Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from hastuff
Speaker 1: dot com either everyone, and welcome to text Stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren bulf Obam. And you know, Lauren,
Speaker 1: one of the the topics that we've had requests for
Speaker 1: multiple times over the years that tech Stuff has been
Speaker 1: around has been to talk about ad block and add
Speaker 1: blocking browser extensions and to just sort of talk through it,
Speaker 1: explain it. And this is one of those really controversial,
Speaker 1: contentious subjects about the Web in general. Oh sure, because
Speaker 1: so much of the Web is driven revenue wise by
Speaker 1: ads um and it is also a huge source of
Speaker 1: annoyance for basically everyone. Yeah, so it's it's a tough situation. Now,
Speaker 1: before we get started on this, we'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: say that you know, there there are the advertisers who
Speaker 1: make ads are not in the necessarily trying to make
Speaker 1: them to annoy you. That would actually be counter productive
Speaker 1: to what the ad is supposed to do. Well. I
Speaker 1: would argue that some ad theory um states that if
Speaker 1: you annoy an audience enough to get their attention, then
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. But that's but, but we're getting
Speaker 1: into sticky territory there and we'll we'll cover all of
Speaker 1: that as we go along. But if you wanted to
Speaker 1: hear a really simple story about how ad block came
Speaker 1: to be, bad news everyone. As it turns out, ad
Speaker 1: block has got an incredibly complex story because it is
Speaker 1: one of those things where it's kind of like a hydra.
Speaker 1: You know, eventually one head would get cut off and
Speaker 1: two other heads would spring up, and those two heads
Speaker 1: would each be doing kind of what the first head did,
Speaker 1: but they're doing it in a different way, and they're
Speaker 1: not really communicating with each other, and when they do
Speaker 1: communicate with each other, they're fighting a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's one of those that it's it's not
Speaker 1: so simple as to say, like, uh, you know this
Speaker 1: one piece of software. Now it's version two, now it's
Speaker 1: version three. You actually have lots of forking going on.
Speaker 1: It's more like Windows, how Windows would occasionally fork into
Speaker 1: different groups. And you're like, well, I used to be
Speaker 1: able to explain the history of Windows, but now not
Speaker 1: so much. But you can actually trace it back to
Speaker 1: a single point, a historical moment when the very first
Speaker 1: version of ad block came out, and it originally came
Speaker 1: out for the Firefox web browser. This was a browser extension. UM.
Speaker 1: Firefox being open source, it allows people to developers well,
Speaker 1: I mean developers are people. I didn't mean to. UM.
Speaker 1: It allows you to create extensions or add ons for
Speaker 1: the browser in order to change or improve or to
Speaker 1: increase its functionality. Right, Yeah, because there's some things that
Speaker 1: a browser can do, and then occasionally the web develops
Speaker 1: in such a way where there's some really awesome stuff
Speaker 1: you could do if the browser just supported it, and
Speaker 1: the extensions kind of allow you to create that ability, right,
Speaker 1: and so according to one Vladimir Poland, a Danish programmer
Speaker 1: by the name of henryk Ostav Sarson, I think I
Speaker 1: got that right. Yeah, we definitely better than I could have.
Speaker 1: Um who developed this extension? I I don't remember now
Speaker 1: if we said already in two thousand two. No, we
Speaker 1: did not. Yeah, by the way, the reason why we
Speaker 1: said we don't know already is because you guys do
Speaker 1: not get treated to the fact that our buildings started
Speaker 1: to vibrate because of something going on somewhere inside this building,
Speaker 1: and we figured you'd rather be you know, saved that experience.
Speaker 1: But yeah, three minute break in which we went what
Speaker 1: is that, yeah, But in two thousand two, in fact,
Speaker 1: he did begin development on this. This was formally the
Speaker 1: ad Block Extension, and at that point it was spelled
Speaker 1: A D little B L O c K. No. The
Speaker 1: reason I say little B is because the other versions
Speaker 1: will talk about differentiate themselves with capitalization as well as
Speaker 1: adding other words. But this is the first one. Now,
Speaker 1: this one could block images, which at the time was
Speaker 1: pretty much the main form of web advertising. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the only one that was the main one. So things
Speaker 1: like banner ads that were at the top, or the
Speaker 1: ones that are along the side of the column, or
Speaker 1: even just inserted directly as like a picture inside an article.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of stuff that would block. Sure. And
Speaker 1: so if you found an image that you didn't like
Speaker 1: a probably because it was an ad, you could add
Speaker 1: that that that images r L to a list of
Speaker 1: blocked images, right, and it would actually go all the
Speaker 1: way back to where the source of that image came
Speaker 1: from and then start blocking other images from that source. Because,
Speaker 1: of course, if there's one advertiser that happens to run
Speaker 1: a lot of different campaigns, and back in those early
Speaker 1: days of the web, there were a few that had
Speaker 1: lots and lots of clients. You could essentially blanket block
Speaker 1: a whole list of advertisements, right. It was pretty effective
Speaker 1: at the time. Yeah, yeah, for for images. Anyway, they
Speaker 1: did have some downs sides. One of the downside was
Speaker 1: that it did not actually prevent the web page from
Speaker 1: loading the image. In fact, that the earliest version, which
Speaker 1: they called point three. Uh I assume that versions point
Speaker 1: one and point two were earlier data Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: never were released. But this point three one, it did
Speaker 1: not prevent the images from loading at all. It would,
Speaker 1: in fact, first load the entire web page images and all,
Speaker 1: and then block those ads. Right now, this was an
Speaker 1: important deal, Like people really wanted to have it blocked,
Speaker 1: not just you know, from view, but blocked period. So
Speaker 1: wouldn't download, not just because people thoughts or at least
Speaker 1: some people thought that advertising was really intrusive and and
Speaker 1: it decreased their enjoyment of the surfing experience visually annoying,
Speaker 1: but also was using up precious memory and uh usage bandwidth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it would take you extra time to download a
Speaker 1: web page because it had to download all of those assets,
Speaker 1: including the ads. And if you could turn those ads off,
Speaker 1: than the web pages would load faster. You know, this
Speaker 1: is the era of dial up. You know, I remember
Speaker 1: that era well, uh, not happily, but I do remember
Speaker 1: it well. I couldn't have find memories of it, not
Speaker 1: at all. Uh. You know when when someone would would say, hey,
Speaker 1: you need to go and look, there's this funny picture
Speaker 1: and you click on it and then six minutes later
Speaker 1: you go and make yourself a cup of coffee. Right,
Speaker 1: You're like, well, you know, I'm just gonna go wander
Speaker 1: off for a bit. But anyway, So this ad block
Speaker 1: version was limited in its use, but it had potential.
Speaker 1: And so the next version of ad block came along
Speaker 1: from someone else. Because Sorenson was interested in creating this tool,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily interested in continually updating it and uh
Speaker 1: and and and giving it more features. It was kind
Speaker 1: of a one off for Sarrenson. So we then have
Speaker 1: a mysterious figure. So someone by the handle of Rue,
Speaker 1: who's name I'm still not sure of. Yeah, Ru are
Speaker 1: you e? As in uh, you know that that spelling
Speaker 1: not r O O. But the Rou created ad Block
Speaker 1: zero point four and went in a completely different way
Speaker 1: used XML binding language also known as x b L.
Speaker 1: Now that's a web markup language. So HTML is hypertext
Speaker 1: markup language. This is similar except instead of it telling
Speaker 1: specifically like a browser, how to display things, it's more
Speaker 1: about defining specific behaviors of elements that would be displayed
Speaker 1: in a web page. So it's all about letting a
Speaker 1: program know what any particular element is supposed to be
Speaker 1: able to do, so that the computer does that thing
Speaker 1: when you make the command. So an easy example is
Speaker 1: a scroll bar. If you were to put a scroll
Speaker 1: bar within the context of a web page itself, you
Speaker 1: know this isn't this isn't the browsers scroll bar, but
Speaker 1: something that's inside the web page. Then you might use
Speaker 1: XBL to define those behaviors, so you say, when the
Speaker 1: user drags the scroll bar, this is the thing that's
Speaker 1: supposed to happen. Now, in this case, they were using
Speaker 1: XBL to sort of, uh, just prevent again these these
Speaker 1: display these ads from displaying. But it could prevent more
Speaker 1: than just images because it was working within the code
Speaker 1: of the browser. It could also prevent flash and Java objects. Right,
Speaker 1: And this was another big advance as far as ad
Speaker 1: blocking was concerned, because anyone who has been using the
Speaker 1: web for a while knows ads that are just pictures
Speaker 1: that appear on the top or the side, or within
Speaker 1: the context of an article or something. That's just a
Speaker 1: small slice of the types of web advertising we've seen
Speaker 1: out there. There are a lot of things that have
Speaker 1: float over ads, float under ads, auto play ads, which boy,
Speaker 1: are those my favorite. I definitely feel some sympathy here
Speaker 1: for folks who really get tired of ads that have,
Speaker 1: you know, a negative impact on your user expect if
Speaker 1: they're intrusive. Absolutely. I mean, if I go to a
Speaker 1: website where there's some sort of audio component that I
Speaker 1: want to listen to, and because I moved my cursor
Speaker 1: and it goes over a ad panel and then some
Speaker 1: advertising audio starts playing at the same time, that's clearly
Speaker 1: not an enjoyable experience. You can't really get around that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, this meant that it was more useful
Speaker 1: than the point three version of ad block, But it
Speaker 1: should be said that because it was using a different approach,
Speaker 1: while it was called ad block zero point four, it
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily a direct descendant of ad plock ad Block
Speaker 1: zero point three. And this is where we already have
Speaker 1: some confusion, right right, further confusion would happen because, um,
Speaker 1: Ladimir Punt who who we mentioned earlier, was basically unaware
Speaker 1: of of this update going out and created his own
Speaker 1: point four Right, So you have Ladimir saying, okay, I
Speaker 1: know that this this thing that Sarnsen did was useful,
Speaker 1: but it was very limited. I want to make my
Speaker 1: own approach and try and create a more versatile, useful
Speaker 1: platform to block this sort of intrusive advertising. Uh, and
Speaker 1: started working on it and then was prepared to release
Speaker 1: it and then discovered through some I have no idea
Speaker 1: what the tone was from the basis of the history
Speaker 1: that that that Pollent wrote, I would like to imagine
Speaker 1: that Rue was a little miffed. Great was the message
Speaker 1: thereof and that um and that Vladimir found out that
Speaker 1: he couldn't release it as a point for because there
Speaker 1: was already a point for. So now comes the discussion
Speaker 1: of whether or not Vladimir's work should be incorporated into
Speaker 1: a point five version. So keep in mind that while
Speaker 1: this is all going on, Firefox itself is continuing to
Speaker 1: slowly release updates, which necessitates that browser extensions be updated
Speaker 1: as well, because exactly, yeah, um, so this was not
Speaker 1: you know, just an academic discussion of should this go
Speaker 1: forward or not. It needed to keep developing for it
Speaker 1: to be useful, so his approach was to look at
Speaker 1: content policies to both predict and block ads, which ended
Speaker 1: up being an advance over the previous versions because it
Speaker 1: was finally allowing the user to have these ads blocked
Speaker 1: before the page even loaded. So now we get into
Speaker 1: that that era where things can be sped up because
Speaker 1: you don't need to load all the assets. He also
Speaker 1: had this discussion with Rue about what needs to be done.
Speaker 1: They decided to kind of collaborate, but according to uh
Speaker 1: Polance history, he got very frustrated that RU would kind
Speaker 1: of piecemeal pick the bits that Vladimir had created and
Speaker 1: then ignore everything else. And Vladimir felt that a lot
Speaker 1: of the things he had contributed were being ignored, and
Speaker 1: that UH and that some of the things he had
Speaker 1: made we're being used in ways he had not intended.
Speaker 1: There was one in particular ways that users were complaining
Speaker 1: about this particular interface, and the problem was, I had
Speaker 1: never intended users to be activating this interface. It wasn't
Speaker 1: meant for. But now it's part of what because I'm
Speaker 1: not the one who I don't own ad block. I'm
Speaker 1: not implementing these changes myself, and so that became kind
Speaker 1: of a sore subject. So you move forward to two
Speaker 1: thousand five, and no one had really worked on ad block. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that there was still some of that xbl stuff involved,
Speaker 1: and and some of Ladimir's approaches were in there. He
Speaker 1: was kind of a mishmash. It was like a Frankenstein's
Speaker 1: Monster version of the of what what each person like
Speaker 1: rou and Ladimir had both had in mind. But out
Speaker 1: of this grew um what was going to be called
Speaker 1: ad block Plus. Yeah. This is when a fellow named
Speaker 1: Michael McDonald who used the handle mc m came along
Speaker 1: and he created a new version going back to point
Speaker 1: three as sort of the point of inspiration with enhanced features.
Speaker 1: He did call it ad block Plus. And at this
Speaker 1: point one of the things that was added was this
Speaker 1: ability for users to white list certain file sources so
Speaker 1: that they would still get those shown to them, right,
Speaker 1: white white listing being the opposite of blacklisting, and he's
Speaker 1: certifying that a certain thing or person or entity is
Speaker 1: acceptable exactly. So instead of just having a giant X
Speaker 1: over any advertising, this would allow you to be more selective,
Speaker 1: so you could say, no, I want to see these
Speaker 1: particular types of ads, these ads are okay. So Vladimir
Speaker 1: and Rue continued there discussion about what should be ad block,
Speaker 1: and Ladimir even went so far as to offer to rewrite,
Speaker 1: uh the zero point five version of ad block and
Speaker 1: then adding the new features as well as try and
Speaker 1: tweak some of the stuff that he felt was clunky
Speaker 1: or not user friendly. But there was more disagreement between
Speaker 1: Rue and Ladimir, and then eventually Ladimir contacted McDonald mc
Speaker 1: m about ad Block Plus. Yeah, and mcm said, you
Speaker 1: know you can, you can come on over, you can
Speaker 1: come on over here, because I don't really want to
Speaker 1: to forever be developing this this extension, just like you
Speaker 1: know Starnsen did years ago. He you know, Sartinson said, No,
Speaker 1: I made this thing, but I don't want to have
Speaker 1: to keep making it. H And especially at the time
Speaker 1: Firefox was going through this kind of like update every
Speaker 1: other day sort of process, it was really rapid. Yes,
Speaker 1: So McDonald said, you know, I really don't have the
Speaker 1: time and effort that to to be the steward of
Speaker 1: this extension. So so Latimir, if you want to take it,
Speaker 1: take it and Latimer said, yeah, okay, fine. So in
Speaker 1: January two thousand and six, they launched ad block Plus
Speaker 1: zero point six. So again, the versions are starting to
Speaker 1: get a little confusing because this ad block Plus was
Speaker 1: not directly connected to ad Block. It existed as his
Speaker 1: own thing at the same time. So we have two
Speaker 1: different versions going on, two different approaches um and two
Speaker 1: different communities of users. So then Pilot decides he'll he'll
Speaker 1: keep on working on ad block Plus and he wanted
Speaker 1: to try. You know, it's not that he hated the
Speaker 1: old ad block. He actually tried several times to address
Speaker 1: issues because as the the extension got older and less relevant,
Speaker 1: it also became clear that there were some security vulnerabilities,
Speaker 1: and so he said, listen, guys, I found these vulnerabilities.
Speaker 1: You really should patch them. You need to. You need
Speaker 1: to update ad block so that this doesn't remain a
Speaker 1: vulnerability for users. And then it got to a point
Speaker 1: where it's like, really, I mean, I I can help
Speaker 1: do this if you need to. But it was kind
Speaker 1: of one of those things where ad Block just sort
Speaker 1: sort of began to die out at that point. In
Speaker 1: ad Block Plus was the it's wrong to say the
Speaker 1: winner because it wasn't like it was a real battle,
Speaker 1: but it's the survivor of the two. Yeah yeah, I
Speaker 1: was about to say it sounds like like internet Darwinism.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it kind of is. So h then you
Speaker 1: get into I got really snarky with this note, y'all,
Speaker 1: But I'm going to go ahead and include it because schadenfreude. No.
Speaker 1: In two thousand seven, PC World, the magazine named ad
Speaker 1: Block Plus one of the one best products of two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. The reason why I felt the need to
Speaker 1: include this is because today PC World is online only.
Speaker 1: It ended its print uh format in two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: and now it depends very heavily on the online format,
Speaker 1: you know, the one that is sported. Yeah, so um,
Speaker 1: I did. I didn't want to mention though, that that
Speaker 1: it's certainly not the only award that ad Block Plus
Speaker 1: is one. Um. For example, it also nabbed the best
Speaker 1: Firefox extension from Lennox Magazine, in which, by the way,
Speaker 1: you can still get in print, So bully for them,
Speaker 1: how about that. So then we move up to December eight,
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, and boy, we just we just got
Speaker 1: to the point where we narrowed it down. Ad Block
Speaker 1: Plus was the only player in the game. It was
Speaker 1: gonna be so much easier to talk about this for
Speaker 1: the rest of this podcast. And then Google made an
Speaker 1: announcement which led to a whole bunch more mass happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in fact, we'll talk about that in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but before we get into this fun Google let part
Speaker 1: of the discussion, let's take a quick break to thank
Speaker 1: our sponsor. Don't block our ad Okay, So December eight,
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, and this is the first time where
Speaker 1: we can actually put a specific date on one of
Speaker 1: these things. You know, again to evelopers don't necessarily write
Speaker 1: down stuff for historical records, which, guys, you've got to
Speaker 1: start doing that. Yeah, seriously, everyone get on that. I know. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: I mean everyone is on that at this point because
Speaker 1: of the popularity of blogging and micro blogging. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, Right, this is when Michael Gunlock developed his
Speaker 1: own ad blocker called ad block with a capital B
Speaker 1: this time. Right, that makes it totally different obviously spelled
Speaker 1: the same way as the original ad block, except that
Speaker 1: the B is capitalized. Like you said, Look, it's the Internet.
Speaker 1: Things can be case sensitive. I just think that's funny
Speaker 1: that you already have a product called ad block Plus,
Speaker 1: so clearly what you want to come out with is
Speaker 1: one called ad block. But you know, again, these are
Speaker 1: open source approaches. It's not like these these different developers
Speaker 1: are all getting into it in order to make book
Speaker 1: who's amount of money. It's stopped something that they felt
Speaker 1: was necessary to extend this functionality, and it's a passion thing, absolutely,
Speaker 1: So this is totally separate from the original ad block
Speaker 1: and also add block plus. And originally this was an
Speaker 1: extension for Google Chrome. And in fact, the reason why
Speaker 1: I said December eight, two thousand nine, is that's also
Speaker 1: the very first day that Google allowed extensions in Chrome,
Speaker 1: only in the beta version of Chrome. Actually at the time,
Speaker 1: it would roll out extensions for for Chrome as a
Speaker 1: as a whole a couple of months later. But you know,
Speaker 1: they made this announcement and gun Lash checked to see
Speaker 1: whether there was already an ad block for Chrome, and
Speaker 1: specifically ad block plus for Chrome, because he really liked
Speaker 1: that block plus, it was his favorite Firefox extension. And
Speaker 1: he saw that there wasn't and started coding one like
Speaker 1: on the spot. Yep, and so uh and now these
Speaker 1: days you can actually get it from multiple UH browsers,
Speaker 1: not just Google Chrome. Also there's a version for Safari
Speaker 1: and one for Opera. Ad Block Plus, by the way,
Speaker 1: also available on multiple browsers, including Chrome, Safari, UH as
Speaker 1: well as Internet Explorer and of course Firefox where it
Speaker 1: got started. So now we're covering pretty much all the basis,
Speaker 1: and some of these you know you're you're limited on choice,
Speaker 1: Like if you're using Opera, Uh hello, Now, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that the Opera fans out there are big
Speaker 1: passionate fans. They love that browser. I just I think
Speaker 1: there might be three of you. But hey, if you're
Speaker 1: one of those three, write us and tell us why
Speaker 1: Opera is the best, because I would I would love
Speaker 1: to hear it. I've I've used it a couple of
Speaker 1: times and that's all I know about it. So at
Speaker 1: any rate, UH, you had ad block going under version
Speaker 1: numbers like two point oh, being the first one that's
Speaker 1: being released for actual use, So we're no longer at
Speaker 1: the zero point whatever. For ad block, it's it's on
Speaker 1: a totally different path. Again, it's not really connected to
Speaker 1: those other ones other than the fact that the end
Speaker 1: result is it blocks ads. Right, it's supposed to concept
Speaker 1: so it was written from an entirely separate bit of
Speaker 1: code exactly. So. Uh. One of my favorite stories about
Speaker 1: the the ad block extension is what happened on April
Speaker 1: Fool's Day two thousand twelve. So this day, the developer
Speaker 1: decided to do something playful by tweaking the code a
Speaker 1: little bit, so instead of just blocking ads so that
Speaker 1: you don't see them, it replaced ads with the Internet's
Speaker 1: favorite things, little cats. So it became cat block for
Speaker 1: a day. And in fact, it got so popular that
Speaker 1: and people loved it so much that they went ahead
Speaker 1: and added cat block as an as an optional add on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could subscribe and get cat block if you wanted
Speaker 1: everything to permanently everything, all the ads to permanently be
Speaker 1: switched over to cats, not not the entire and not
Speaker 1: just a cat browser. Although someone's got to have done that,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, right, I'm positive anyway, Yeah, so uh interesting
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. So. Features of good launches ad block are
Speaker 1: that it can it can block resources in Google Chrome
Speaker 1: so that the elements won't even load in the browser, right, um,
Speaker 1: and that includes uh, not just pictures but also flash elements.
Speaker 1: It can block ads and videos like if if YouTube
Speaker 1: plays an ad before a video, it can just wipe
Speaker 1: that from creation, right ye, at least as far as
Speaker 1: your concern. Um. The current version I believe is available
Speaker 1: in more than thirty languages. Yep, yep, it's got international
Speaker 1: capabilities built right into it. Also a note of interest
Speaker 1: in good Luck launched a successful Crown funded campaign to
Speaker 1: and and follow me closely here, kids create ads for
Speaker 1: ad block so that ad block can block more ads.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you're talking about bob blah blaws law blogs.
Speaker 1: That's that's what it sounded like to me. It was
Speaker 1: that the campaign was to advertise his his service ad Block,
Speaker 1: because not that many people use it. I mean I
Speaker 1: think that as as of the campaign, he was saying
Speaker 1: that only three and ten Internet users had any kind
Speaker 1: of ad blocking software at all. Um. And so he
Speaker 1: thought that, you know, more people need to know about
Speaker 1: this thing awareness problem, right right, Yeah, and and that
Speaker 1: you know, if people knew so, right, So he launched
Speaker 1: this campaign and yeah, they made enough money to like
Speaker 1: put up a billboard in Times Square. Yeah. So they
Speaker 1: took an analog an ad blocking company paid for an
Speaker 1: advertisement and what is one of the world's most well
Speaker 1: known advertising Mecca's in meat space where no one can
Speaker 1: block it. Yeah, okay, I'm my brain is hurting right beautiful. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: if you're wondering, hey, what happened? The ad block plus
Speaker 1: kept on keeping on. Yeah. In two thou ten, it
Speaker 1: would receive an anonymous donation that was generous enough to
Speaker 1: allow Ladimir to quit his day job and work full
Speaker 1: time on the object for two entire years. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: during that time expanded it for use with all of
Speaker 1: the browsers that we were talking about a moment ago.
Speaker 1: Oh and also Firefox Mobile and Android. I didn't even
Speaker 1: mention the mobile operating system right, um. And then inn
Speaker 1: would incorporate what became a very controversial feature, um uh
Speaker 1: developer lad white listing yea. So you know, the earlier
Speaker 1: white listing we were talking about was about users defining Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to see this particular content every personal user
Speaker 1: using this ad blocking software. This is on the developer side,
Speaker 1: this is before it ever gets to the user. And
Speaker 1: the idea was that the philosophy was kind of interesting
Speaker 1: to me. The the premise is that people want ad
Speaker 1: block because they don't want annoying, intrusive ads. However, a
Speaker 1: lot of people still want to be able to support
Speaker 1: the sites that they go to, and they realize that
Speaker 1: those sites depend on AD revenue exactly. So in order
Speaker 1: to make sure they are not denying these these different
Speaker 1: sites that add revenue, that they are allowing their participating
Speaker 1: in this kind of marketplace where we can have people
Speaker 1: paid for the work that they're doing and other people
Speaker 1: can enjoy that work. Ad block plus took a kind
Speaker 1: of upon itself to define what a good ad is
Speaker 1: versus not a good ad. Yeah. The the whole thing
Speaker 1: grew out of a partnership between Ladimir and uh person
Speaker 1: by the name of Till Fieda who's who's an online
Speaker 1: marketer who agreed that lots of online ads are really terrible.
Speaker 1: Um but but right, But he didn't want to see
Speaker 1: the revenue from online ads dry up entirely. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it's kind of an idea that ads that follow a
Speaker 1: certain set of rules are okay, right if if they're
Speaker 1: not um, if they're not preventing you from accessing the
Speaker 1: content that you went to that page to read, or
Speaker 1: or auto playing sound which is terrible the time, or
Speaker 1: video or or otherwise just coming up the works in
Speaker 1: such an annoying way that that you want to block
Speaker 1: that thing. Yeah. In fact, ideally according to this that
Speaker 1: has very strict size restrictions that you know, ads have
Speaker 1: to be a certain size and write all that down.
Speaker 1: But there ideally our text only, which advertisers do not
Speaker 1: care for. Uh you mean it's you know, it's not
Speaker 1: as eye catching as something like so, but according to
Speaker 1: the white listing approach, it's supposed to be text only,
Speaker 1: none of that AutoPlay stuff, whether it's sound or video.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be um, you know, like you said,
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be unobtrusive. So it's not supposed to
Speaker 1: cover up things you can't have like a scrolling or
Speaker 1: scrolling or yeah yeah or reform all the words to
Speaker 1: spell out this product is awesome. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: supposed to do any of that kind of stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that if you played by those rules and if
Speaker 1: you filled out some forms and stuff, you could work
Speaker 1: with ad block because why to get onto this white
Speaker 1: listed program? So like a company that would provide advertising,
Speaker 1: because you know, the companies that you see advertising online,
Speaker 1: they're usually not the ones that are handling the actual ads.
Speaker 1: It's usually an ad agency there are some companies that
Speaker 1: have their own ad departments, but a lot of them
Speaker 1: will go to a third party. So if these third
Speaker 1: parties partner with ad block plus and create ads in
Speaker 1: this way, those ads would in theory not be automatically
Speaker 1: blocked by the ad blocker. However, if if as a user,
Speaker 1: you wanted to still say I don't want to see
Speaker 1: any ads. I don't care about the revenue thing, I
Speaker 1: don't care. All I want is all the free existence,
Speaker 1: you could actually turn that option off so that you
Speaker 1: it was automatically on by default, but you could turn
Speaker 1: it off in the settings and uh and block all
Speaker 1: ads whether they are on the quote unquote good ad
Speaker 1: list or not. Also, it was kind of a um
Speaker 1: honor system approach. It still is kind of an honor
Speaker 1: system approach because ad block plus doesn't have an automated
Speaker 1: way to make sure that the ads that are submitted
Speaker 1: in fact follow those criteria. Right. Once a company gets
Speaker 1: gets white listed, all of their ads are white listed,
Speaker 1: and it's up to the developers and also to the
Speaker 1: users of the program to pick out ads that they
Speaker 1: still find offensive and submit a report about them. Right. So,
Speaker 1: if as a user, you see something on a web
Speaker 1: page and you think, wait, that doesn't fit the criteria,
Speaker 1: and I've totally got ad blocker plus on and it
Speaker 1: should be blocking all this stuff. You can report the
Speaker 1: ad and then ad block plus could take action and say, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: this isn't following the rules that we said. Of course,
Speaker 1: there was still pushback from from users about this, who
Speaker 1: said that, um, you know, first of all, they didn't
Speaker 1: agree with a group of developers making this choice for
Speaker 1: them of what was and wasn't acceptable um. And second
Speaker 1: of all, that there was a potential that ad block
Speaker 1: plus was getting paid to serve ads to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a blogger named um Sasha Palenberg who first
Speaker 1: said ad block plus was an advertising mafia, that this
Speaker 1: put them in charge, like they were the ones who
Speaker 1: could say what ads are showing on the web and
Speaker 1: which ones aren't effectively at least to the audience that
Speaker 1: uses ad block Plus. And then someone who has not
Speaker 1: been named as far as I can tell, an anonymous
Speaker 1: person alleged that the developers of ad block plus had
Speaker 1: demanded a share of ad revenue in order to white
Speaker 1: list ads from his or her site. We don't know
Speaker 1: who this person is. We don't know their gender or anything.
Speaker 1: But according to this one person who presumably works for
Speaker 1: an advertising company, ad block plus was saying, okay, well,
Speaker 1: if you share a third of your money that you
Speaker 1: make from these ads, then you can totally be on
Speaker 1: the list. Um, not a lot. And not everyone who
Speaker 1: applies to get on the list makes it right. Most
Speaker 1: people don't, and ad block has has. Ad Block plus
Speaker 1: rather has said a lot about this issue online and
Speaker 1: in blogs and interviews. Um. They they published a uh
Speaker 1: clarifying piece in October state that it rejects over half
Speaker 1: of its applicants based on unacceptable ad practices right out
Speaker 1: the door um and that overall it only has accepted
Speaker 1: about nine point five percent of its applicants to the program. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: over at ad block you have the founder saying, hey, uh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure if I had an option, they're saying, show
Speaker 1: me ads that don't suck. Those are his words that
Speaker 1: my users would opt in. But it doesn't actually have
Speaker 1: that functionality. This would become so controversial that ad block
Speaker 1: plus actually ended up, and not not just among advertisers.
Speaker 1: Clearly it's controversial to them, but also to users, users
Speaker 1: who said, hey, I don't want this to be on
Speaker 1: by default, I don't want to have to go into
Speaker 1: my settings and change it. They ended up for king
Speaker 1: ad block plus because it couldn't get more confusing, right uh,
Speaker 1: and created ad block Edge, which doesn't have any of
Speaker 1: the white listing features. It's essentially this is this is
Speaker 1: just going to block everything unless you manually go in
Speaker 1: and tell it to write UM and And a brief
Speaker 1: point going back to that monetary issue UM. In that
Speaker 1: company blog from ad block Plus, basically they said that
Speaker 1: less than ten percent of the applications that they've advanced
Speaker 1: to the final stages UM were submitted with some kind
Speaker 1: of monetary benefit to ad block plus. So some were
Speaker 1: submitted with monetary benefit. Yes, that just raises more questions. Really,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would call that so clarifying anymore.
Speaker 1: I think there needs to be a clarification of the
Speaker 1: clarifying statement. But at any rate, this is UH is
Speaker 1: beyond just the issue of I don't want to see
Speaker 1: ads or I find this intrusive. There there are other
Speaker 1: thing considerations that are legitimate that people have because today
Speaker 1: the way the web works, there's a lot of different
Speaker 1: ways to kind of gather information about users, even in
Speaker 1: ways that don't necessarily name who you are, but if
Speaker 1: there's enough of your behavior there, they can totally tell
Speaker 1: who you are. They can and they can certainly track
Speaker 1: you anonymous user number, you know x online as much
Speaker 1: as they want to, and people do continually, and a
Speaker 1: lot of that tracking software is packaged along with ad
Speaker 1: serving software, so so you know, and these are are
Speaker 1: modern times of big data. It's kind of an issue.
Speaker 1: Um As of March, ad block plus claim to have
Speaker 1: the capacity to block eight thousand, six hundred different trackers,
Speaker 1: you know, different cookies and scripts and all that other
Speaker 1: stuff that runs in the background of sites that you visit,
Speaker 1: collecting continual information about you and your activities and your
Speaker 1: habits to either use or to sell to other companies,
Speaker 1: you know, companies that are sifting through it for whatever
Speaker 1: potentially nefarious purposes they choose to or just other advertisers.
Speaker 1: It may not be so much nefarious, but it could
Speaker 1: just mean that you're going to get yet more ads
Speaker 1: right right, and and those weird creepy ads that show
Speaker 1: that they know what you've been looking at on Amazon
Speaker 1: dot com. Right, Like when you go to Facebook and
Speaker 1: you notice that all the ads on Facebook somehow match
Speaker 1: things that you had just been browsing on a totally
Speaker 1: different site. What really confuses me is when they serve
Speaker 1: me ads of something that I just purchased because I'm like,
Speaker 1: I I did like that thing. Yeah, I already thought it.
Speaker 1: I bought the thing that you told me to. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to buy it again. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: click there. Yeah, that's what confuses me is when I
Speaker 1: get the ones for enormous muscles, because y'all, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you see me recently, but I mean you're
Speaker 1: basically already already human perfection. Actually, I mean, like you know,
Speaker 1: I don't so much have a six pack as I
Speaker 1: have a raging kicker. That's what I've got going on.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so to get down to the the side
Speaker 1: that we're on. So we're Lauren and I. Obviously we
Speaker 1: both work for a company that's a web based company.
Speaker 1: We get, uh, you know there there are ads that
Speaker 1: run on how stuff works dot com. Absolutely, and so
Speaker 1: we run ads in our podcast. Said, it's a different
Speaker 1: kind of things, but still it's it's that's how that's
Speaker 1: that's one of the main ways we generate revenue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that is what allows us to have jobs. Right,
Speaker 1: So if everyone were to block it and it got
Speaker 1: to a point where advertisers said, well this this isn't
Speaker 1: working because now we can no longer make any money.
Speaker 1: Like essentially, if you pull the rug out from underneath
Speaker 1: that entire industry, you uh, it forces everyone to have
Speaker 1: to rethink how do I make money? Because if I
Speaker 1: can't make money, I'm not going to do this. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go do something else where I can make money. Sure,
Speaker 1: so you know, are you going to put your content
Speaker 1: behind paywalls of of various tiers or are you going
Speaker 1: to rely on donations or merchandise? Uh? And and none
Speaker 1: of those are as easy, I guess as just selling
Speaker 1: ad spaces, right, Yeah, And it all depends. Like there's
Speaker 1: some larger organizations that have a historical following that could
Speaker 1: do things like shift to a paywall method and still
Speaker 1: stay afloat. There are others that cannot, just as there
Speaker 1: are examples of uh companies that or or individuals who
Speaker 1: exist on patronage. There's there's the site Patreon now where
Speaker 1: you can pledge a certain amount per month for people
Speaker 1: who are doing things and a crowdfunding You know that
Speaker 1: the controversial penny Arcade, crowdfunder that that basically let them
Speaker 1: run their site for a year. So I mean there
Speaker 1: there are other ways, but it's not necessarily something that's
Speaker 1: within the grasp of everyone. So sure, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that the general recommendation is too if you like
Speaker 1: a site, uh white list it and and let let
Speaker 1: it serve you ads, right and uh so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean this needs to be an ongoing conversation between users
Speaker 1: and advertisers and the companies that want to advertise, right,
Speaker 1: because like I said, most most companies are saying, we
Speaker 1: want people to be encouraged to buy our goods and
Speaker 1: services or to at least have a more increased awareness
Speaker 1: of them. We would rather that increased awareness doesn't come
Speaker 1: along with Oh, those are those irritating so and so's
Speaker 1: that always block it whenever I want to watch such
Speaker 1: and such. All right, right, I think it's really interesting
Speaker 1: that in all of this, Google, which is an ad company,
Speaker 1: don't don't ever think it's a search company, because that's
Speaker 1: not what they're there for. Um. You know, they allowed
Speaker 1: they chose to allow ad blocking extensions for for Chrome
Speaker 1: for its browser. Um. Speaking about the Jonathan Rosenberg, the
Speaker 1: senior vice president of product management as of two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: wrote in an incompany letter um that providing users with
Speaker 1: options can can really only grow and enrich the Internet
Speaker 1: community at large. Yeah, it's a very interesting take. I mean,
Speaker 1: particularly from someone who, like like you said, is working
Speaker 1: for essentially an ad company. You know, they they absolutely
Speaker 1: didn't have to do that, and I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty beautiful that they do. I have a quote actually
Speaker 1: from another Google employee, one um Linus Upson, who as
Speaker 1: of at least was Google's engineering direct about this entire issue.
Speaker 1: He said, it's unlikely ad blockers are going to get
Speaker 1: to the level where they imperil the advertising market, because
Speaker 1: if advertising is so annoying that a large segment of
Speaker 1: the population wants to block it, then advertising should get
Speaker 1: less annoying. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the best way of going about this is
Speaker 1: to design ads that are that definitely advertise your product
Speaker 1: or service, but don't do so at the expense of
Speaker 1: the user experience. It's really I mean, that's easy to say,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to do because but but you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of appreciate that it's pushing the design impetus
Speaker 1: back to the people responsible for it. It's saying like,
Speaker 1: don't create bad stuff. If you want people to not
Speaker 1: block it, don't don't go with the easy approach of
Speaker 1: using something that blocks their view of what they're trying
Speaker 1: to get at, or something that's so eye catching that
Speaker 1: you literally can't pay attention to anything else on the page.
Speaker 1: Right if it if it looks like a MySpace page,
Speaker 1: let's the old school MySpace. By the way, it's like
Speaker 1: cities geo c s that would have been a better
Speaker 1: way of putting it. Yeah, if it looks like a
Speaker 1: geo cities page, you may want to revisit that unless
Speaker 1: you're doing it specifically for the irony and it's going
Speaker 1: on a site that that would both that would fit
Speaker 1: in well. But at any rate, that's our discussion about
Speaker 1: ad block and ad block and ad block Plus and
Speaker 1: ad block edge. Uh. We hope that our next topic
Speaker 1: will have less forking. Maybe some maybe some some knives
Speaker 1: or spoons will be involved. So we're going to wrap
Speaker 1: this up. Guys. If you have any suggestions for future
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