[nothrabannosir]

You have my support for bleeding advertisers (and paying taxes ;) ) but I do want to point out one thing which is sometimes overlooked:

> some I think were reported stolen as well

If true, that incentivises phone theft. The only reason people steal phones is because there's a market. Every purchase of a stolen good directly incentivises that thief to steal once more. It's a very direct link. If you've ever had anything stolen, please break the chain and consider verifying somehow, some way, that your next purchase wasn't originally lifted off someone else. It can suck, especially if you've been a victim yourself and it's just unfair.

Other than that thanks for doing your part in poisoning the advertising well :)

[kennywinker]

> The only reason people steal phones is because there's a market.

From what I can tell, the protections put on newer phones by the vendors has massively crushed the stolen phone market. Modern phones are locked to a google or apple account and basically only usable as a) parts for repair or b) if you can phish the password from the original owner, you can unlock them.

Basically, discouraging people from buying used phones, lest they be stolen, is a way less effective mechanism for reducing theft than this kind of structural change.

[mandelbrotwurst]

The person you are replying to wasn't discouraging people from buying used phones generally, just ones that you have reason to believe are stolen.

[Moru]

There are often howto's on the net how to bypass the protections even of the latest phones. Last one I saw was over the settings for disabilities on the lockscreen.