[manigandham]

Ad blockers dont block ads. They arent even "ad" blockers but just filters - browser extensions that block anything on a page from loading if its coming from a blacklisted domain. Whether it's ads, trackers, social widgets or just an image - it gets blocked by canceling the network request.

Surveillance is not the leading cause for adblock, it's because people don't like ads and a 1-click install to remove them is incredibly easy.

Advertising online will always have some sort of tracking because that is the benefit of advertising online - to know the real metrics of who has seen and clicked and engaged with an ad. If you're worried about real privacy issues, you should focus on Facebook/Google and government agencies.

[genedickson]

I don't use facebook or google. I use startpage a a google proxy on rare occasions, but mostly search with ixquick. My representatives know what I think about government surveillance and privacy issues, for what its worth. I agree and disagree about online ads always having interactive features. It makes sense, but the controversy around this does make for the possibility that some will go for straight ads. For me surveillance is the main reason I use blockers. History shows that corporations are more of a threat than government. Hitler could never have made it absent the Krupp family. They put him in power. I don't know about Stalin. He did have help along the way, but since he ruled till he died there is a lot less information available, and it is spotty at best. Of course in America the corporations run the government, and it isn't just from campaign contributions, though at this time that is the biggest thing. Europe to. Most of the world's governments are run by corporations behind the scenes. The big possibility to force ads to be non interactive is to seriously call newspapers and magazines that predate the internet on this. I do this pretty regularly. An ad that does not have any interactivity cannot be filtered without removing the article one is reading. That is easy to do. And the incredible amount of publicity waiting for the first newspaper or magazine to require advertisers to eliminate interactive ads should be really tempting. If their publicity department doesn't see this they need to hire me! Given the resources that publicity outfits have I could get the ball rolling and keep it going for long enough that it would be remembered for a while after the boom. The only thing to filter would be the graphics. Alt text would deal with this. If on has use of the advertised item(s), one will check out the pictures. However, I noticed when I "upgraded" my firefox that they don't have the option to block images in the new version, or at least they make it difficult by completely removing the tool bar that held that function. I've looked and looked, but not found. In any event, I utterly lack sympathy for interactive advertisers and the websites that allow them. I'll happily do without them as they go out of business, and I hope they do!