1 00:00:04,440 --> 00:00:12,360 Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 2 00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:16,280 Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, 3 00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:19,239 Speaker 1: and I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the 4 00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:22,800 Speaker 1: tech are you? So today I thought we would talk 5 00:00:23,079 --> 00:00:27,760 Speaker 1: a bit about ad blocking. It's no secret that lots 6 00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:30,760 Speaker 1: of folks out there aren't crazy about ads, and it's 7 00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:35,320 Speaker 1: totally understandable whether those ads are on television or on 8 00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:39,320 Speaker 1: the web, or on a streaming video platform which is 9 00:00:39,400 --> 00:00:43,600 Speaker 1: kind of an offshoot of the web, or yes, in podcasts. 10 00:00:44,040 --> 00:00:46,879 Speaker 1: Folks can get fed up with ads, and I get it. 11 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:49,640 Speaker 1: Trust me, I get it when the ads are for 12 00:00:49,720 --> 00:00:53,239 Speaker 1: stuff that doesn't relate to you at all. For example, 13 00:00:53,479 --> 00:00:56,040 Speaker 1: you know, if I hear an ad that has anything 14 00:00:56,080 --> 00:00:59,400 Speaker 1: to do with sports, it's probably not gonna be very 15 00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:02,240 Speaker 1: effective on me. I'm just not a sports person. Not 16 00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:05,199 Speaker 1: that I begrudge anyone who loves sports that's awesome, It's 17 00:01:05,240 --> 00:01:10,679 Speaker 1: just not in my interests. But I also understand the 18 00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:13,400 Speaker 1: negative reaction people can have for ads that relate to you, 19 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:18,119 Speaker 1: perhaps a bit too much, because targeted ads that you 20 00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:20,880 Speaker 1: might encounter on things like social network platforms, for example, 21 00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:25,000 Speaker 1: can get downright creepy, like I go back and forth. 22 00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:28,360 Speaker 1: As an example of my own life. Just recently, I 23 00:01:28,480 --> 00:01:32,480 Speaker 1: was checking in on Facebook to see what my friends 24 00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:35,560 Speaker 1: were up to, and I saw an ad for a 25 00:01:36,200 --> 00:01:39,880 Speaker 1: band performing here in Atlanta. The band being Southern Culture 26 00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:42,760 Speaker 1: on the Skids. They've been around forever, and it's a 27 00:01:42,760 --> 00:01:47,240 Speaker 1: band I really like. So this was a very targeted ad. 28 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:50,480 Speaker 1: It was a band I liked, specifically performing in a 29 00:01:50,600 --> 00:01:53,080 Speaker 1: venue that's not far from where I live. In fact, 30 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:57,720 Speaker 1: it's right next to where I used to work. And yeah, 31 00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:00,480 Speaker 1: that can feel a little creepy on the flo. If 32 00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:02,320 Speaker 1: I hadn't seen that ad, I wouldn't know to get 33 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:05,120 Speaker 1: me a ticket so that I can listen to them 34 00:02:05,120 --> 00:02:11,160 Speaker 1: play songs like Banana Pudden and camel Walk. But I'm 35 00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:14,400 Speaker 1: sure all of you know I mean, it's it's very clear. 36 00:02:14,440 --> 00:02:17,519 Speaker 1: It's very much at the very center of ads. Ads 37 00:02:17,520 --> 00:02:21,239 Speaker 1: are a way to generate revenue, and in turn, revenue 38 00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:25,080 Speaker 1: can be used to fund stuff like creating content. And 39 00:02:25,160 --> 00:02:27,600 Speaker 1: if you didn't have the ads in place, you would 40 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:30,200 Speaker 1: have to have some other means of generating revenue to 41 00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:33,919 Speaker 1: not only cover the costs that you encounter when you're 42 00:02:33,919 --> 00:02:39,040 Speaker 1: doing stuff like creating content because you know, just to 43 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:43,919 Speaker 1: create stuff does cost money, and then you want to 44 00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:45,960 Speaker 1: have some money left over, right, You don't want to 45 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:47,800 Speaker 1: just be able to cover your costs. You want to 46 00:02:47,800 --> 00:02:49,880 Speaker 1: have a little profit so that you can do things like, 47 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:54,000 Speaker 1: I don't know, pay for rent and food and that 48 00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:57,600 Speaker 1: kind of thing. But there's no question that the history 49 00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:01,160 Speaker 1: of ads online has also It's been a history of 50 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:06,520 Speaker 1: developers and advertisers and platforms making decisions that have at 51 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:10,760 Speaker 1: times frustrated or other times caused actual harm to people 52 00:03:10,760 --> 00:03:14,120 Speaker 1: who are browsing the web. There are examples of ads 53 00:03:14,160 --> 00:03:19,639 Speaker 1: that have contained malware or ads that were peddling various scams. 54 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:22,280 Speaker 1: I see a lot of those on social networks as well, 55 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:24,760 Speaker 1: So like when I do go to Facebook, I don't 56 00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:27,440 Speaker 1: just see ads that are targeted to me. I see 57 00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:31,000 Speaker 1: ads that are highly suspicious, and then by looking into them, 58 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:34,760 Speaker 1: I find out, oh, this is one of four hundred 59 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:38,040 Speaker 1: different variations of this same ad, all of them purporting 60 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:42,480 Speaker 1: to be from slightly different businesses at different locations, and 61 00:03:42,600 --> 00:03:45,320 Speaker 1: all of them being a scam. There are examples of 62 00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:49,840 Speaker 1: ads that auto play video and audio, which should be 63 00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:53,800 Speaker 1: illegal in my opinion. I mean, if you're like me, 64 00:03:53,880 --> 00:03:55,920 Speaker 1: and I think a lot of you are. When you're 65 00:03:56,040 --> 00:03:59,680 Speaker 1: using perhaps a desktop or laptop computer browser like a 66 00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:03,640 Speaker 1: web browser, you might have lots of tabs open, Like 67 00:04:03,720 --> 00:04:06,480 Speaker 1: I could have a dozen or more tabs open at 68 00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:09,520 Speaker 1: a time, And if audio starts playing in one of 69 00:04:09,560 --> 00:04:11,840 Speaker 1: those tabs and I don't immediately know which one it is, 70 00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:15,600 Speaker 1: then I'm looking for that little speaker icon in the 71 00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:17,760 Speaker 1: tabs so I can find out which one I need 72 00:04:17,760 --> 00:04:22,640 Speaker 1: to mute. It is really irritating, right, So, Like, there 73 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:26,960 Speaker 1: are lots of ways that ADS have been intrusive and 74 00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:31,280 Speaker 1: not great from a user experience. So I would argue 75 00:04:31,320 --> 00:04:33,960 Speaker 1: that there are at least some cases where there is 76 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:37,000 Speaker 1: a very forgivable tendency to want to block or skip 77 00:04:37,040 --> 00:04:40,600 Speaker 1: ADS entirely. And that's before we even get into the 78 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:45,239 Speaker 1: privacy side of things. Right now, before I go any further, 79 00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:48,200 Speaker 1: I do have to acknowledge. I mean, there's no denying it. 80 00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:51,440 Speaker 1: This podcast is ADS supported. You all know that I 81 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:55,760 Speaker 1: know that there's no denying that. Without ADS, I would 82 00:04:55,760 --> 00:04:59,320 Speaker 1: not have a show. I would not have my current job. 83 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:02,800 Speaker 1: If it weren't for ADS, I would be doing something else, 84 00:05:02,839 --> 00:05:06,839 Speaker 1: and I would probably be really unhappy about it. Generally speaking, 85 00:05:07,440 --> 00:05:11,400 Speaker 1: I am against ad blocking because of how it can 86 00:05:11,520 --> 00:05:15,120 Speaker 1: impact creators and companies that make the stuff I want 87 00:05:15,160 --> 00:05:20,240 Speaker 1: to see and experience. I'm also against it because it 88 00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:23,880 Speaker 1: pushes some platforms to lock things behind a paywall that 89 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:26,440 Speaker 1: makes it harder for other folks to access it without 90 00:05:26,440 --> 00:05:29,360 Speaker 1: breaking the bank. Some of us can afford to pay 91 00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:33,720 Speaker 1: those subscription fees to access content, others can't. I mean, 92 00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:38,240 Speaker 1: obviously that also fuels development of workarounds and loopholes to 93 00:05:38,240 --> 00:05:40,920 Speaker 1: try and get access to content without paying the paywall. 94 00:05:41,279 --> 00:05:45,960 Speaker 1: It just creates more problems. But again, creating stuff isn't free. 95 00:05:46,160 --> 00:05:48,960 Speaker 1: These companies and creators do need to generate revenue somehow, 96 00:05:49,839 --> 00:05:52,520 Speaker 1: and if folks are going to block ads, that only 97 00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:55,160 Speaker 1: leaves a few other options as far as revenue generation. 98 00:05:55,920 --> 00:05:58,520 Speaker 1: On the privacy side of things, it is much harder 99 00:05:58,560 --> 00:06:02,880 Speaker 1: to fight the practice of ad blocking. I see that 100 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:07,000 Speaker 1: as being really important. I think users do deserve to 101 00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:10,920 Speaker 1: be able to protect their privacy, and for that job 102 00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:14,000 Speaker 1: of ad blocking, I don't think I can put up 103 00:06:14,560 --> 00:06:17,240 Speaker 1: an argument like I don't think I can argue against it. 104 00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:20,599 Speaker 1: So while I think the ads are important in order 105 00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:24,880 Speaker 1: to help support the content you love. I also think that, 106 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:29,159 Speaker 1: you know, the practice of collecting user information and the 107 00:06:29,200 --> 00:06:32,160 Speaker 1: practice of buying and selling that in large amounts across 108 00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:37,680 Speaker 1: the web, that's disturbing and I cannot really, you know, 109 00:06:37,920 --> 00:06:41,559 Speaker 1: put up a good argument for it. So I feel 110 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:45,760 Speaker 1: very complicated about the whole subject. But in the grand 111 00:06:45,839 --> 00:06:48,360 Speaker 1: scheme of things, if we boil it down, I guess 112 00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:51,839 Speaker 1: I would say I'm against ad blocking. I do not 113 00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:54,599 Speaker 1: use an AD blocker on the computer I'm recording on, 114 00:06:54,720 --> 00:06:59,159 Speaker 1: for example, because I think it's important that when I'm 115 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:03,320 Speaker 1: researching stuff that the various sources I'm pulling from are 116 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:07,040 Speaker 1: also getting some AD revenue in the process. However, I 117 00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:10,920 Speaker 1: do understand why people use ad blockers. So let's go 118 00:07:11,080 --> 00:07:15,680 Speaker 1: over the history of online ad blockers. Now, obviously that 119 00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:19,720 Speaker 1: history is somewhat tied to the history of web ads 120 00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:23,280 Speaker 1: and the web. Right. Web ads were not always a 121 00:07:23,280 --> 00:07:26,400 Speaker 1: guaranteed outcome, by the way. That's because of how the 122 00:07:26,440 --> 00:07:31,000 Speaker 1: Internet evolved and the entities that contributed to the creation 123 00:07:31,240 --> 00:07:35,800 Speaker 1: of the Internet. So you have to remember the Internet 124 00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:40,720 Speaker 1: was a sort of an evolutionary step of the earlier arpenet. 125 00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:43,600 Speaker 1: There are two different things, but you could say the 126 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:48,600 Speaker 1: Internet was kind of spawned by the development of Arpenet. 127 00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:53,240 Speaker 1: Arpenet was a US government funded project that would create 128 00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:57,640 Speaker 1: the technologies necessary to allow different computer systems in different 129 00:07:58,040 --> 00:08:02,960 Speaker 1: locations to interc connect with one another and interoperate with 130 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:09,040 Speaker 1: one another. This required a metric buttload of work, according 131 00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:11,880 Speaker 1: to my calculations. Researchers had to figure out how to 132 00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:15,480 Speaker 1: make very different computers talk to each other. Right, they 133 00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:19,200 Speaker 1: weren't all working on the same operating system. That in 134 00:08:19,200 --> 00:08:23,560 Speaker 1: itself was already a complicated part of the puzzle. But 135 00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:26,920 Speaker 1: they also had to figure out how to create the 136 00:08:26,960 --> 00:08:33,000 Speaker 1: actual mechanisms for sending information over different kinds of connections. 137 00:08:33,559 --> 00:08:37,080 Speaker 1: Those connections could be through things like telephone lines, or 138 00:08:37,320 --> 00:08:41,000 Speaker 1: through radio waves, or beaming information up to satellite, which 139 00:08:41,040 --> 00:08:44,120 Speaker 1: is still you know, radio waves, but much further away. 140 00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:48,040 Speaker 1: I guess the entities that made up arpinnet and later 141 00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:53,840 Speaker 1: the early Internet involved a lot of public organizations and 142 00:08:54,280 --> 00:08:59,360 Speaker 1: private organizations, but not commercial organizations, So I'm talking about 143 00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:05,320 Speaker 1: things like colleges and universities and government offices. Military installations 144 00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:08,760 Speaker 1: were a big part of it. Research facilities that sort 145 00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:12,800 Speaker 1: of thing, And in those early days there really weren't 146 00:09:12,840 --> 00:09:17,679 Speaker 1: a whole lot of attempts to commercialize networking. You know, 147 00:09:17,720 --> 00:09:21,680 Speaker 1: there were some attempts to commercialize within a specific location, 148 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:26,560 Speaker 1: right to network all the machines within a business, for example, Yes, 149 00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:30,720 Speaker 1: but between businesses or between businesses and the world in general, 150 00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:33,800 Speaker 1: not so much. In fact, most people weren't even aware 151 00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:36,800 Speaker 1: that anything was going on at all. They just thought 152 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:40,679 Speaker 1: of computers as being kind of independent silos. Like you 153 00:09:40,679 --> 00:09:42,800 Speaker 1: would have a personal computer, but it didn't connect to 154 00:09:42,840 --> 00:09:46,200 Speaker 1: anything unless maybe you were dialing into a bulletin board 155 00:09:46,240 --> 00:09:48,840 Speaker 1: system back in the day. Now, by the time we 156 00:09:48,920 --> 00:09:52,920 Speaker 1: get to the transition of arpanet into the Internet, which 157 00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:56,360 Speaker 1: again it wasn't like an evolutionary step. It was two 158 00:09:56,440 --> 00:09:59,800 Speaker 1: things that, you know, one developed after the other, but 159 00:09:59,840 --> 00:10:01,920 Speaker 1: they we had a lot of overlap. Well, one of 160 00:10:01,920 --> 00:10:06,800 Speaker 1: the major organizations that would contribute to Internet infrastructure was 161 00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:11,840 Speaker 1: the National Science Foundation or NSF. The NSF worked with 162 00:10:11,920 --> 00:10:16,320 Speaker 1: various organizations, both public and private, to build a significant 163 00:10:16,400 --> 00:10:20,240 Speaker 1: part of what was called the Internet backbone. Still is 164 00:10:20,280 --> 00:10:23,200 Speaker 1: the Internet backbone. NSF just isn't really part of it, 165 00:10:23,480 --> 00:10:26,319 Speaker 1: I'll explain. So you can think of the Internet as 166 00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:29,199 Speaker 1: kind of like the nervous system that you would find 167 00:10:29,240 --> 00:10:31,800 Speaker 1: in an organism, right, Like you could think of an 168 00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:34,960 Speaker 1: end computer as being the very end of the line 169 00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:39,160 Speaker 1: where a nerve ending happens to be. But any signals 170 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:42,400 Speaker 1: from that computer or that nerve ending has to travel 171 00:10:42,640 --> 00:10:44,840 Speaker 1: to the brain, and to get there has to go 172 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:48,240 Speaker 1: up the nerve and then connect through the spinal cord 173 00:10:48,760 --> 00:10:52,600 Speaker 1: all the way up to the central nervous system essentially 174 00:10:52,640 --> 00:10:55,400 Speaker 1: the brain, not just the central nervous system, because I 175 00:10:55,400 --> 00:10:57,640 Speaker 1: think technically that does include the spinal cord. It's been 176 00:10:57,720 --> 00:11:00,440 Speaker 1: years since I've taken biology, but you know, it has 177 00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:02,960 Speaker 1: to travel across the spinal cord in aid to get there. 178 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:06,679 Speaker 1: It can't just jump to the brain. Well, the NSF 179 00:11:07,679 --> 00:11:12,600 Speaker 1: was contributing infrastructure that was part of the Internet's version 180 00:11:12,679 --> 00:11:16,199 Speaker 1: of the spinal cord, So a lot of the traffic 181 00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:22,120 Speaker 1: on the Internet would travel across insf's networks, which would 182 00:11:22,200 --> 00:11:27,400 Speaker 1: be called NSF net Here's the kicker though. In order 183 00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:31,679 Speaker 1: to do this, the NSF had to secure a lot 184 00:11:31,760 --> 00:11:35,000 Speaker 1: of funding from the US government. But in order to 185 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:38,240 Speaker 1: do that, there were certain rules that had to be 186 00:11:38,240 --> 00:11:41,520 Speaker 1: put in place, Like Congress said, yes, we'll provide you 187 00:11:41,559 --> 00:11:45,400 Speaker 1: the funding as long as it follows these certain rules 188 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:49,199 Speaker 1: because we don't want this to turn into some sort 189 00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:54,520 Speaker 1: of commercial effort as opposed to what you are telling 190 00:11:54,640 --> 00:11:56,440 Speaker 1: us you want it to be, which is a way 191 00:11:56,480 --> 00:12:01,280 Speaker 1: to connect supercomputing sites together. So one of the big 192 00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:07,200 Speaker 1: rules was that these the NSF connections were not allowed 193 00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:10,840 Speaker 1: to carry commercial traffic that was not to go across 194 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:14,280 Speaker 1: NSF net. And that became a problem because NSF net 195 00:12:14,320 --> 00:12:20,600 Speaker 1: became an integral component of the Internet backbone, and that 196 00:12:20,760 --> 00:12:23,920 Speaker 1: meant that if your work wasn't related to stuff like 197 00:12:23,960 --> 00:12:29,600 Speaker 1: scientific research or advancing knowledge, then you started to run 198 00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:32,760 Speaker 1: into the potential that whatever you were sending would be 199 00:12:32,800 --> 00:12:35,600 Speaker 1: against the rules and technically should not be allowed to 200 00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:41,200 Speaker 1: go across the nsf net part of Internet infrastructure. In fact, 201 00:12:41,280 --> 00:12:45,520 Speaker 1: until nineteen eighty nine, the NSF wouldn't allow any commercial 202 00:12:45,679 --> 00:12:49,720 Speaker 1: entities to even connect to the network. So Internet service 203 00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:54,400 Speaker 1: providers that could have potentially sprung up in various places 204 00:12:54,400 --> 00:12:59,040 Speaker 1: before eighty nine were stuck if the part of the 205 00:12:59,080 --> 00:13:01,520 Speaker 1: backbone that they needed to connect to was controlled by 206 00:13:01,679 --> 00:13:05,920 Speaker 1: NSF NET. Now in eighty nine, that changed. We started 207 00:13:05,920 --> 00:13:09,840 Speaker 1: to see some commercial ISPs come up, and the access 208 00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:12,880 Speaker 1: improved a little bit. In nineteen ninety one, but the 209 00:13:12,920 --> 00:13:16,559 Speaker 1: general restrictions on commercial traffic across NSF net would remain 210 00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:20,280 Speaker 1: in place until nineteen ninety five. That was a sticking 211 00:13:20,280 --> 00:13:23,800 Speaker 1: point for the development of the Internet. It wasn't illegal 212 00:13:23,920 --> 00:13:26,960 Speaker 1: to run commercial traffic over the Internet in general. So 213 00:13:27,320 --> 00:13:31,480 Speaker 1: if your connections just completely bypassed the nsf net, like 214 00:13:31,559 --> 00:13:35,480 Speaker 1: if in order to complete a commercial transaction between point 215 00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:39,120 Speaker 1: A and point B, you never had to cross any 216 00:13:39,160 --> 00:13:43,000 Speaker 1: of the network controlled by nsf net, that's fine. There 217 00:13:43,040 --> 00:13:46,920 Speaker 1: was nothing inherently illegal about using the Internet for commercial purposes. 218 00:13:47,480 --> 00:13:51,959 Speaker 1: The problem was the actual infrastructure was not supposed to 219 00:13:52,040 --> 00:13:54,400 Speaker 1: do that, at least in parts of it, and that 220 00:13:54,760 --> 00:14:00,439 Speaker 1: is what complicated everything. Now it was a huge joble 221 00:14:00,840 --> 00:14:03,360 Speaker 1: The solution ended up being the creation of a new 222 00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:08,680 Speaker 1: privatized network architecture largely built on top of what was 223 00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:12,600 Speaker 1: learned through creating nsf net, but independent of nsf net. 224 00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:16,120 Speaker 1: It essentially meant all these companies had to build a 225 00:14:16,120 --> 00:14:18,640 Speaker 1: almost like a copy of nsf net in order to 226 00:14:18,679 --> 00:14:25,240 Speaker 1: handle all that traffic and allow NSF to decommission nsf 227 00:14:25,320 --> 00:14:29,400 Speaker 1: net in nineteen ninety five, and now traffic would just 228 00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:32,920 Speaker 1: move across this other privatized architecture and there would be 229 00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:38,200 Speaker 1: no limitation to the know to commercial traffic. Now, there's 230 00:14:38,200 --> 00:14:40,880 Speaker 1: a lot more to that particular story. In fact, I 231 00:14:40,880 --> 00:14:45,480 Speaker 1: could do a full episode about the entire drama around 232 00:14:46,080 --> 00:14:50,560 Speaker 1: the transition of the Internet from a purely sort of 233 00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:55,680 Speaker 1: research based entity into a commercial entity, But for our purposes, 234 00:14:55,680 --> 00:14:59,760 Speaker 1: we're going to leave that part there. Let's talk about 235 00:14:59,840 --> 00:15:02,720 Speaker 1: the Web and web ads, because that's what this is 236 00:15:02,840 --> 00:15:06,280 Speaker 1: really about, right, Okay, I've set it up. When we 237 00:15:06,320 --> 00:15:09,280 Speaker 1: come back, i'll talk a little bit about the birth 238 00:15:09,400 --> 00:15:13,080 Speaker 1: of the World Wide Web and how that eventually led 239 00:15:13,200 --> 00:15:17,040 Speaker 1: to the creation of web ads and thus ad blocking. 240 00:15:18,120 --> 00:15:22,120 Speaker 1: But first, and trust me, I understand the irony of this. 241 00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:36,480 Speaker 1: We need to take a break to thank our sponsors. Okay, 242 00:15:36,520 --> 00:15:40,640 Speaker 1: we're back. So the beginning of the Worldwide Web. That 243 00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:44,120 Speaker 1: starts with the guy who's credited for inventing the whole 244 00:15:44,200 --> 00:15:47,680 Speaker 1: darn thing. He was a researcher who was working for CERN, 245 00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:51,840 Speaker 1: you know, the same scientific research center that runs the 246 00:15:51,920 --> 00:15:55,440 Speaker 1: Large Hadron Collider, and his name is of course Tim 247 00:15:55,480 --> 00:15:59,880 Speaker 1: berners Lee. Tim felt that we were really missing a trick, 248 00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:03,160 Speaker 1: you know, we had all these important documents. He was 249 00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:06,840 Speaker 1: probably mostly thinking about scientific documents. But we had all 250 00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:10,440 Speaker 1: these incredibly important documents, and they were stored on different 251 00:16:10,440 --> 00:16:13,440 Speaker 1: computers all over the world. And a lot of these 252 00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:17,400 Speaker 1: documents related to one another, or they each related to 253 00:16:17,920 --> 00:16:21,520 Speaker 1: common topics, but they were all distinct. They were disconnected 254 00:16:21,560 --> 00:16:23,960 Speaker 1: from each other. But what if you could build in 255 00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:27,920 Speaker 1: a way that would allow related documents to have a link, 256 00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:30,600 Speaker 1: to share a link with each other. You know, maybe 257 00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:33,760 Speaker 1: you've got a document that's about one research project about 258 00:16:33,800 --> 00:16:38,200 Speaker 1: particle physics, and you've got another research project about particle 259 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:41,920 Speaker 1: physics that's slightly different, But combining the two would provide 260 00:16:42,600 --> 00:16:45,440 Speaker 1: future researchers with a lot more knowledge that would be 261 00:16:45,440 --> 00:16:48,960 Speaker 1: beneficial to more work. If you were able to link 262 00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:52,960 Speaker 1: those two documents together, that could be a really beneficial thing. 263 00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:58,040 Speaker 1: So Tim developed hyperlink technology, which would do just what 264 00:16:58,160 --> 00:17:01,320 Speaker 1: he was thinking. You could create a digital link between 265 00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:05,280 Speaker 1: different digital documents and navigate from one to the other 266 00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:09,680 Speaker 1: using some sort of client software. This was the basis 267 00:17:09,720 --> 00:17:12,440 Speaker 1: for the World Wide Web, and berners Lee was able 268 00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:16,320 Speaker 1: to convince CERN, which technically owned the research because it 269 00:17:16,359 --> 00:17:20,439 Speaker 1: was his employer, to release this technology to the world 270 00:17:20,760 --> 00:17:24,600 Speaker 1: in the public domain, rather than to sell it off 271 00:17:24,760 --> 00:17:28,280 Speaker 1: and have it risk becoming some sort of proprietary software 272 00:17:28,280 --> 00:17:33,000 Speaker 1: which would inherently limit its utility. Now, the world's first 273 00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:36,880 Speaker 1: website launched in nineteen ninety one on August sixth. Then 274 00:17:36,920 --> 00:17:39,840 Speaker 1: it was a text based document describing the basics of 275 00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:43,960 Speaker 1: the World Wide Web project, including how hypertext links work. 276 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:47,800 Speaker 1: The very early days of the web were really all 277 00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:51,600 Speaker 1: about text based documents. However, it didn't take too long 278 00:17:51,680 --> 00:17:55,240 Speaker 1: for that to change. It did happen somewhat gradually because 279 00:17:55,320 --> 00:17:57,960 Speaker 1: keep in mind, outside of universities and research centers and 280 00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:01,479 Speaker 1: the like, those few people who had Internet access were 281 00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:03,840 Speaker 1: depending on stuff like dial up modems, So if you 282 00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:08,000 Speaker 1: were including things like images, it really slowed down how 283 00:18:08,040 --> 00:18:10,879 Speaker 1: long it took for a web page to load into 284 00:18:10,920 --> 00:18:14,920 Speaker 1: a browser. By the end of nineteen ninety three, there 285 00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:19,800 Speaker 1: were only around three thousand websites total. Now that was 286 00:18:19,800 --> 00:18:21,760 Speaker 1: still a growth spurt, because in ninety two it was 287 00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:25,720 Speaker 1: more like ten websites. And also in nineteen ninety three, 288 00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:30,199 Speaker 1: before the NSF net was shut down, we would start 289 00:18:30,280 --> 00:18:35,680 Speaker 1: to have our first web centric platform that would support ads. 290 00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:40,400 Speaker 1: And that platform wasn't itself a spinoff of a company 291 00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:43,680 Speaker 1: that at the time was called O'Reilly and associates. These days, 292 00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:47,120 Speaker 1: it's just known as O'Reilly Media. It was founded by 293 00:18:47,119 --> 00:18:51,320 Speaker 1: Tim O'Reilly and the company originally focused on creating technical writing, 294 00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:55,080 Speaker 1: technical documents and consulting that kind of stuff, and a 295 00:18:55,119 --> 00:18:58,840 Speaker 1: lot of different documents and even events have come out 296 00:18:58,880 --> 00:19:01,320 Speaker 1: of O'Reilly. The company is one of the reasons the 297 00:19:01,359 --> 00:19:03,920 Speaker 1: concept of web two point zero even became a thing. 298 00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:07,560 Speaker 1: For example, but we want to talk about the Global 299 00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:14,280 Speaker 1: Network Navigator or GNN. O'Reilly launched the GNN website in 300 00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:18,240 Speaker 1: May of nineteen ninety three, and essentially it was an 301 00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:23,200 Speaker 1: online magazine. In fact, originally it had a quarterly publication schedule, 302 00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:26,600 Speaker 1: so it would only change like four times a year. 303 00:19:26,640 --> 00:19:28,680 Speaker 1: But you have to remember, in the early days of 304 00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:32,760 Speaker 1: the web, web pages typically were static. You know, you 305 00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:36,560 Speaker 1: didn't have sites updating content every day, let alone multiple 306 00:19:36,600 --> 00:19:41,080 Speaker 1: times a day. Some websites would upload, and that was that. 307 00:19:41,800 --> 00:19:44,040 Speaker 1: It just served as almost like a Yellow Pages ad 308 00:19:44,119 --> 00:19:46,640 Speaker 1: or something. It didn't change. Also, I don't know how 309 00:19:46,640 --> 00:19:48,439 Speaker 1: many of you know what a Yellow Pages ad is. 310 00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:52,880 Speaker 1: Moving on. So GNN was already a little different from 311 00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:56,600 Speaker 1: other web pages, right because it would actually feature updated content, 312 00:19:57,160 --> 00:20:00,199 Speaker 1: though only a few times a year, and and this 313 00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:04,480 Speaker 1: content largely focused on features about the blossoming technology of 314 00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:09,280 Speaker 1: the World Wide Web. Another way that GNN set itself 315 00:20:09,320 --> 00:20:13,600 Speaker 1: apart from other web pages is that O'Reilly decided they 316 00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:18,520 Speaker 1: would allow for online advertising. GNN would offer companies a 317 00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:23,679 Speaker 1: chance to secure some space, some real estate on the 318 00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:27,600 Speaker 1: web page that would be dedicated to advertising to a 319 00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:31,919 Speaker 1: potential customer. And you could use hyperlink technology to facilitate 320 00:20:31,960 --> 00:20:36,000 Speaker 1: traffic to a different destination where presumably someone who's visiting 321 00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:40,199 Speaker 1: GNN could become a paying customer of the company that 322 00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:44,679 Speaker 1: advertised on GNN. Well, this set up conditions for AT 323 00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:48,800 Speaker 1: and T to purchase the very first web banner. At 324 00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:51,320 Speaker 1: least as far as I can tell, it was a 325 00:20:51,359 --> 00:20:54,840 Speaker 1: brave new world. This was in nineteen ninety four when 326 00:20:54,880 --> 00:20:58,639 Speaker 1: the first web banner ended up being displayed to the world, 327 00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:02,720 Speaker 1: and it meant there was advertising on the Internet now. 328 00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:06,440 Speaker 1: It didn't take long for there to be a kind 329 00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:10,119 Speaker 1: of land rush to the web. You know how a 330 00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:12,920 Speaker 1: lot of companies really jumped into the whole web three 331 00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:19,600 Speaker 1: slash metaverse, slash blockchain, slash NFT bandwagon not that long ago. 332 00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:21,520 Speaker 1: And how despite the fact that there were a lot 333 00:21:21,560 --> 00:21:25,800 Speaker 1: of unanswered questions about the technologies in general. There was 334 00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:28,760 Speaker 1: this perception that if you didn't get in there right away, 335 00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:32,439 Speaker 1: you were going to be left behind. That's kind of 336 00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:35,000 Speaker 1: what the Internet in general and the Web in particular 337 00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:39,400 Speaker 1: was like around this time, and there was a bit 338 00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:43,520 Speaker 1: of this struggle, this rush to get an online presence 339 00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:47,840 Speaker 1: among various companies, and in turn that really picked up 340 00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:51,199 Speaker 1: the pace when the last restrictions on commercial internet traffic 341 00:21:51,200 --> 00:21:55,920 Speaker 1: went away once NSF net decommissioned. So in nineteen ninety five, 342 00:21:56,440 --> 00:22:00,520 Speaker 1: AOL purchased GNN from O'Reilly for the print lease some 343 00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:04,480 Speaker 1: of eleven million dollars, and in that same year a 344 00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:08,720 Speaker 1: couple of guys named Dwight Merriman and Kevin O'Connor came 345 00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:12,680 Speaker 1: up with a business plan. See GNN showed that online 346 00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:15,919 Speaker 1: advertising was a very real possibility, but a lot of 347 00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:18,720 Speaker 1: companies wouldn't have the know how or the resources to 348 00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:23,000 Speaker 1: facilitate advertising on their web pages. So what was needed 349 00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:28,639 Speaker 1: was a dedicated company to handle stuff like ad sales 350 00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:34,040 Speaker 1: and performance tracking, you know, partnering advertisers with web pages, 351 00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:37,439 Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, running ads across networks of sites, 352 00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:41,560 Speaker 1: not just on a single page and even getting into 353 00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:46,040 Speaker 1: the earliest, earliest days of what would become targeted advertising. 354 00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:49,960 Speaker 1: So the two created a service that kind of did 355 00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:53,440 Speaker 1: all these things, and they called it Double Click. Kevin 356 00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:56,960 Speaker 1: Ryan would become an early investor in the service, and 357 00:22:57,040 --> 00:23:00,840 Speaker 1: later on would become CEO of the company itself. Now 358 00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,840 Speaker 1: this isn't the Double Click story either, but the company 359 00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:08,200 Speaker 1: did pioneer an era in which advertising would proliferate across 360 00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:11,119 Speaker 1: the web. And if you want to know what actually 361 00:23:11,119 --> 00:23:14,560 Speaker 1: happened to double click itself, Google announced that it would 362 00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:17,280 Speaker 1: purchase double Click back in two thousand and seven for 363 00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:23,680 Speaker 1: the even more princely sum of three point one billion dollars, 364 00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:28,200 Speaker 1: showing that web advertising had truly become a gargantuan business, 365 00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:31,960 Speaker 1: and it's now part of Google's overall advertising operations. But 366 00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:34,920 Speaker 1: let's get back to ads and ad blocking, and we're 367 00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:40,840 Speaker 1: back into the mid nineteen nineties. So web advertising begins 368 00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:45,640 Speaker 1: to gainsteam. Some folks start to develop ad blindness already, 369 00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:48,240 Speaker 1: because a lot of these ads were appearing either as 370 00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:51,280 Speaker 1: a banner ad across the top or the bottom of 371 00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:55,280 Speaker 1: a web page, or along the side like in a column, 372 00:23:55,320 --> 00:23:57,040 Speaker 1: either to the left or to the right of the 373 00:23:57,080 --> 00:23:59,160 Speaker 1: main content of the web page. A lot of people 374 00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:02,240 Speaker 1: just got really good it not paying attention to that stuff, 375 00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:06,280 Speaker 1: but some folks were still frustrated that ads were showing 376 00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:08,720 Speaker 1: up when they were trying to just surf the web. 377 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:13,760 Speaker 1: A group of students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina started 378 00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:17,080 Speaker 1: to come up with their own idea for a company. 379 00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,840 Speaker 1: So rather than selling ad space and slapping banner ads 380 00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:24,320 Speaker 1: all over the web, they were creating an extension to 381 00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:27,840 Speaker 1: the web browser Netscape, which at the time was almost 382 00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:31,080 Speaker 1: synonymous with the Worldwide Web itself. It's easy to forget now, 383 00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:35,960 Speaker 1: but there was a time where Netscape was essentially the 384 00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:40,840 Speaker 1: definitive web browser for the Internet. That would change, and 385 00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:44,159 Speaker 1: things would change dramatically. Like today, you could argue that 386 00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:48,080 Speaker 1: Google Chrome is one of the biggest ones out there, 387 00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:51,080 Speaker 1: but there's still there's better competition now than there was 388 00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:55,480 Speaker 1: back when Netscape was really dominating the landscape. Now, this 389 00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:59,680 Speaker 1: extension that the students created would actually block banner ads 390 00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:03,399 Speaker 1: from showing up in a user's web browser. The leader 391 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,160 Speaker 1: of this group of radical revolutionaries was a guy named 392 00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:09,560 Speaker 1: James Howard. From why I understand, he wasn't even a 393 00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:12,560 Speaker 1: computer science major. He was actually focused on studying drama 394 00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,720 Speaker 1: as a theater, not as in, let me just walk 395 00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:17,480 Speaker 1: up to the stranger in public and see if I 396 00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:21,359 Speaker 1: can provoke a wild reaction. So Howard and his fellow 397 00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:25,720 Speaker 1: students ended up creating a company called Privnet, and the 398 00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:29,160 Speaker 1: tool they made, the ad blocking tool, got the name 399 00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:34,520 Speaker 1: Internet Fast Forward. Why Internet fast Forward, Well, we got 400 00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:37,879 Speaker 1: to understand how web ads work, right, So when you 401 00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:40,280 Speaker 1: go to a web page, what you're really doing is 402 00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:44,560 Speaker 1: your browser is sending a request to a web server 403 00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:49,080 Speaker 1: that hosts that page, and the web server serves the 404 00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:52,040 Speaker 1: page up to you. It sends the page to your 405 00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:56,840 Speaker 1: web browser. Web ads, however, typically live on some other 406 00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,520 Speaker 1: web server. There's like a little section in the web 407 00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,679 Speaker 1: page that connects to this code that links to the 408 00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:07,480 Speaker 1: ad in question, and that means that there's another fetch 409 00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:11,600 Speaker 1: and retrieval process going on when you're accessing the web page. 410 00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:14,600 Speaker 1: It's not just the content of the page itself, it's 411 00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:18,920 Speaker 1: also the AD and that can slow things down. And again, 412 00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,520 Speaker 1: remember we're talking in an era where people are using 413 00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:24,720 Speaker 1: dial up internet, So you're using your dial up internet 414 00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:28,000 Speaker 1: to access a web page and it's taking a really 415 00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:30,360 Speaker 1: long time, because not only is it pulling from the 416 00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:33,680 Speaker 1: website you're going to, but any web ads that might 417 00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,880 Speaker 1: be included on the web page that you're trying to visit. 418 00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:41,240 Speaker 1: So Internet fast forward, but speed things up by blocking 419 00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:44,320 Speaker 1: those ads now. As you might imagine, the emergence of 420 00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:48,840 Speaker 1: ad blocking immediately prompted a lot of criticism from various 421 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:53,119 Speaker 1: other parties. Obviously, ad companies were really upset because this 422 00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:57,080 Speaker 1: was their business and blocking ads was a bad thing. 423 00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,920 Speaker 1: Like if you're especially if your business is dependent upon 424 00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,560 Speaker 1: and the performance of ads, and people are able to 425 00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:07,520 Speaker 1: block the ad entirely, well, that performance drops to nothing 426 00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:12,120 Speaker 1: if everybody's doing it. Content companies were also upset, right 427 00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,680 Speaker 1: because this was how they were making revenue and being 428 00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:19,600 Speaker 1: able to allow access to the content without otherwise charging 429 00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,720 Speaker 1: for it. So a lot of people spoke up and 430 00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:26,400 Speaker 1: said that in order for content on the Internet, well 431 00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:31,320 Speaker 1: really specifically the Web, to remain free to access, there 432 00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:35,200 Speaker 1: was this unfortunate need for ad revenue because in the end, 433 00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:38,720 Speaker 1: nothing is free. There are costs associated with everything, whether 434 00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:41,720 Speaker 1: it's creating the content or hosting it, and unless you 435 00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:44,919 Speaker 1: have a pipeline to endless resources, you have to have 436 00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,439 Speaker 1: a way to generate revenue to cover costs or stuff 437 00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,439 Speaker 1: goes away. Now, I've read a few articles that actually 438 00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,560 Speaker 1: published back in nineteen ninety six. That's when the Internet 439 00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:58,760 Speaker 1: fast Forward tool started to really get attention. By the 440 00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,680 Speaker 1: end of that year, another company called Pretty Good Privacy 441 00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:05,479 Speaker 1: would actually purchase priv Net, the creator of Internet fast Forward, 442 00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,280 Speaker 1: and a couple of years later they would actually have 443 00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,480 Speaker 1: to shut down the tool because they were being threatened 444 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:16,879 Speaker 1: with legal cases from various companies, and in order to 445 00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:23,440 Speaker 1: avoid any incredibly expensive legal fees, they shut it down. 446 00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:25,960 Speaker 1: But anyway, back in ninety six, the interesting thing that 447 00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:30,120 Speaker 1: hits me from these articles is that Howard would be 448 00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,399 Speaker 1: interviewed all the time. I mean, this was big news. 449 00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:37,360 Speaker 1: It was making like TV news, and Howard framed ad 450 00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:40,120 Speaker 1: blocking is a way to cater the browsing experience to 451 00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:45,160 Speaker 1: user preferences. He was saying, shouldn't the end user be 452 00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:50,120 Speaker 1: able to determine how they get content? Like, shouldn't they 453 00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,920 Speaker 1: be the ones to ultimately decide whether or not certain 454 00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:58,440 Speaker 1: types of Internet content come their way, which includes ads? 455 00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,520 Speaker 1: So why not give them a tool that lets them 456 00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:05,320 Speaker 1: block those ads if they want to? And again, you know, 457 00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:07,680 Speaker 1: since we're talking about the era of dial up modems. 458 00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,200 Speaker 1: This can mean saving time for the end user. Of course, 459 00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:14,680 Speaker 1: the user's time is important, so why not give them 460 00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:17,160 Speaker 1: a tool that lets some access what they want faster 461 00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:24,560 Speaker 1: by blocking stuff they don't want, namely ads. But interestingly, 462 00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:27,840 Speaker 1: while I was looking at all these different interviews and stuff, 463 00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,520 Speaker 1: one of the conversations I did not see or one 464 00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:32,560 Speaker 1: of the topics that did not really pop up in 465 00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:36,520 Speaker 1: those And maybe it was simply because the media didn't 466 00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:42,400 Speaker 1: know to ask the question was really about privacy. Privacy 467 00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:47,280 Speaker 1: would become an integral component of ad blocking moving on, 468 00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:49,440 Speaker 1: but in those early days, you just didn't see it 469 00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:52,840 Speaker 1: being talked about. See back in nineteen ninety four, a 470 00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:57,840 Speaker 1: computer programmer named lou Montuli had this idea. There was 471 00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:02,920 Speaker 1: a need to preserve a use when a person was 472 00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,680 Speaker 1: engaging with a web page. So let me give you 473 00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:09,440 Speaker 1: an example. Let's say you visit an online store, and 474 00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:12,400 Speaker 1: let's say you start shopping around and you're filling your 475 00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:16,560 Speaker 1: virtual cart with various items. But before you can actually 476 00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,520 Speaker 1: go and complete the transaction, you have to log off 477 00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:22,400 Speaker 1: your computer to go do something else. Now wouldn't it 478 00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:26,280 Speaker 1: be nice when you later had the time that you 479 00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:28,640 Speaker 1: could log back in on your computer, go right back 480 00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,120 Speaker 1: to that web page, and your cart would still have 481 00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:33,960 Speaker 1: all the things you had put into it when you 482 00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:37,560 Speaker 1: visited earlier on. Wouldn't that be nice? Of course it would. 483 00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:40,320 Speaker 1: That's kind of how the web works, you know, Otherwise 484 00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:41,760 Speaker 1: you would have to start all over and that'd be 485 00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:45,480 Speaker 1: a frustrating experience. Well, you would have to store that data, 486 00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:47,360 Speaker 1: right You would have to have a place where that 487 00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:51,760 Speaker 1: data would be associated with your visit to that store, 488 00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:56,240 Speaker 1: and these were the items that you specifically chose. Storing 489 00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:59,520 Speaker 1: that data on web servers look like a non starter 490 00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:03,560 Speaker 1: because maybe you would never come back to the virtual store. 491 00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:07,400 Speaker 1: Then the virtual store is just storing this data on 492 00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:12,240 Speaker 1: its servers for no reason. It's just bloating up all 493 00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:16,120 Speaker 1: the data storage as all these different customers come and go. 494 00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:21,560 Speaker 1: Storing the data on your computer made more sense, right, Like, 495 00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:23,800 Speaker 1: if you had just a tiny little block of data 496 00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,440 Speaker 1: that sat on your computer, that's not a big deal. 497 00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:30,160 Speaker 1: But holding millions of blocks of data on a server 498 00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,400 Speaker 1: that just didn't make sense. So then the web page 499 00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:35,840 Speaker 1: could access this little block of data living on your 500 00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:39,080 Speaker 1: computer through the connection with the web browser, and you 501 00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:42,200 Speaker 1: would be right back where you were from your earlier session. 502 00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:45,400 Speaker 1: You'd be able to continue shopping. This technology was already 503 00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,160 Speaker 1: in use in other realms of computing and it was 504 00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:52,480 Speaker 1: called a cookie. So in nineteen ninety four, cookies became 505 00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:55,680 Speaker 1: a thing for web traffic once developers created the Web 506 00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:59,240 Speaker 1: Specification for them to work in Netscape and later in 507 00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,640 Speaker 1: other browsers as well. When we come back, we'll talk 508 00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,000 Speaker 1: a bit more about cookies and how that would end 509 00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:10,680 Speaker 1: up fueling another era of development in the ad blocking space. 510 00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:13,880 Speaker 1: But again and again, the irony is not lost on me. 511 00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:16,400 Speaker 1: We have to take a break for some ads of 512 00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:29,840 Speaker 1: our own. Okay, we're back, and before the break, I 513 00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:31,760 Speaker 1: was talking about cookies. 514 00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:32,520 Speaker 2: Now. 515 00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,920 Speaker 1: The thing about cookies is that they can not only 516 00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:39,120 Speaker 1: preserve a state that you were in when you were 517 00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:43,480 Speaker 1: visiting a website. So, for example, if you logged into 518 00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:46,680 Speaker 1: a website, like if there was a user name, password 519 00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:49,560 Speaker 1: kind of gate to the website, it could preserve that 520 00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,560 Speaker 1: log in so that you're using the same device you 521 00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:54,840 Speaker 1: revisit the site, you don't have to log in again. 522 00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:58,480 Speaker 1: That kind of thing. Well, they could also potentially be 523 00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,840 Speaker 1: used to ida to fy someone and to track a 524 00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:05,920 Speaker 1: user's activity across the web. It gets fairly complicated, but 525 00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,000 Speaker 1: the basic issue here is that if you want to 526 00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:14,880 Speaker 1: really browse the web privately without worrying about your activity 527 00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:19,120 Speaker 1: being tracked back to you personally, cookies are one of 528 00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:22,080 Speaker 1: the things you have to be concerned about. And so 529 00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:25,880 Speaker 1: developing a use case for ad blockers focused not just 530 00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:30,360 Speaker 1: on blocking you know ads like web banner ads. It 531 00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:34,960 Speaker 1: became a matter of protecting user privacy. The content platforms 532 00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:38,120 Speaker 1: and advertising companies didn't really like that either, but the 533 00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:41,880 Speaker 1: die had been cast, so by the late nineteen nineties 534 00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:45,040 Speaker 1: and into the early two thousands, a whole bunch of 535 00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:49,080 Speaker 1: different ad blocking solutions emerged and became available to folks. 536 00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:54,000 Speaker 1: One of those was the CYBERsitter Internet filter tool. You know. 537 00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:59,200 Speaker 1: Internet filters allow people to set a filter to determine 538 00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:02,000 Speaker 1: what kind of content is allowed to come through and 539 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:04,840 Speaker 1: what kind of content should be blocked from a web 540 00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:09,160 Speaker 1: browser entirely, and often it's used in a way where 541 00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:11,080 Speaker 1: you could argue it's used in a way to censor 542 00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:13,920 Speaker 1: information from the web. You could argue it's in a 543 00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:19,800 Speaker 1: way to protect say, children from seeing content they really 544 00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:23,319 Speaker 1: have no business seeing. That kind of thing. There are 545 00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,239 Speaker 1: lots of arguments both for and against internet filters, but 546 00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,120 Speaker 1: Cybercenter was a big one, and it added an ad 547 00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:33,120 Speaker 1: blocking feature in the late nineteen nineties to its its service. 548 00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:38,320 Speaker 1: A company called Wrq offered up a filter called at Guard. 549 00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:44,680 Speaker 1: At Guard around the same time that CYBERsitter introduced its 550 00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:49,239 Speaker 1: ad blocking tool. At Guard would block ads as well 551 00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:52,400 Speaker 1: as cookies and other content, and could also serve as 552 00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:57,360 Speaker 1: a general firewall service. While some ad block critics dismissed 553 00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,279 Speaker 1: ad blocking as a nuisance back when Internet f ast 554 00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:03,840 Speaker 1: Forward showed up, now people were starting to get a 555 00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,080 Speaker 1: little bit more concerned, right, So you did have people 556 00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:10,920 Speaker 1: who are saying, oh, this threatens the entire structure of 557 00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:14,319 Speaker 1: the web from a revenue standpoint, But a lot of 558 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:16,759 Speaker 1: other people said, Oh, the average person's not going to 559 00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:21,160 Speaker 1: bother downloading an ad blocker, Like maybe a few grouches will, 560 00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:24,600 Speaker 1: but not everybody will, and so it's more of a nuisance. 561 00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:27,319 Speaker 1: It's not really that big of a deal. By the 562 00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:30,000 Speaker 1: late nineties and into the early two thousands, it was 563 00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:32,560 Speaker 1: starting to look like a big deal because now ad 564 00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:37,040 Speaker 1: blockers were one getting more popular and two bringing a 565 00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:41,439 Speaker 1: little more attention to things like cookies that in part 566 00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:44,960 Speaker 1: could lead to more effective targeted advertising, but the flip 567 00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:48,160 Speaker 1: side of that was it could lead to a lot 568 00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,640 Speaker 1: more tracking and identification, and people were starting to feel 569 00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:55,680 Speaker 1: pretty squirreling about that. Part of the reason that web 570 00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:59,920 Speaker 1: users were starting to experiment with ad blocking really had 571 00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,240 Speaker 1: to do with how web ads themselves were starting to change. 572 00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:07,360 Speaker 1: So early ads mostly involved simple banners, and they weren't 573 00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:11,640 Speaker 1: that bad right, especially early early days, because everything was 574 00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:15,840 Speaker 1: pretty static. You didn't have things like lots of animations 575 00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:18,640 Speaker 1: or video or audio playing in web banner ads. It 576 00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:21,160 Speaker 1: was just kind of a static image. Later on that 577 00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:25,040 Speaker 1: would start to change as things became more dynamic on 578 00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,759 Speaker 1: the web, the ads became more obnoxious. But really what 579 00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,120 Speaker 1: pushed things into high gear was the development of the 580 00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:35,239 Speaker 1: pop up ad. And I'm sure most of you don't 581 00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:38,239 Speaker 1: need to be told what a pop up ad is, 582 00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:42,600 Speaker 1: but just in case, a pop up ad uses JavaScript 583 00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:46,040 Speaker 1: so that when a browser accesses a web page, the 584 00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:50,680 Speaker 1: JavaScript prompts a new window, typically a smaller window, to 585 00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,520 Speaker 1: open up on top of the web page you actually 586 00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:55,760 Speaker 1: wanted to go to. So you all know these ads 587 00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:58,960 Speaker 1: they can be awful. And because of that JavaScript thing, 588 00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:00,920 Speaker 1: you can actually end up with a whole string of 589 00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:05,200 Speaker 1: pop up ads, and you know, closing one ad can 590 00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:08,520 Speaker 1: prompt another ad to open, and so on, because developers 591 00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:12,520 Speaker 1: could link pretty much any user action with a prompt 592 00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:16,239 Speaker 1: to open another pop up, and so closing one can 593 00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:18,960 Speaker 1: make another one open. There were also variations to this. 594 00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:21,160 Speaker 1: You didn't just have pop ups, there were also pop 595 00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:24,920 Speaker 1: under ads. This also prompts another window to open, but 596 00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:29,760 Speaker 1: it opens below the web browser, so it's hidden from 597 00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:33,400 Speaker 1: you unless you're paying attention to, like a taskbar or something. 598 00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:36,320 Speaker 1: It's hidden from you until you close out of your browser, 599 00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,759 Speaker 1: and then surprise, you've got another window that's been opened 600 00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:43,279 Speaker 1: this whole time. Now, not only was the scene as obnoxious, 601 00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,719 Speaker 1: it also created opportunities for malicious folks to create all 602 00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:51,080 Speaker 1: sorts of problems. On the arguably less harmful side, you 603 00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,320 Speaker 1: can really troll visitors to your website site by having 604 00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,760 Speaker 1: like one of these chains of pop ups activate, which 605 00:37:57,840 --> 00:37:59,759 Speaker 1: just means the user ends up having to play whack 606 00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,840 Speaker 1: them with all the low pop up windows while just 607 00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,200 Speaker 1: trying to navigate the page they were actually interested in. 608 00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:08,600 Speaker 1: That was stupid, but who is at least, you know, 609 00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:11,880 Speaker 1: relatively harmless but you could also try and house links 610 00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:14,640 Speaker 1: to malware and pop ups. This was already an issue 611 00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:19,560 Speaker 1: with ads anyway, right you had malicious actors who would 612 00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,400 Speaker 1: work with legitimate ad companies or in some cases they 613 00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:28,040 Speaker 1: would run an illegitimate AD company and secure space on 614 00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:32,040 Speaker 1: popular web pages and nestle a link that would take 615 00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:35,239 Speaker 1: people to a place where they could potentially end up 616 00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:39,160 Speaker 1: being infected by malware. That's a real issue. It's one 617 00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,240 Speaker 1: of the Again, one of the reasons why ad blockers 618 00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:44,799 Speaker 1: were really starting to take off is that companies were 619 00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:48,200 Speaker 1: not being super careful and super picky about the types 620 00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,520 Speaker 1: of ads they were displaying against their content, and that 621 00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,799 Speaker 1: meant that occasionally you had these cases where people were 622 00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:58,520 Speaker 1: getting their machines infected by malware because they clicked on 623 00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,279 Speaker 1: an AD and you had to follow a couple more 624 00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,840 Speaker 1: steps like installing something and then activating it or whatever. 625 00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,719 Speaker 1: But the point is it was not a good look, 626 00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:13,520 Speaker 1: right Well, in two thousand and three, Henrik Sorensen introduced 627 00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:17,760 Speaker 1: a Mozilla browser extension, and this one was called ad block, 628 00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:21,400 Speaker 1: and this for a while became one of the big 629 00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,840 Speaker 1: names in the ad blocking world. However, it has changed 630 00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:30,480 Speaker 1: quite a bit since Sorensen first launched the extension, because 631 00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:33,359 Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, another developer who had been 632 00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:38,120 Speaker 1: working with ad Block, a developer named Vladimir Palant, took 633 00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,319 Speaker 1: over ad block and essentially he stripped it down to 634 00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:44,960 Speaker 1: its foundation and then rebuilt it, and the new extension 635 00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,280 Speaker 1: was called ad block Plus. So with ad block Plus, 636 00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,239 Speaker 1: users could determine what they wanted to filter out or 637 00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:54,839 Speaker 1: to allow through. And again this was following that same 638 00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,960 Speaker 1: philosophy that priv net had set up in the mid 639 00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:02,840 Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, this idea that end users should be allowed 640 00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:05,879 Speaker 1: to control what does and does not go into their 641 00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:09,160 Speaker 1: web browser rather than having some third party make those 642 00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:12,879 Speaker 1: decisions for the users. And if a user doesn't mind 643 00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,840 Speaker 1: certain ads but hates other types, like maybe they don't 644 00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:19,560 Speaker 1: mind banner ads, but they hate pop ups well, or 645 00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,440 Speaker 1: they don't mind ads from certain types of companies, but 646 00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:25,279 Speaker 1: they hate ads from other types of companies, why not 647 00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,040 Speaker 1: let the user filter out the stuff they don't like. 648 00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:31,720 Speaker 1: While on the advertising side, you had folks who felt 649 00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:35,320 Speaker 1: there were a lot of reasons why that shouldn't happen, because, 650 00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:37,400 Speaker 1: of course, there are a lot of money and ads. 651 00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,840 Speaker 1: Allow me to remind you that Google itself is not 652 00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:45,200 Speaker 1: really a search company that is related to, say, a 653 00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:51,200 Speaker 1: video platform, namely YouTube, and other companies as well. Google 654 00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:55,280 Speaker 1: is really an advertising company. In fact, YouTube is really 655 00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:59,840 Speaker 1: an advertising company. Those search results on Google Search and 656 00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,799 Speaker 1: the videos that you get in YouTube, really that's just 657 00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:05,520 Speaker 1: a way to serve more ads to users, and the 658 00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,520 Speaker 1: ads generate a ton of revenue will actually come back 659 00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:12,560 Speaker 1: to Google in just a moment. Now, moving on with 660 00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:15,239 Speaker 1: the history of ad blockers, y'all might remember that the 661 00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:18,759 Speaker 1: world faced a massive economic crisis in two thousand and eight. 662 00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:22,840 Speaker 1: Some places were hit much harder than others. One of 663 00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:25,520 Speaker 1: the places that was hit pretty hard was Russia. In 664 00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:29,000 Speaker 1: the aftermath of the economic crisis, a few Russian developers 665 00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:32,360 Speaker 1: created a tool called net chart and that would provide 666 00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:35,319 Speaker 1: free web analytics, so you could use this tool for 667 00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:39,240 Speaker 1: free and get web analytic information. However, in the process 668 00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:43,960 Speaker 1: of creating and then distributing this tool, the team realized 669 00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:48,640 Speaker 1: that one individual data has an awful lot of value 670 00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:53,600 Speaker 1: to it. Two, most people didn't really understand that their 671 00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:56,440 Speaker 1: data had so much value, and they were just handing 672 00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,760 Speaker 1: their data over for free. So there was this massive 673 00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:03,200 Speaker 1: gaps there right between the value of a thing and 674 00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:09,040 Speaker 1: the general public's understanding that that thing had value. This 675 00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:12,400 Speaker 1: in turn led to situations where people had no clue 676 00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:16,880 Speaker 1: just how trackable and identifiable they were, and ultimately how 677 00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:21,360 Speaker 1: exploitable they were. So the developers got a little concerned 678 00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:23,200 Speaker 1: about this and they decided they would make a tool 679 00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:27,200 Speaker 1: to address it, and they introduced ad Guard, which launched 680 00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:31,520 Speaker 1: around twenty ten. So, like ad Block, ad Guard would 681 00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:34,719 Speaker 1: become a really big name in the ad blocking community. 682 00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,080 Speaker 1: The team turned it into a paid software application for 683 00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:40,920 Speaker 1: the Windows operating system, so it was an independent thing 684 00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:44,279 Speaker 1: that you would purchase, download and install, and it would 685 00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:48,400 Speaker 1: work whenever you were accessing the web on a Windows machine. 686 00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:51,960 Speaker 1: Back in those days, Google had launched its own web 687 00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,200 Speaker 1: browser in two thousand and eight that was called Chrome obviously. 688 00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:59,719 Speaker 1: Then a couple of weeks after Chrome launched, Google also 689 00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:03,520 Speaker 1: laun paunched a smartphone operating system that being Android, and 690 00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:07,000 Speaker 1: for a few years, Google was kind of hands off 691 00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,280 Speaker 1: when it came to ad block extensions. In fact, Google 692 00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:14,719 Speaker 1: even offered some elements of filtering as well on its browsers, 693 00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:20,640 Speaker 1: so developers could create an ad blocking extension and have 694 00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:23,320 Speaker 1: it for an Android device, and even list the app 695 00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:26,400 Speaker 1: in the Google Playstore. But a few years later, in 696 00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:30,719 Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, Google kind of changed its policy and began 697 00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:34,800 Speaker 1: to remove ad blocking apps from the Playstore, including ad Guard, 698 00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:38,000 Speaker 1: and you could still get the ad Guard browser extension 699 00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:41,320 Speaker 1: for Chrome. Doing so for Android was a little bit trickier. 700 00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:43,720 Speaker 1: It's not like it was impossible, but it was harder 701 00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:48,279 Speaker 1: to find. And the world was migrating toward mobile as 702 00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,560 Speaker 1: being the primary way we interact with the Internet and 703 00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:56,319 Speaker 1: the web. So there are two massive motivating factors going 704 00:43:56,360 --> 00:44:01,360 Speaker 1: on here, right, motivating factors among users who might not 705 00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:04,759 Speaker 1: want to be bombarded with ads, or if they were 706 00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:09,319 Speaker 1: on slower cellular networks, maybe they wanted to limit the 707 00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:12,920 Speaker 1: ads being displayed to them because again, it was slowing 708 00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:17,560 Speaker 1: down the browsing process, it was racking up the data charges. 709 00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:21,560 Speaker 1: Why would you want to be paying for the privilege 710 00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:24,839 Speaker 1: of seeing ads because you know you're running over your 711 00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:29,399 Speaker 1: data limits when you could just block those ads and 712 00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:32,000 Speaker 1: speed everything up. Right, It was just like back in 713 00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:34,400 Speaker 1: the dial up days. So a lot of people wanted 714 00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:37,359 Speaker 1: to have an ad blocker on their phone just so 715 00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:40,279 Speaker 1: that they weren't having to wait so long for web 716 00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:43,360 Speaker 1: pages to load. Up or to have to navigate a 717 00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:46,160 Speaker 1: web page while also trying to dodge all these different 718 00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:50,239 Speaker 1: ads that might display in a really irritating and frustrating way. 719 00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:52,959 Speaker 1: So there was that. But then on the other side 720 00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:56,200 Speaker 1: of it, on the industry side, there was this big 721 00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,840 Speaker 1: shift of people starting to use mobile devices more frequently 722 00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:04,160 Speaker 1: access the web than they had been with desktop and 723 00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:11,080 Speaker 1: laptop web browsers, So there was a huge incentive for 724 00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:15,040 Speaker 1: the industry to really push to make ad blocking difficult 725 00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:19,320 Speaker 1: to do on mobile devices. So is this struggle between 726 00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:22,600 Speaker 1: the two. Meanwhile, other companies would actually try to use 727 00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:26,319 Speaker 1: legal means to force ad blocking software companies to discontinue 728 00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:30,240 Speaker 1: their products. For example, there's a media company called alex 729 00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:35,959 Speaker 1: Springer which is based in Europe, and it sued ad 730 00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:39,480 Speaker 1: block plus in the German court system, arguing that the 731 00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:44,000 Speaker 1: service was against the law, that it was interfering with 732 00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,240 Speaker 1: the way alex Springer was trying to display web pages 733 00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:50,600 Speaker 1: to users, and that it should be illegal or it 734 00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:54,440 Speaker 1: was illegal. This case went all the way to the 735 00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:59,720 Speaker 1: German Supreme Court and ultimately the Supreme Court of Germany 736 00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:03,959 Speaker 1: ruled that it wasn't against the law. The ad block 737 00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:08,320 Speaker 1: plus wasn't doing anything illegal. Ad blocking itself was not illegal, 738 00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:11,160 Speaker 1: which was seen as a huge victory for the ad 739 00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:14,480 Speaker 1: blocking community. Of course, that's one court in one region, 740 00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:18,040 Speaker 1: so the battle rage is on all around the world. 741 00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:22,440 Speaker 1: And again we can understand both sides, I think, right, 742 00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:25,520 Speaker 1: you can understand the side that says we need to 743 00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:28,720 Speaker 1: find a way to be able to support what we're doing, 744 00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:31,799 Speaker 1: so we have to generate revenue. But you can also 745 00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:35,800 Speaker 1: understand why people are one frustrated with the experience because 746 00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,200 Speaker 1: there are a lot of web pages that incorporate ads 747 00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:41,080 Speaker 1: in a way that's just terrible. I don't know how 748 00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:45,200 Speaker 1: frustrated you are with web pages that are supposed to 749 00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:48,120 Speaker 1: be an article about something, or this happens all the time, 750 00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:51,520 Speaker 1: a recipe and you have to scroll and scroll and 751 00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:55,080 Speaker 1: scroll past like ten paragraphs of text before you get 752 00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:59,080 Speaker 1: to the point. That's because all that scrolling is taking 753 00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:01,560 Speaker 1: you past web ad versus web ad. 754 00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:04,920 Speaker 2: Right that it's the same thing as all the articles 755 00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:07,319 Speaker 2: that were turned into slide shows back in the day, 756 00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:12,880 Speaker 2: because you could display different ads against every slide. 757 00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:16,919 Speaker 1: In the slide show or the gallery or whatever. That 758 00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:19,560 Speaker 1: kind of stuff is what really rubs people the wrong way, 759 00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:22,480 Speaker 1: because again, they see the sausage at work, right, they 760 00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:25,720 Speaker 1: see the sausage being made and they resent being part 761 00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:29,080 Speaker 1: of that. Or it can be very intrusive with the 762 00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:31,239 Speaker 1: ones that are playing video or audio. So you can 763 00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:33,520 Speaker 1: totally understand that. And that's before you get into the 764 00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:37,799 Speaker 1: ad tracking part and the privacy and security concerns. Those 765 00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:42,280 Speaker 1: are obviously very understandable too. So again, I understand ad blocking. 766 00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:45,120 Speaker 1: I understand why people use it. I try not to 767 00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:48,959 Speaker 1: use it. I don't use it on this computer. I've 768 00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:51,759 Speaker 1: had it installed on another computer where I will occasionally 769 00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:54,520 Speaker 1: use it if I'm encountering web pages that are just 770 00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:58,840 Speaker 1: impossible for me to navigate without it being truly intrusive. 771 00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:02,239 Speaker 1: So good about it. But I'd be lying if I 772 00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:05,560 Speaker 1: said I never used it. But yeah, that's kind of 773 00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:07,959 Speaker 1: the history of ad blocking. Now, one thing I didn't 774 00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:11,360 Speaker 1: talk about are the actual mechanics of ad blocking, and 775 00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:15,960 Speaker 1: that's largely because that's a seesaw kind of discussion. Right. 776 00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:20,880 Speaker 1: The advertising world develops new technologies, the ad blocking world 777 00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:24,040 Speaker 1: develops new ways to get around those technologies, and it 778 00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:27,360 Speaker 1: goes back and forth. So that would require a whole 779 00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:30,600 Speaker 1: series of episodes and get into some very technical details. 780 00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:33,480 Speaker 1: I didn't think we're really necessary to get an appreciation 781 00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:38,120 Speaker 1: of how we got here. Hopefully we will eventually enter 782 00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:41,640 Speaker 1: into an era where everyone understands the value of their information. 783 00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:44,719 Speaker 1: We have systems in place to protect information, people have 784 00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:48,400 Speaker 1: more control over what information they do and do not share. 785 00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:51,799 Speaker 1: But until then, I think the ad blocking stuff is 786 00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:57,160 Speaker 1: really playing a necessary component in being a digital citizen 787 00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:01,239 Speaker 1: and being one that is being careful of their own identity. 788 00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:05,719 Speaker 1: It would be disingenuous to say otherwise, despite the fact that, yes, 789 00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:10,880 Speaker 1: this show is ad supported and I love my advertisers 790 00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:14,400 Speaker 1: like I love the folks who agree to support this show, 791 00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:18,120 Speaker 1: and for the most part, I think we've done pretty 792 00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,560 Speaker 1: well with partnering with companies that do do it the 793 00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:25,799 Speaker 1: right way. But yeah, you can't deny that there are 794 00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:30,680 Speaker 1: reasons to be careful in the ad world out there online. Okay, 795 00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:32,880 Speaker 1: that's it for this episode. It was going to be 796 00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:37,120 Speaker 1: a you know, tech stuff tidbits episode, but uh, coming 797 00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:39,560 Speaker 1: up on fifty minutes that's not a tech stuff tidbits, 798 00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:42,800 Speaker 1: but it was important. I look forward to covering related 799 00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:45,040 Speaker 1: topics that I've touched on in this episode in the future. 800 00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:47,719 Speaker 1: If there are any that y'all think are exciting? Get 801 00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:49,520 Speaker 1: in touch with me. Let me know. I don't know 802 00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:51,600 Speaker 1: how you'll get in touch with me. I guess you'll 803 00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:55,040 Speaker 1: figure it out. Until then, I'll talk to you again, 804 00:49:55,840 --> 00:50:05,759 Speaker 1: really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more 805 00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:10,600 Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or 806 00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:12,560 Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.