Re: [projectvrm] Paying Adblock to not block

[Brian Behlendorf < >]

On Tue, 3 Feb 2015, Aurelie Pols wrote:
> So basically AdBlock Plus is defining what's acceptable, judge and arbiter at 
> the same time?

Well technically, people who voluntarily install ABP in their browsers and 
leaving it enabled are delegating to ABP that kind of judgement, though I 
bet most thought they were blocking "all ads" when they did that, not just 
"all unacceptable ads".  They calculated correctly that not enough folks 
would protest at the bait-and-switch to hurt their install numbers too 
badly.  Time will tell if their definition of "acceptable" is acceptable 
to their users.  We could see some real competition out there emerge in 
the quality/style of ad blocking.

The bait-and-switch tarnishes what I'd actually otherwise see as a very 
VRM-y business model - "fourth-party" buyer-side agents that help protect 
your interests.  But taking money from advertisers to white-list ads 
creates a conflict of interest not unlike the Moody's investment grades 
that led to the mortgage loan crisis 7 years ago.  A better example might 
be the Netcraft toolbar I use that gives me a "risk rating" for each 
website I visit based on its database of who's distributing malware or 
otherwise has a skanky reputation.  It'll also give me some details about 
the quality of the security connection, where it's hosted, who the 
netblock owner is... yeah it's geeky but it's acting on my behalf.  More 
details:

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/

They don't accept dollars to turn your red ranking green or otherwise 
corrupt the listing.  I do realize they harvest my click history, I'd 
be naive otherwise, and yet I trust them in a way I wouldn't trust 
others given their background and the other projects they do.  I'd prefer 
a biz model where I could pay them and be guaranteed my traffic history 
isn't recorded identifiably.  So there's still a lot that could be 
improved about even the best examples out there.

Brian