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posted by n1 on Monday October 27 2014, @11:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the advertising-arms-race dept.

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?

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @01:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @01:47AM (#110721)

    Only if they're completely clueless. The plugin damned well better not actually render or otherwise execute any content the advertisers are serving up; rather, it should simply do an HTTP GET for the target that Adblock is blocking, and send whatever the remote server replies with straight to /dev/null.

    And chew up your bandwidth in the process? No, thanks. I'll stick with AdBlock, thank you very much.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:26PM (#110929)

    I predict that extension to not become very popular in Hungary [soylentnews.org] ;-)