Why you shouldn’t feel bad about blocking Ads

I ran across an interesting article today while browsing though some submissions on Digg.com. The article came from the reputed web site Ars Technia. The article titled “Why Ad blocking is devastating to the sites you love” was interesting to read nonetheless. The article purported that blocking advertisements on web sites hurts the web sites you visit. I can agree to an extent, but I would not take it as far as those guys over at Ars Technia have.

Even though they said its not immoral, unethical, or stealing it sure seems this article puts it that way. I believe it should be the users choice if they want to view advertisements on a web site. In fact, I always recommend people run Noscript, Ad Block Plus, and Flashblock on their Firefox installations. The fact of the matter is people have a choice to decide what code they run on their computers. If a user doesn’t want to run a Javascript/Flash based ad on their computer, they should not be nudged at and made to feel guilty about it.

Why can’t sites like Ars Technia sell ad banner space on their site that pays on a per month basis a flat fee regardless of views? It could be something as simple as an image banner 125px by 125 px for a flat set rate per month that can be changed as needed, and would link to the sponsors site or product page? I think sites struggling because of ad revenue need to look at their profit model and maybe think about adapting their profit strategy.

3rd party advertisements have been responsible for pushing rogue security applications and other malvertisements pushing malware. Why should users trust ads from 3rd party ad networks that allow this stuff to be promoted? I block ads, and will continue to do so. I see it like this, blocking of advertisements  is my choice under the 10 Immutable Laws of Computer Security. Law number one states:

Law #1: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it’s not your computer anymore.

JavaScript is in fact a programming language. I have a choice If I want to allow a 3rd party or web site to run JavaScript on my computer. If someone convinces me to run their program on my computer, there is a chance my computer will not be mine anymore. The ad company may not be the bad guy, but the bad guy may use the ad companies to push their bad ware. You can check out a Microsoft MVP’s Spyware Sucks Blog where malvertisements and spyware are kept track of.

Lets look at some other legitimate reasons why you should not feel guilty blocking ads:

1. Prevents the most common vector for virus and spyware infections. See NY Times Pushing Malvertisements and Google Adsense showing Malvertisements to get my drift. (although Google is the safest of the ad networks)

2. Prevent 3rd party ad networks from harvesting marketing and user preference information from the user.

3. Prevents Flash Player from grinding your browser to a halt.

4. Prevents you from seeing and helping those annoying MFA’s (Made for Adsense Sites) and helping their spam causes with clickthroughs.

5. Blocking those truly annoying video ads that pop up on the middle of the page that get in the way of stuff.

The fact of the matter is most users HATE advertisements. Furthermore, many sites place their ads right next to their site navigation links to hope they confuse the user into clicking on an ad instead of a site navigation link so they can make money. I know how these tricks work. I find this type of ad placement to be dishonest and hurts web accessibility. This is one of many reasons internet users hate ads.

In soceity, everywhere we turn we are bombarded with advertisements. TV, newspaper, magazines, radio, the internet, even while driving down the highway. We get no break from advertising which has shaped a big part of our culture. Ads in the newspaper are the easiest to deal with, but the ability to block ads on the internet is like an escape from the torture. A break  in plain simple words.  It seems many webmasters think the more flashy and annoying the ad is, the more likely we will click on it which in fact means the exact opposite. The more annoying the ad, the more likely you are to get blacklisted. I think I can safely say users do not get on the internet to get bombarded with ads, they get on the internet to relax and get information.

I disagree with the article’s premise that viewing ads on a site you like is some sort of moral obligation. If this is the school of thought, am I committing some kind of a moral sin because i don’t look at the ads in the newspaper? Or I don’t watch ads on my TV? Or I change the radio station when an annoying advertisement comes on? Of course not!  Viewing ads on web sites is no different then the newspaper even though the article from Ars Technia wants you to think it is.

Perhaps sites that function only because of ad revenue need to think better about their long-term viability. If these companies created better content, served their own ads,  sold their own ad space at a flat rate, and offered reasonable subscriptions or donation membership  maybe they would be more profitable without annoying their users. Perhaps if they didn’t rely on ad revenue that required user interaction (CPC, CPM, etc) and instead charged a flat rate per pixel or for size and duration they would be more viable.

The moral of this post is, If you don’t like ads block them! you are doing now wrong blocking annoying advertisements.

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Comments Welcome! Lets hear your thoughts.