due for the mother of all crackdowns. Something like the GDPR times 911.I'm not in the mood for centrist technocratic measured solution at the moment.
If it makes more than a million a year and it's using any kind of psychological tactics,
that's advertising, sponsored search, dark patterns, then BURN IT ALL DOWN -
“The growth of dark traffic undermines the ability of publishers to fund the production of quality content, or even operate as a business. We must recognise users are not the main driver causing this.”
And Scott Messer, founder of publishing adtech consultancy Messer Media, added: “Dark traffic is unlike anything we have seen before. It’s demonetising publisher content at scale without user consent.
Are they trying to present it as if poor innocent users need to be protected from the vile ad blockers?
They always care about us when they are losing money arent they...
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those users who can’t be bothered to learn
snooty tech elitismWhat does “fighting the good fight” even look like to you in this context, anyways?
We built the entire infrastucture, we can poison it's business model.When the first banner ad appeared on the web, the condemnation was not loud enough and it was allowed to fester.
At this points these entities have become large enough that the evil practice that could have been snuffed out, is now being accepted.
Now every slimey thing on the internet is due for the mother of all crackdowns. Something like the GDPR times 911.I'm not in the mood for centrist technocratic measured solution at the moment.
If it makes more than a million a year and it's using any kind of psychological tactics,
that's advertising, sponsored search, dark patterns, then BURN IT ALL DOWNThe tech community came up with a technical solution to the ad problem. If the solution you're looking for isn't technical, why is your focus on the tech community?
Anyone can learn this shit. Use any search engine, type "how to block internet ads", and you'll see results with "firefox" and "ublock origin", that can then be put into "how to get" follow up searches.
The current state of ads is being accepted by those who don't block them. Everyone who does block them (or refuses to visit ad cancer sites) has cut off that source of revenue, but those who just choose to accept the default option enable them by not just seeing the ads but even sometimes clicking them and buying shit.
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They wont be happy until eye tracking technology makes sure we sit and watch their fucking ads before the actual content appears.
I mean, none of this is getting better. Its only going to become worse. I have ads in the fucking pause screen on my streaming tv app. So if I want to take a toilet break, I get an ad in my face. Its just so ridiculous.
What most of these people don't get is if they didn't get so invasive with those ads, people would not have to resort to ad blockers. Be it tho shut up the ads every few seconds on YouTube or having to play whack-a-mole every time I read an article, eventually you run out of patience and say "enough!"
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Jesus. How are you going to get to 8.8.8.8 belt licks?
(and please, for the love of god, don't use 8.8.8.8!)
Joke's on him, it's 100.99.99.99
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They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.
Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.
I personally am not bothered at ALL by the banner video ads overlayed on top of another banner ad that opens a new tab when you try to close the banner video then another one opens covering the original banner then the page scrolls all the way back to the top and shows you an email list sign up, why would I be?
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They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.
Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.
Website: "You appear to be using an ad blocker."
Me: "You appear to be correct." -
25 years of adblockers and that is the single most important thing that keeps me from cutting myself off the web.
I've donated money to adblockers and will continue to do so until I die!
I send emails to the web sites that ask me to remove the blocker to tell them I will not and that there are many other sites that welcome my adblocking ass!wrote last edited by [email protected]I think about doing that except with sites that suggest me turning off my VPN. -If i turned it off, then that would defeat the purpose of me having a VPN.
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When I was about five years old, my parents were shopping for a car. When the radio said Brand X Dealer was the best place to buy a car, I was so excited to tell them what I'd just learned.
I haven't forgiven advertising since.
My daughter has become obsessed with watching videos about the game Wobbly Life. There's one YouTuber who seems to post extremely frequently and advertises in every video for a subscription mod platform. She is now always asking about that mod platform, and the best way we can explain it to her (because she's 5 and simply too young to understand what mods even are, has zero room for any nuance on her world views etc.) is we just give her a hard-line "we do not pay for mods"
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Website: "You appear to be using an ad blocker."
Me: "You appear to be correct." -
Okay I checked out Gemini. I love the vibes, but the amount of dead links just in the quick start guide makes it hard for me to even try to get into it
How about this link ?
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The use of the term "Dark traffic" here is to paint the use of ad-blockers as something nefarious. Don't use it, fuck these people right in their stupid mouths.
I propose using the terms "clean traffic", for ad-blocked website traffic, and "dogshit traffic" for everything else.
Something simple that people would ask why you want it. Also needs to be non-aggressive. Like non-content traffic. Why would you want something that is not the content?
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That is not wrong. But interpreting "dark" as "evil" is just wrong in this context.
You may be right, technically, but based on the context, I'm quite sure the use of the word "dark" here is intended to frame the behavior as negative. It's just like when various media authors refer to TOR as the "dark web" even though it has countless valid uses that are not enabling illegal/immoral behaviors.
