The essence of this is you need to decide the answer to two questions:
1. What are your personal ethics?
2. Who do you trust?
To put (1) in context, the content on the Internet is largely provided free but is ad-supported. When it comes to display advertising, it's sold almost entirely on a CPM basis (it may be resold on an eCPC or eCPA basis). It is at best only partially sold on an intent basis (meaning it's enticing you to click on the ad or otherwise take some kind of action).
The relevance is that the most common "defence" of ad-blocking is "I never click on ads anyway". While that might be true (let's just say that the people who claim to have never clicked on an ad is a proper superset of the people who have never clicked on an ad) it's also irrelevant since that may not be the intent and the publisher is getting paid to display the ad, not for you to click on it (unlike, say, search advertising, which is intent based).
So the ethical part here is you need to decide if you're OK with denying publishers income yet still consuming their content. If you are against ads for whatever reason and don't consume the content, that's a position I can respect, otherwise it just strikes me as rationalized freeloading but YMMV.
As for (2), the big players like Google who dominate display advertising are regulated and deeply concerned (believe it or not) about privacy and the user experience. That's why you can opt out of personalized ads [1], for example. I may be biased [2] but I trust Google far more than I trust some fly-by-night operation. Again, YMMV.
Recently there was a story about Ghostery reselling user data to advertisers [3]. How much can you really trust these basically unaccountable groups (in comparison)?
I should point out that there are two issues here that intertwine:
1. Ad-blocking;
2. Privacy.
My personal code of ethics is I don't block ads because honestly I mentally block them out anyway. Going to the Westin site then seeing ads for the Westin everywhere doesn't particularly bother me.
If a site has particularly egregioius ads (I include popups, most interstitials and any ads you need to dismiss in this category) then all bets are off. Block away. Banner ads however? Sure, why not?
But where I draw the line is with uselessly giving away your privacy in a way that doesn't benefit publishers at all. I include all the various "Like" and "Share" buttons here. All of these track for no benefit to the publisher (other than the hope that you might use one).
Those I'll happily block. Likewise if you're Quora and you blur answers because I'm not logged in with Facebook, well you'll get technically circumvented as well and I may just block any ads you have just because you're being offensive.
Anyway, just consider that ad-blockers have access to a wide range of your data as well and ask yourself what they are doing or might do with that data. Is it really worth denying publishers income to not see an ad for shoes? Really?
I don't use Adblock Plus. I don't block ads as such, just because they are ads. I don't mind ads. I believe in supporting sites thru advertising.
However:
* I cannot tolerate anything moving on the page. It prevents me from reading text, and I'll do whatever is necessary to turn it off, regardless of the effect on the site's advertising schemes.
* Sites don't have any right to expect me to run their Javascript or other code. I'll turn it on only for functionality that I have a need for.
* I won't tolerate tracking, and therefore turn off requests to domains other than those necessary to read the content on the page.
So, again, I'm fine with ads - they just have to respect my reasonable limitations.
And the line about Google respecting privacy doesn't pass the laugh test. If I'm tracked across the web by Google includes, the privacy violation has already occurred at that point, regardless of what Google does with the data after they collect it (same goes for other data-miners).
You mention the privacy implications of "Like" buttons but neglect to mention the privacy implications of the ad networks.
Remember when Double Click started building a database of every Internet user and their preferences (and were foolish enough to mention it publicly)? Your employer now owns that database.
For me, it boils down to this: every time I turn off AdBlock I have to turn it back on because of the blinking and other very distracting ads. They are so "in your face" that I can't concentrate on the content. I usually last a day.
Perhaps I should just selectively block ads on the sites that do this, but I've found that tedious in the past.
At the end of the day the ads hurt my brain. I don't think you can really block them out mentally, as you claim. Can you block out really loud noise, for example? I don't think the brain works that way. You might think you blocked something out mentally, but you would probably still have increased stress levels.
I don't really feel unethical for using Ad Blockers. I don't think watching ads is the same as paying. I figure ads are about statistics and advertisers count on only reaching part of the audience. Since I definitely never click on ads, I am not part of that target audience (except for the unavoidable minor brainwashing).
I might still help out a site owner by recommending their site, thus attracting other people who might then click on ads.
I am not responsible for a site owners business model, either.
In the age of AdWords I figure pay-per-view ads must be very rare?
>Recently there was a story about Ghostery reselling user data to advertisers [3]. How much can you really trust these basically unaccountable groups (in comparison)?
Except all the data collected and sold was opt-in and they told you it was anonymized and sold on the page next to the opt-in checkbox
I don't think the personal ethics issue is that simple and clear-cut. For example, I use both an ad blocker and a readability tool (in my case, it's Evernote Clearly). I started blocking ads long before stuff like Clearly was invented, but the motivation is the same: I want to read the stuff I came to read and all the other crap on the page is making it difficult to do so. If I stop using an ad blocker, I would still use Clearly.
My point is, would your ethics also preclude you from using a readability tool?
Now, one can argue that a tool like Clearly is okay, because it requires you to click on it and it gets rid of the stuff that distracts you, but the ads still get displayed in the first place. What if someone made a tool that downloads the ads, as if to display them, without ever displaying them? By using such a tool, you wouldn't be denying publishers income while consuming their content, but you would still be gaming the system. How ethical would that be?
Again, the hard line would be to either a) suck it up and consume both the content and the crap together, or b) refrain from consuming the content altogether. But the hard line approach doesn't really solve anything, except giving you the moral high ground.
There's a real problem with the ad-supported content and the problem is the conflict between what the advertisers want, which is to force you to pay attention to their ads, even at the cost of breaking your experience, and what the content consumers want, which is to consume the damn content without being distracted or even badgered.
Even most of the so-called non-intrusive ads are annoying, because they're inserted where they're supposed to draw your attention.
I don't know if you'll see this, but I'm curious: would you prefer to live in a world without AdWords? That is to say, all things being equal, if Google magically had revenue from another source and AdWords did not exist, would you prefer that world?
If not, what value do you believe AdWords brings to the table, beyond the value of organic search results?
I think Adblock is a reasonable choice as I woulda rather have micropayments for content vs advertising. However, I mostly browse on an iPad which does not seem to have any add block options.
1. What are your personal ethics?
2. Who do you trust?
To put (1) in context, the content on the Internet is largely provided free but is ad-supported. When it comes to display advertising, it's sold almost entirely on a CPM basis (it may be resold on an eCPC or eCPA basis). It is at best only partially sold on an intent basis (meaning it's enticing you to click on the ad or otherwise take some kind of action).
The relevance is that the most common "defence" of ad-blocking is "I never click on ads anyway". While that might be true (let's just say that the people who claim to have never clicked on an ad is a proper superset of the people who have never clicked on an ad) it's also irrelevant since that may not be the intent and the publisher is getting paid to display the ad, not for you to click on it (unlike, say, search advertising, which is intent based).
So the ethical part here is you need to decide if you're OK with denying publishers income yet still consuming their content. If you are against ads for whatever reason and don't consume the content, that's a position I can respect, otherwise it just strikes me as rationalized freeloading but YMMV.
As for (2), the big players like Google who dominate display advertising are regulated and deeply concerned (believe it or not) about privacy and the user experience. That's why you can opt out of personalized ads [1], for example. I may be biased [2] but I trust Google far more than I trust some fly-by-night operation. Again, YMMV.
Recently there was a story about Ghostery reselling user data to advertisers [3]. How much can you really trust these basically unaccountable groups (in comparison)?
I should point out that there are two issues here that intertwine:
1. Ad-blocking;
2. Privacy.
My personal code of ethics is I don't block ads because honestly I mentally block them out anyway. Going to the Westin site then seeing ads for the Westin everywhere doesn't particularly bother me.
If a site has particularly egregioius ads (I include popups, most interstitials and any ads you need to dismiss in this category) then all bets are off. Block away. Banner ads however? Sure, why not?
But where I draw the line is with uselessly giving away your privacy in a way that doesn't benefit publishers at all. I include all the various "Like" and "Share" buttons here. All of these track for no benefit to the publisher (other than the hope that you might use one).
Those I'll happily block. Likewise if you're Quora and you blur answers because I'm not logged in with Facebook, well you'll get technically circumvented as well and I may just block any ads you have just because you're being offensive.
Anyway, just consider that ad-blockers have access to a wide range of your data as well and ask yourself what they are doing or might do with that data. Is it really worth denying publishers income to not see an ad for shoes? Really?
[1]: http://www.google.com/ads/preferences
[2]: Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer working in display advertising
[3]: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/06/ad-blocking-extension-g...