how-to block ads
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Boogeyman
Drive it like you stole it
Premium
join:2002-12-17
Huntsville, AL
 ·Comcast
| Hmmm...
It really stinks that ISP's are doing this and hiding it in obscure wording (in some cases) in a lengthy TOS. I bet if they just came out and told everyone, most mom and pop users probably wouldnt care, and the rest of us use adblock anyway.
I can see it causing problems for houses that only have one pc that everyone uses. Dad stays up friday night looking at porn while evryones asleep. Saturday morning junior goes to look at the Cartoon Network site and is greeted by butt plug ads. And thats one reason why this whole "targeted advertising" thing wont work as well as they think it will. Because its targetting the pc doing the web browsing, not the user in front of the pc. So unless they are using user accounts, Mom going to baking sites is getting tool ads, Dad going to sports sites is getting feminine hygene ads, Sis going to myspace is getting DragonBallZ ads and lil Brother going to Cartton Network is getting ads for Brittany's new album.
In all honesty though, I think they should figure out how much using my browsing behavior makes them a month, and then discount a percentage of that off the monthly bill for opting IN. Even if its only like $5, it seems a fair trade that way. Lose a little bit of perceived privacy for a discount on your bill. | |
MyDogHsFleas
Premium
join:2007-08-15
Austin, TX
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·AT&T Southwest
| If you're actually doing something on your PC you don't want your kids to see, get your own PC and put a password lock on it, or if you must share a PC, at least set up separate accounts for family members. That way each user will have their own sets of cookies. You should do these things regardless of what your ISP is doing about tracking, it's just good practice.
There will never be a "ad revenue" discount on your bill. Does your cable TV service give you a discount for the ads they sell on your channels? Do magazines give you a discount on subscriptions for the ads they run? No.
It would just confuse subscribers and be another thing for customer service to deal with. The ad revenue just gets flowed back into the company as another source of income besides subscriber fees. | |
Boogeyman
Drive it like you stole it
Premium
join:2002-12-17
Huntsville, AL
·Comcast
| Its well established that most BBR users know that user accounts and passwords are good ideas. But I'm talking about Joe Average. Its been my experience that even when average users set up user accounts, they are rarely used correctly. While visiting family a while back, I went to use my grandfathers pc and he just old me his account password. My aunt and 2 cousins also had thier own accounts, but everyone knew my grandfathers (admin) password and whenever thier account wouldnt let them do something, they logged into his and did it. The same situation goes on at my brothers house (who isnt related to the other family). I know its not everyone, but its been more common in my experience than the people who use them correctly.
I know they probably wont ever give an ad revenue discount, but my point was that if they did, it would give them a huge PR boost and make many people WANT to opt in to the service. It wouldnt even need to be monetary discount. For the people who actually use thier ISP email/webspace, a bump in storage would be enough for a lot of people to want to opt in. See, if they bundled it with something users wanted, most everyday users would opt in if they judged the pro to be better than the con. | |
MyDogHsFleas
Premium
join:2007-08-15
Austin, TX
·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T Southwest
edit:
April 7th, @01:13PM
| said by Boogeyman  :Its well established that most BBR users know that user accounts and passwords are good ideas. But I'm talking about Joe Average. Its been my experience that even when average users set up user accounts, they are rarely used correctly. While visiting family a while back, I went to use my grandfathers pc and he just old me his account password. My aunt and 2 cousins also had thier own accounts, but everyone knew my grandfathers (admin) password and whenever thier account wouldnt let them do something, they logged into his and did it. The same situation goes on at my brothers house (who isnt related to the other family). I know its not everyone, but its been more common in my experience than the people who use them correctly. Yep, I've seen exactly the same thing. IMHO personal computers were a huge mistake. Making consumers the bit-level sysadmins of the most complex piece of gear in their house is really a terrible idea. See what we ended up with? Piracy, spam, phishing, botnets, DOS attacks, identity theft, fraud, exposing kids to porn, and the ability to abuse people anonymously. Great stuff, there.
We seem to be moving back towards a much more reasonable "cloud computing" architecture, where the PCs are really just nice powerful user interface boxes, and all the logic and data is outside of the PC, in "the cloud". See Google Apps for example. Now if they could just get away from the idea that users manage their own PCs, and start selling "cloud appliance" computers that are non-configurable by the consumer, maybe we'll see less of this.
I know they probably wont ever give an ad revenue discount, but my point was that if they did, it would give them a huge PR boost and make many people WANT to opt in to the service. It wouldnt even need to be monetary discount. For the people who actually use thier ISP email/webspace, a bump in storage would be enough for a lot of people to want to opt in. See, if they bundled it with something users wanted, most everyday users would opt in if they judged the pro to be better than the con.
Well, I suppose this might be attractive to you, and maybe a small circle of people. But I think the average person would say "huh? you want me to do what for what?" The customer service calls cost alone would probably piss away any revenue or good will this might create.
People are used to the reduced-cost-stuff-for-advertising business model. See radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, and even Google. A new business model that says "we'll give you XYZ for accepting advertising" I just can't see taking hold. | |
kiamsiamdala
join:2001-11-05
Utica, MI | You can keep your cloud appliance, thank you very much. I like the complexity of my machines.
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'void planets roll regardless of desolation' | |
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