FireFox Adblock Threatens downfall of Internet Commerce

[DotNetWebs]

Ooops - sorry just realised - to clarify, wasnt indicating that you where another bestof Site ...

Hey no worries. Thanks for that.

Regards

Dotty

 

[paulomunky]

Hey

Personally I think ad-block is great - I mean internet adverts just get flashier and more annoying over time to try and grab your attention. And eventually you have ridiculous boxes coming out of no-where pissing you off.

It's the same with tv adverts - so they think putting the volume up is going to make us listen more? More like you just hit the mute button and cringe when your eardrums nearly explode. meh

Advertisers and businesses will just have to move with the times I guess and come up with more thoughtful approaches or more inspired ones...

Paul

 

[lockie]

Well im actually pleased about this software because it puts many business's on a level playing field.Organic results will become more and more important if the ppc ads are getting blocked.Thats means people like me who have concentrated on longterm seo then become the winners.As it is now, any competitor can come along, throw enough money at an adwords campaign and have serious effects on existing business's.

Those with the inventiveness to overcome and adapt to this software will be the winners.Off line advertising will become more effective again as its hard to block an offline ad automatically.

To be honest you have actually cheered me up with news of this software as the longterm seo will pay off when it really kicks in.

Im totally confused about how it restricts choice and is the death of the internet.Many said all shops would close up because of online shopping,still loads of shops near me last time i looked.

The internet is only one part of the puzzle not the be all and end all of life as we know it. We survived without it before and will survive with the changes as they occur.

You remind me of the inflexible reed in the river,sooner or later as the current builds its just breaks the reed,however the flexible ones remain unbroken.

As its open source software no doubt the geeks will find a way to overcome it anyway as the person who does is going to make a fortune out of the ad companies.
Its no big deal unless you rely on advertsing on the net for your income and have no means of adapting to change.

 

[wevet]

Maybe it will cause the downfall of all those poorly built sites with questionable content that rely on adverts to make a buck.

Maybe it will result in better quality sites offering decent products and services that rely on ecommerce to survive rather than advertising revenue.

This has got nothing to do with freedom of speech and everything to do with my choice as to how I configure my browser (including blocking scripts and flash).

I have to wholly go along with this posting.

It will be no bad thing to rid the web of the thousands of sites whose content is optimized to attain a good organic listing placement but, in reality, offer the visitor nothing other than the flimsiest and frequently plagiarised content.

 

[Robert Wheeler]

I have only skimmed through this thread, but I have to say that I think the original poster has a point that many people are missing here. This is not a black and white issue.

I use Adblock when I browse in Firefox on my main machine. I have noticed that occasionally it will strip elements which could be regarded as branding from sites. I have also noticed sponsorship disappearing. On a couple of occasions I have seen it break functional scripts and code which prevents the user from interacting with the site. I see a bit of a potential parallel with Ebay, where an arbitrary decision by a faceless body can seriously impact your business.

At the moment the bulk of people may not be frustrated with Adblock, but say it suddenly stripped your own corporate branding from your site? Do you really want to be tracking your own website with Adblock to check whether a potentially sizable proportion of your website's audience is being affected? Is it not right to be concerned that someone that has nothing to do with your business can decide to filter out elements of your website? Should there not be some recourse for that? Do Adblock's makers say "If websites do not seem to work properly when using Adblock, it could be Adblock causing it"? How many user complaints could it generate for website owners when Adblock is the culprit?

I think it is worth asking these questions.

 

[edmondscommerce]

fair point

though i do wonder if the whole google chrome thing isn't a reaction to the whole adblock plus phenomenon..

 

[J-Wholesale]

If ever there was a need for a 'Get Bent' button alongside the 'Thanks' button on this forum, it's now. I couldn't force myself to wade through the bile that took up over 13 pages on this topic (jumping to the 'Last' page is just me exercising my right to ignore your right to free speech - you might want to start a campaign to outlaw 'Last' links on forums).

As a heavy Google advertiser, I have no problem with Adblock. You have every right to say whatever the hell you want, wherever and whenever you want to, but you have absolutely no right to insist that anyone waste their time listening to you.

Run along now, I hear there's a conspiracy theory being discussed somewhere out there on the internets, there's a good chap.

p.s. I was going to add your name and contact details to our blocked CVs list, just in case you or anyone linked to your business ever came looking for a job, but your contact page doesn't seem to have any of the legally required contact information. Big surprise there...

 

[Techy]

Is there a code to block ads from my home PC?

The office server doesn't let then thu, but my home PC is bombarded!

I don't want to know about anything unless I look for it.

I hate people who invade my private space, whether it's on the net or otherwise!

 

[edmondscommerce]

yeah its called adblock plus, you should check it out

 

[ORDERED WEB]

I think overall it is a good thing that consumers can choose not to have all the ad's spewed at them all the time. Forget revenues, forget the rest, I think that while on a site looking up "something I want to concentrate on" I prefer not to be constantly distracted

When I want to change site, I go to a "search engine" which is designed for purpose, and select the next site.

When on a site, if the site owner has a few hand selected links to other sites that re-inforce the message, or that are of particular interest, than that is good

In the cosy private "richards ideal world" thats how the internet should work. i.e. you search for what you want, there is no distortion in the search, the page you get to is relevant, and if the writer deems fit, it suggests relevant links, hand picked by the author

 

[Emcar Vending]

Oh!!! No!!!

I'm doomed. I'd better go and find a rope and a tree with a stout branch.

 

[Phil_Rees]

I have only skimmed through this thread, but I have to say that I think the original poster has a point that many people are missing here. This is not a black and white issue.

I use Adblock when I browse in Firefox on my main machine. I have noticed that occasionally it will strip elements which could be regarded as branding from sites. I have also noticed sponsorship disappearing. On a couple of occasions I have seen it break functional scripts and code which prevents the user from interacting with the site. I see a bit of a potential parallel with Ebay, where an arbitrary decision by a faceless body can seriously impact your business.

At the moment the bulk of people may not be frustrated with Adblock, but say it suddenly stripped your own corporate branding from your site? Do you really want to be tracking your own website with Adblock to check whether a potentially sizable proportion of your website's audience is being affected? Is it not right to be concerned that someone that has nothing to do with your business can decide to filter out elements of your website? Should there not be some recourse for that? Do Adblock's makers say "If websites do not seem to work properly when using Adblock, it could be Adblock causing it"? How many user complaints could it generate for website owners when Adblock is the culprit?

I think it is worth asking these questions.

BINGO, right on the nail.

Besides that, when i design a website, its my choice to display adverts from sponsors etc - they pay for the service at the end of the day.

What right has a third party (non government) have to dictate what I display on my site.

The more and more i consider this situation, the more and more i realise that users of adblock are basiclly saying to me - "love your site", "Greast Content" "but i aint going to pay you for using it"

 

[ORDERED WEB]

BINGO, right on the nail.


What right has a third party (non government) have to dictate what I display on my site.

No right at all, however the user has the right to use software that delegates the choice of what to block to somone else. It is the same as me "turning down the tv in the adverts" or designing a bit of kit that mutes the adverts automatically

If the user chooses heavy hnded software, than that is thier own choice

On the subject of elelements in sites not working - well that is websites. Websites are interpreted by the browser. If you choose to gag the browser by turning off javascript, using a add blocker, using a firewall that is your choice. The user can allways elect to turn those functions back on agian

 

[ORDERED WEB]

I think we need to look at this in the context of "why is the software there in the first place"

which is:
- Many users want a spam, advert, BS free surfing experience
- There was an explosion of sites with anoying popups a few years ago, and the implementation of pop up blockers, first by AV software, and then by browsers has changed the behaviour of most website owners and designers, creating in the whole pop up free sites
- The new annoyance, adverts, ads - all over the place, slows down the surfing experience, distracts from the real content on the web
- While there is a freedom to do what ou want and have what you want on a site, thre is equally a freedom for users to ignore / block parts or click away form sites that are annoying
- there is an explosion of sites with mediocre content, using every blackhat seo trick to lure visitors. regurgitated, automatically re-written content randomly spewed all over the place, with the hope that somone clicking on a add earns them a few cents. This is a current model, that real humans are tierd of, and gets in the way of some of the really good content out there

I dont blame users for looking at using software to block the rubbish, because ther sure is a lot of it

 

[Phil_Rees]

I dont blame users for looking at using software to block the rubbish, because ther sure is a lot of it

LIkewise i dont blame the users for looking to block rubbish, but when the solutions start to effect genuine good content sites its a problem that needs to be addressed.

I know from my own browsing experiances that when i visit a site that is nothing more than adverts, i dont visit it again unless it has exceptional content.

However adblock is penalising genuine sites that have one or two advert placements on there website which are essential to the sustainability of those same said sites.

 

[one2escape]

I got bored after the first page. My main concern there will be a rise in having subscriptions for a number of sites. This will however in theory increase the quality of the sites if enough people subscribe to them. Everything digital is going this way. Next is games!

 

[Phil_Rees]

Online games are actually going the other way - provided free of charge with the ability to purchase upgrades or memebrship for additional benefits and there are some VERY high quality free of charge games out there.

For example

http://www.runescape.com
http://pirate-galaxy.gamigo.com
http://en.bigpoint.com/
http://www.funorb.com/

Advertising on those sites keeping them free for those who cant afford to purhcase the upgrades.

Hey look at that - advertising as a benefit, go figure

 

[fisicx]

The adblock arguement will no doubt go on for ever but it has highlighted the underlying cause of the problem in that the business models for many sites rely on third party applications to survive rather than their own marketing.

The fact that I choose to ignore your adverts either by not clicking or using a browser extension is neither here nor there, if you cannot survive without advertising revenue then the site is pretty much doomed.

 

[Phil_Rees]

The adblock arguement will no doubt go on for ever but it has highlighted the underlying cause of the problem in that the business models for many sites rely on third party applications to survive rather than their own marketing.

The fact that I choose to ignore your adverts either by not clicking or using a browser extension is neither here nor there, if you cannot survive without advertising revenue then the site is pretty much doomed.

LOL Say that to Facebook and twitter

Anyway the fact of the matter remains, about the reasons why people produce websites.

1. Good will
2. E-Commerce
3. Revenue

Now number 1, is not effected by this as those sites have have benefactors behind them they will pump money into the site unless they use free (ad supported) services for their hosting in which case if the adblock virus (and i consider it a viral problem if not malicous in nature) those free services will not be able to stay in business unless they are funded by large corporations.

2. E-Commerce depends on advertising wether you are advertising your OWN site elsewhere or advertisign other products on your site with reviews etc.

3. Revenue - do i really need to explain that one?

 

[Robert Wheeler]

But doesn't this all have the potential to become a reverse Google? When Google started everybody thought it was great for breaking the Yahoo (or whoever it was then) monopoly. Now there are plenty of people that feel hard done by that they have to pay and fight to try and get a reasonable page listing. As I mentioned before, the same went with eBay.

Now we are lumped with what is effectively a monopoly in the online search and auction industries and we more or less have to live with whatever edicts these companies come up with. They shape many of our business futures and prospects. Could this soon be the same with Adblock? Is this application soon going to become another of the arbiters of your business and success?

I really do not think this is a clear cut issue. This is a piece of software that could seriously damage the prospects of a lot of businesses. Whether or not you value these businesses, there are plenty legitimate businesses that choose to make web advertising their market, and there are plenty of legitimate business (including physical product producing businesses) who invest in web advertising campaigns.

The business model for a lot of websites is based around the kind of revenues the Adblock software could restrict. I can see no clear alternative for a lot of businesses now, and if this kind of software comes to greater prominence, I can see a lot of businesses going through a lot of pain.

Business that relies on advertising revenues such as independent television has already suffered greatly from the dilution of the platform and a shift to internet based advertising. In fact ITV made quite an effort to develop revenues from internet based advertising in response. If you lose that avenue of sales, what is going to happen to all the business that relies on advertising and the revenues? What will happen to all the marketeers, the people that develop the campaigns, the people that rent offices to them, the people that clean the offices, the local businesses that sell them lunch, the food and goods they buy their family etc.?

The fact is that our economy is based on branding and sales, and if you remove the advertising aspect from that economy, then you are swiftly going to make a huge amount of your work base redundant. I think that the introduction of any technology which disables or devalues the advertising aspect of the internet must be examined in great detail, and the implications in even greater detail. Any preconceptions about 'good' or 'bad' adverts must be taken out of the equation, as Adblock is designed to remove all of these adverts. For example, as previously mentioned by the original poster, Adblock removes the sponsorship banner from this very message board.

Would you honestly begrudge the owners of this platform for placing sponsorship on what is really a great forum? It seems incredibly short-sighted to just point fingers and say what amounts "nah nah - those nasty advertisers got what was coming to them!" We are business people, for goodness sake!

 

[mobyme]

LOL Say that to Facebook and twitter

Get real. People are telling Facebook and twitter that. You would not be able to stand even a tiny fraction of their losses for more than about a week.

 

[one2escape]

Online games are actually going the other way - provided free of charge with the ability to purchase upgrades or memebrship for additional benefits and there are some VERY high quality free of charge games out there.

For example

http://www.runescape.com
http://pirate-galaxy.gamigo.com
http://en.bigpoint.com/
http://www.funorb.com/

Advertising on those sites keeping them free for those who cant afford to purhcase the upgrades.

Hey look at that - advertising as a benefit, go figure

Wait till you see what EA have in store for us. Eg Madden, fifa and most controversially Call Of Duty. It will be going subscription based soon

 

[Dawg]

Surely the core of this is the choice of business model? As said above, a model dependant on advertising revenues to the extent that adblocking kills those revenues is flawed: adblocking, whether you deem it censorship, a fact of life or a market driven response, is not going to vanish.

Even those with vastly deep pockets are having to adjust to the changes in technology and subsequent impacts on business practices; if the record companies, film companies and newspapers are adapting rather than just shrieking "it's my rights, my rights", what chance has a player your size got in the global market?

Wouldn't you be better expending energy on developing an approach that is not threatened by a remorseless change you can do nothing about?

 

[Phil_Rees]

Get real. People are telling Facebook and twitter that. You would not be able to stand even a tiny fraction of their losses for more than about a week.

Without advertising - facebook will become subscription based.

 

[Dominic Taylor]

I dislike flashy crappy ads. I like Google Adsense. I block crappy flashy ads. I don't block Adsense.

I rarely click on ads anyway. Not having me view the ads actually increases the apparent click-through rate!

 

[KM-Tiger]

 

[Phil_Rees]

Surely the core of this is the choice of business model? As said above, a model dependant on advertising revenues to the extent that adblocking kills those revenues is flawed: adblocking, whether you deem it censorship, a fact of life or a market driven response, is not going to vanish.

Even those with vastly deep pockets are having to adjust to the changes in technology and subsequent impacts on business practices; if the record companies, film companies and newspapers are adapting rather than just shrieking "it's my rights, my rights", what chance has a player your size got in the global market?

Wouldn't you be better expending energy on developing an approach that is not threatened by a remorseless change you can do nothing about?

Who says we cant do anything about it?

Just as adblock was produced in response to so called problem sites, so to can a solution to counter it.

What needs to happen however is for commerce to take action against the adblock and use services as suggested in my original post.

If commerce doesnt take action in the long term there are going to be many many many more unemployed people in this world.

Just because something is popular does not mean it is right.

Hell slavery was popular and almost accepted as human right at one point.

 

[Dominic Taylor]

Comparing blocking ads to slavery - nice! If I'm not going to click adverts, why should I be forced to view them? I will choose not to view your site. If you have relevant ads, fine, I'll take a look and probably click them. But if someone never clicks ads - why force them to view them? Lots of people walk into shops, look round, and leave.

I feel Godwin's Law is nearing

 

[Robert Wheeler]

Surely the core of this is the choice of business model? As said above, a model dependant on advertising revenues to the extent that adblocking kills those revenues is flawed: adblocking, whether you deem it censorship, a fact of life or a market driven response, is not going to vanish.

Even those with vastly deep pockets are having to adjust to the changes in technology and subsequent impacts on business practices; if the record companies, film companies and newspapers are adapting rather than just shrieking "it's my rights, my rights", what chance has a player your size got in the global market?

Wouldn't you be better expending energy on developing an approach that is not threatened by a remorseless change you can do nothing about?

All of the value in Facebook and Myspace revolves around the fact that they are effectively a huge marketing data resource. Facebook is the king of this. It retains a huge amount of information about its members, and even analyzes personal messages to target banner advertising. If you take away the delivery method, then these companies instant hold less value. Of course, Facebook has the possibility of selling the data it holds, but to what degree will this hold value when so many of the advertising delivery methods and other uses for the data are being limited? What is the point of having the information to target if you do not have the method to target?

Now I do not actually like Facebook or its data collection methods or ethics, but I do think it would be crazy not to look at how the impact of Adblock and its equivalents will affect business in the future. How many of your clients will suffer a decline in business if their online advertising becomes impotent? How many people will feel the knock on affects of the decline in business?

These things really have to be considered.

 

[Phil_Rees]

"Damned Ablock Users"

 

[fisicx]

You still don't get it do you. The problem isn't adblock or any other application, it's your business model. Most ecommence sites get on just fine using organic and search based PPC. They don't rely on third party advertising revenue.

You are offering a service but rely on adverts (taking people off site) to pay your contributors. This is so fundamentally flawed is almost unreal. Use advertising to pay for your hosting plus a bit of beer money is fine but not as the basis for your business.

 

[Spiderden]

After reading this thread I changed many of my banner ads to go through a local gateway page so the URLs don't get pattern matched by AdBlocker. It works a treat.

Visitors can of course still add a filter for my sites if they want to, but would they really go to the trouble for just a few passive banners? I doubt many would. I could have the site generate random URLs to foil even this if needed, but I don't think that'll ever be necessary.

AdSense is still blocked, but I can live with that.

Unless AdBlocker blocks all linked images which is never going to happen, It won't be the end of adverts on sites.

The goal posts may move slightly, but the ads will live on.

 

[Phil_Rees]

You still don't get it do you. The problem isn't adblock or any other application, it's your business model. Most ecommence sites get on just fine using organic and search based PPC. They don't rely on third party advertising revenue.

You are offering a service but rely on adverts (taking people off site) to pay your contributors. This is so fundamentally flawed is almost unreal. Use advertising to pay for your hosting plus a bit of beer money is fine but not as the basis for your business.

Dont think your getting it either.

If so flawed -take every single free newspaper, every single free radio station, every free tv station in fact, almost every single free resource and service internet or otherwise that rely on sponsorship and advertising and chuck them in the bin.

Advertising keeps many free of subscription and free of charge services alive on the internet, remove that and many many many very good resources will cease to exist.

The only way to protect these services is to block adblock users from their sites - once enough organisations impliment this process, adblock becomes incredably unattractive.

 

[Spiderden]

You are offering a service but rely on adverts (taking people off site) to pay your contributors. This is so fundamentally flawed is almost unreal. Use advertising to pay for your hosting plus a bit of beer money is fine but not as the basis for your business.

Is this not the business model for Google Search?

 

[Phil_Rees]

You still don't get it do you. The problem isn't adblock or any other application, it's your business model. Most ecommence sites get on just fine using organic and search based PPC. They don't rely on third party advertising revenue.

Just to point out - PPC ads are blocked by Adblock.

 

[Dawg]

4 points:

My Adblock plus allows me to choose what to block and what not to. If this extension to my control of my life conflicts with your wish to control my browsing, sod you.

The examples you keep raising, of free newspapers, free radio stations etc are all old technology. Why are you using them as an analogy for yours?

By assuming that advertising based media will fail you deny the possibility of change and vastly over inflate the importance of various enterprises. Their disappearance would be gradual, their space would be filled with something new. That's what happens. (What is surprising is to find such Luddite views in someone involved in IT/t'web).

Wasn't the name of that king-fella holding back the water Cnut?

 

[Phil_Rees]

Just to point out, this is the list of services they currently block on just one of their filters Easylist(usa) which is installed by default now has over 2000 filters and includes even well known trust worthy services such as google, pc world, msn, myspace etc etc.

They add more to it all the time- when i say that adblock is a problem, im not making a light jest.

And thats just ONE of the filters.

 

[KM-Tiger]

Just to point out - PPC ads are blocked by Adblock.

That's a misleading statement.

They are not blocked in search pages. And anyway who would want to block them there, they are generally useful and relevant to the search.

It's Adsense ads that are blocked, and any way Adblock users can turn this on/off as they choose.

 

[Spiderden]

That's a misleading statement.

They are not blocked in search pages. And anyway who would want to block them there, they are generally useful and relevant to the search.

Yes they are.

 

[Phil_Rees]

4 points:

My Adblock plus allows me to choose what to block and what not to. If this extension to my control of my life conflicts with your wish to control my browsing, sod you.

The examples you keep raising, of free newspapers, free radio stations etc are all old technology. Why are you using them as an analogy for yours?

By assuming that advertising based media will fail you deny the possibility of change and vastly over inflate the importance of various enterprises. Their disappearance would be gradual, their space would be filled with something new. That's what happens. (What is surprising is to find such Luddite views in someone involved in IT/t'web).

Wasn't the name of that king-fella holding back the water Cnut?

Likewise i have a choice wether to ALLOW adblock users to view my site or not.

The examples I am raising are being raised as a comparisom for understanding, im also surprised that someone with as much experiance as you within these forums would result to insinuatid insults.

If you going to result in mud throwing, go elsewhere.

If you want to hold intelligent debate regarding the issue continue on.