Re: [projectvrm] NY Times: Another Nail in the Coffin of Ad Tech

[Dean Landsman < >]

Nathan,

Another possibility re Poland's embracing of adblocking software: Poland as a country was an early adopter of the internet as a public entitlement.  Internet access has been widespread, not subject to the sorts of scarcity and metered use billing to which citizens of many other countries have been subjected, and accept as "the way it is."

Such widespread internet accessibility and nearly free use brings with it a sense of not only entitlement but also of it being a place of all manners of freedom. Free to use, free to make choices.  And free to block what is unwanted.

The lack of legacy telecom, in bed with and lobbying to the PTT, makes for a greater sense of freedom and choice.

From Wikipedia:

According to an OECD report, in September 2012 the price of Internet access in Poland ranged from $0.45 to $127.12 USD PPP per megabit per second of advertised speed. This places Poland in the middle of the pack on the low end (18th lowest out of 34 countries) and at the top on the high end (second highest behind New Zealand at $130.20). This compares with ranges of $0.40 to $23.25 for Germany, $0.40 to $12.35 for the Czech Republic, and $0.53 to $41.70 for the U.S.^[8]

According to Eurostat, OECD and others, Internet access in Poland is among the most expensive in Europe. This is mostly caused by the lack of competitiveness and lack of know-how. New operators like Dialog and GTS Energis are making their own provider lines and offer more attractive and cheaper service. In February 2011, the Polish Office of Electronic Communication issued an order forcing the TPSA to rent 51% of their ADSL lines to other ISPs at 60% discount of their market pricing. As the result the prices are non-competitive, other ISP charge as TPSA making a guaranteed 40% profit, while TPSA has no incentive to lower its consumer prices, because it would result in lowering of wholesale prices as well.

---snip---

The government does not restrict access to the Internet and there are no credible reports that it monitors e-mail or Internet chat rooms without appropriate legal authority. The constitution guarantees freedom of _expression_ and forbids censorship. Libel remains a criminal offense, but possible penalties were reduced in 2009.^[11][12]

The law prohibits most arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence; however, the government does not always respect these prohibitions in practice. The law allows electronic surveillance for crime prevention and investigation. There is neither independent judicial review of surveillance activities nor any control over the use of information obtained by monitoring private communications. A number of government agencies have access to wiretap information. In 2011 the Office for Electronic Communications reported that law enforcement agencies requested access to telecommunications data (including call logs, telephone location, and names registered to specific numbers) 1.8 million times, an increase of 500,000 over the number of requests in 2010.

About 15 years ago my company did business with two ISPs in Poland.  It was refreshing to deal with such seasoned professionals. And the pricing was far more reasonable, making for a perfect one-two punch.

Things that are political hot potatoes here (net neutrality, throttling, deep packet inspection) were all but unheard of in Poland.

--Dean

On 8/10/2015 2:12 AM, Nathan Schor wrote:

Well, that’s not exactly how they put it. Instead:

Study of Ad-Blocking Software Suggests Wide Use

‘What’s causing grave concern for broadcasters and advertisers is video advertising, which is some of their most valuable content, is starting to be blocked,” said Campbell Foster, director of product marketing at Adobe. “That’s a really scary prospect.”

Almost 200 million people worldwide now regularly use ad-blocking software, the report said. About 45 million of them are in the United States, with almost 15 percent of people in states like New York and California relying on these services.

The figures are even higher in Europe, where 77 million people use versions of the software.

In Poland, more than a third of people regularly block online ads.’

It’s curious why Poland stands so far ahead. There doesn’t seem to be an ostensible economic or technical reason, so it’s not likely they find surveillance based ad tech more irritating than the average user.  

What might account for that?

Absent others, one possible explanation may be no modern citizenry knows better the consequences of trickling away inherent rights, having experienced the demonic duo of Hitler immediately followed by Stalin.  

Nathan Schor 305.632.1368 ">