Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by BrainInAJar 4521 days ago
Even if every ad was "well behaved" I'd still block each and every one of them. The privacy implications of being constantly tracked in order to sell me bullshit are too creepy.

Frankly, if your business depends on ads, you should think about a different business model, because the NSA spying thing is partly your fault. There are many things that I already pay for on the web, and many more that I would happily pay for if they offered me an ad and tracking-free experience

1 comments

I don't consider trackers "well behaved". My reasons for adblock: 1. Security. I don't mind static image ads because the security implications are minor. But running third party code without accountability is scary. (1) 2. Performance. Loading images from a dozen different domains means many dns resolutions. 3. Privacy. This is just creepy, networks watching every page I go to.

There is nothing in advertising that requires all of that. I'm perfectly fine with static locally hosted ads. But the whole industry is based around something else. I continue to use adblock plus despite their "Acceptable Ads" program because I consider it reasonable in requirements.(2) I think there's a lot more room for compromise in allowing ads but no extension makes it easy to address my concerns.

Citations: 1. https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN22569.html?impressions=true 2. https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads

But ABP considers Google ads to be "acceptable". I do not. Google is one of the creepiest companies on the internet to date, and I'd prefer to disappear off their radar entirely