SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:37AM
Of course, many sites already do this, on purpose. That is, many sites 'fake-click' their own ads in order to raise their ad revenue. The ad hosters know this and they accommodate it. You think they don't know when one person clicks all the ads on a page? Or when one IP clicks on 10x more ads than a 'normal' person? You think they believe those clicks?
It's your computer. You've got the right to make it do just about anything you want. Don't want ads? don't load them. Want to hold a little ad-protest? go ahead and gang-click all the ads. Hell, write a script to crawl the web, loading every ad from every page. Or just continually load random URLs from doubleclick and adsense. But don't pretend it's anything other than petty whining. As a form of civil disobedience or protest, it doesn't even rise to the level of mailing empty "Business Reply" cards.