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The next shot in the advertising/blocking war. AdNauseam is a FireFox plug-in, currently in beta, that works in conjunction with AdBlock and clicks ads while it blocks them.
The project was "initiated" by Helen Nissenbaum, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, and Computer Science, at New York University.
As online advertising is becoming more automatic, universal and unsanctioned, AdNauseam works to complete the cycle by automating all ad-clicks universally and blindly on behalf of the target audience. Working in coordination with Ad Block Plus, AdNauseam quietly clicks every blocked ad, registering a visit on the ad networks databases. As the data gathered shows an omnivorous click-stream, user profiling, targeting and surveillance becomes futile.
They also state "AdNauseam serves as a means of amplifying users' discontent with advertising networks that disregard privacy and facilitate bulk surveillance agendas".
Will this help things with online advertising, or make them worse, assuming that's possible?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday October 28 2014, @01:43AM
Why not? Download but don't display. I don't care if it is downloaded -- I gave up dialup in 2000 -- I only care about it ruining my user experience, meaning, I don't mind so much a few banner or side column ads, but these modal ones that cover the screen are annoying.
Secondly, I love the idea of poising data. It's far better to poison than to avoid because by poisoning, you might make the world a little bit better, but merely blocking is purely selfish.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday October 28 2014, @01:54AM
Yeah, I can see both points of view, but bandwidth is still an issue, especially in the mobile world, and
it seems to me that there is an article on taxing by the GIG up on SN right now.
Actually, I don't block much except flash ads because of their annoying auto-activation.
I occasionally find other ads useful.
I'm not sure what happens to the net and free access to information once on-line advertising is beaten down to nothing.
At my day job we pay by the click for innocuous little google text ads. I don't know if they they pay their way in sales or not, I'd have to ask the sales guys. I do know our conversion (Clicks that result in a sale) rate is some positive number.
But if they stopped working altogether and we got big clickfraud bills I'm sure they would drop them.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by metamonkey on Tuesday October 28 2014, @02:55PM
Yeah, but I don't think this runs on mobile platforms, so mobile isn't much of an issue. If you're using a laptop on a hotspot, disable the plugin.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:16PM
It's not as easy as you make it seem to accurately judge ROI/sales resulting from marketing efforts (in any marketing communication channel).
On the Internet specifically, there are tons of products/services being marketed that don't fall into a conversion pattern of "click an ad --> buy a product", and "engagement" metrics like ad clicks are often the best way to judge the "success" of an ad campaign. Correlation =/= causation ;) but for many marketers, engagement-to-sales/leads correlation is the best client-communication of ROI that they can manage.
The metric and correlation is what AdNauseam is meant to corrupt.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 3, Funny) by EETech1 on Tuesday October 28 2014, @02:45AM
Sooo... Would the Windows users get the attached root kit with the ad in the background?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday October 28 2014, @02:59AM
I've yet to get one of those via any method.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday October 28 2014, @05:17AM
You have my sympathy. Better luck in the future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @08:32AM
i had to buy a sony cd to get a rootkit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:16AM
But is is specifically the download which I want to block. As long as it is not too obnoxious (like e.g. Google text ads), I wouldn't mind the display. But the tracking connected with the download, I don't want.
Also it won't work too well with other ways to use AdBlock. For example, you might have instructed it to block those annoying "Like" buttons. And not thinking of it, you install AdNauseam, and suddenly you auto-like all pages you visit ... oops.
(Score: 1) by soylentsandor on Tuesday October 28 2014, @05:32PM
Agreed.
You don't like the ad network tracking yet you are an active facebook / twitter / linkedin user? You might as well stop worrying about the ad networks.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @05:45PM
I didn't say I was one. Indeed, I have no account on facebook, twitter, google+ or linkedin. However there are people who do have one. Anyway, the facebook like button was only an example anyway; there are tons of actions that could be triggered by such artificial clicks.
Indeed, I'd not be surprised if soon some malware took advantage of such auto-clicking.