SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the feeding-the-hand-that-bites-you dept.
Frédéric Filloux reports at Monday Note that two groups of French publishers, the GESTE and the French Internet Advertising Bureau, are considering a lawsuit against AdBlockPlus creator Eyeo GmbH on grounds that it represents a major economic threat to their business. According to LesEchos.fr, EYEO, which publishes Adblock Plus, has developed a business model where they offer not to block publishers' advertisements for remuneration as long as the ads are judged non-intrusive (Google Translate, Original here). "Several criteria must be met as well: advertisements must be identified as such, be static and therefore not contain animation, no sound, and should not interfere with the content. A position that some media have likened to extortion."
According to Filloux the legal action misses the point. By downloading AdBlock Plus (ABP) on a massive scale, users are voting with their mice against the growing invasiveness of digital advertising. Therefore, suing Eyeo, the company that maintains ABP, is like using Aspirin to fight cancer. A different approach is required but very few seem ready to face that fact. "We must admit that Eyeo GmbH is filling a vacuum created by the incompetence and sloppiness of the advertising community’s, namely creative agencies, media buyers and organizations that are supposed to coordinate the whole ecosystem," says Filloux. Even Google has begun to realize that the explosion of questionable advertising formats has become a problem and the proof is Google's recent Contributor program that proposes ad-free navigation in exchange for a fee ranging from $1 to $3 per month. "The growing rejection of advertising AdBlock Plus is built upon is indeed a threat to the ecosystem and it needs to be addressed decisively. For example, by bringing at the same table publishers and advertisers to meet and design ways to clean up the ad mess. But the entity and leaders who can do the job have yet to be found."
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Tuesday December 09 2014, @11:37AM
A few things about living in a Capitalist society annoy the fuck out of me. About most of them, I can't do much, but about Internet advertising, I can. I use Adblock and Noscript so I can surf the web in peace. I see a very different web than everyone else.
Advertisement is annoying and, in the end, useless. I don't need to buy the shit they advertise. I don't want to buy it. Even if I wanted to buy it, I don't have the money for it. So, get off my web browser and shove your advertisements up your ass. Get a life. Go and do something useful.
I seriously doubt advertisement attracts enough buyers to make it financially lucrative to advertise anything. I guess brands only advertise because "everyone else is doing it" and they don't want to miss out. In this case, advertisement is just a tax imposed on businesses for a service that has no value to them. Kind of "protection money" you pay to the Mob. They should do something useful with their money, like paying better salaries, or giving health assistance to their employees. Not paying a bunch of idiots to pollute my eyes and my brain with blinking useless shit that I don't need and definitely don't want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @02:18PM
I stop buying things I see advertisements for.
if I see an ad for something, it goes on my buying-blacklist.
that includes outdoor advertising etc.
(on internet I ofcourse block all ads, so I don't see any there)
if more people decided to stop buying things that spend the money on advertising perhaps we would get less advertisement, and that would be a good thing.
(Score: 2) by carguy on Tuesday December 09 2014, @02:40PM
I don't think ads are aimed at you -- sadly you, me and many other innocents are collateral damage. Since the ad wars that rage around us are pretty hard to avoid, perhaps we should get to know our common enemy? Sun Tsu -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War#Quotations [wikipedia.org]
Here is one quick intro to the economic case for advertizing (why advertizing is unlikely to stop anytime soon), http://www.economicswebinstitute.org/glossary/advertising.htm [economicswebinstitute.org]
More significantly, advertising connects a good to a need, suggesting that by consuming the good the need will be fulfilled. A common method is to link the good to the most fundamental and universal needs, most deeply felt, whereas - without advertising - the good would be considered as of a much narrower application and utility. Indeed many ads promise happiness to the buyer, much overstating the reasonable effect of the product.
And an interesting intro to the ad business, http://www.liesdamnedlies.com/online_advertising_business_101.html [liesdamnedlies.com]
ps. I'm not in the advertizing business, please don't shoot the messenger...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @02:50PM
I once scored a $30,000.00 consulting contract after paying twenty cents for two clicks on a Google AdWords Select ad.
I used to be in the direct mail business. It worked out very well. Direct mail especially, you can test small "drops" to determine if a larger one will pay off - different offer pricing, different cover letter text, different printing on the outside of the envelope.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:14PM
I like to play the lottery, too. Never won any significant amount, though.
That's why my building has a trash basket right beside the mail boxes. All advertisement goes directly in there. I'm sorry, but I can't tell the difference between the offer pricing or the cover letter text, or the different printing. As far as I can tell, me and everybody else in my building dump all advertisement in that basket. It's always full and sometimes overflowing.
You reminded me of a documentary I saw on TV, showing how those useless pieces of paper are recycled and become toilet paper. Advertisement is not so useless after all. One can always wipe one's ass with it.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:43PM
As a rather engineer-mentality person, I consider any sales position to be an inherently dishonest profession (probably preaching to the right crowd here, huh? ;)
Technical professions where you're designing or implementing something obviously *can become* dishonest, but in sales, right from the jump you're trying to convince someone to buy something they didn't want before you started.
Don't know whether I'd label politics with the same name, or whether it's just ~inevitable that entering the profession corrupts you rather than the profession itself being dishonest per se.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"