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

[Don Marti < >]

But sometimes stuff just blows up on the Internet and
you have no idea why.  One hyper-annoying campaign
running on one popular Polish site, along with
user-to-user sharing of ad blocker links on web
boards, could account for a lot of it.

There's also "folk wisdom" about what to do to correct
a misbehaving computer.  I used to see a lot of "run
Windows Update" or "run a virus scan" or "check your
firewall" on message boards. Before that, there was a
bunch of "zap your PRAM" or "type this into win.ini"

Now, the advice that seems to outnumber all others
is "install an ad blocker".  This is partly because
malware often carries an ad fraud payload...
  
https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-get-rid-of-the-annoying-advertisements-which-pop-up-while-browsing-on-the-internet
...and users get malware and adtech mixed up, but
sometimes it's just a way to get some feeling of
control over the machine.

As Doc pointed out in another post, we need better
numbers on this.  (Of course, sites are losing more
to data leakage than to blocking, but it's easier
for management to blame users than to blame itself
for a third-party tracker infestation out of control.
Privacy Badger and Disconnect will have to do for web
publishers what VHS and Beta did for movie studios.)

begin John Wunderlich quotation of Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 12:55:00PM +0000:
> 
> Doc;
> It's worth noting that most of the rest of the world is either currently or 
> recently repressive. Europe's living memories of facism and stalinism can 
> be matched by repressive regimes (or recent memories of the same) in every 
> continent. North American and a few other countries are the exception, not 
> the rule.
> We are the anomaly, not the baseline, for the research you suggest.
> 
> Thanks,
> John Wunderlich
> @PrivacyCDN on Twitter
> 
> Fat fingered frum a mobile device, pleez 4give speling errurz.
> 
> "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have 
> nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free 
> speech because you have nothing to say."
> 
>     _____________________________
> From: Doc Searls 
> <
 >
> Sent: Monday, August 10, 2015 5:50 AM
> Subject: Re: [projectvrm] NY Times: Another Nail in the Coffin of Ad Tech
> To:  
> <
 >
> Cc:  
> <
 >,
>  ProjectVRM list 
> <
 >
> 
> 
>        Good points.     
>        Also remember that ad blocking is usually tracking blocking as well. 
> And being tracked for many people is a bigger issue than annoying ads.      
>  
>        In Europe I have often heard that the memory of WWII, when records 
> of personal details about people were used to hunt and kill them, has 
> sensitized people to privacy issues more than in other places without 
> similar legacies. It would be interesting to see research on that.        
>        Doc       
>                   On Aug 10, 2015, at 2:32 AM, Dean Landsman <      
> 
 >
>  wrote:          
>            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 Zealandat $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.’        
> 
>                                       
>                                
>            <Mail Attachment.jpeg>                                   
>         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 
> 
 
>                 
> 
>  
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-- 
Don Marti 
<
 >
                   
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
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