<story><title>Forbes asked readers to turn off adblockers then immediately served them malware</title><url>http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/08/you-say-advertising-i-say-block-that-malware/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>themartorana</author><text>Being that I make money from serving ads, I come at this a bit differently. In a lot of markets, it&amp;#x27;s one of the most passive ways to make money, but to be sure, the creepiness factor has been advertisers&amp;#x27; hubris-induced-downfall.&lt;p&gt;In any case, I haven&amp;#x27;t seen anyone here mention the ad networks themselves. Every once and a while we would get a complaint about a bad ad - it wouldn&amp;#x27;t dismiss, etc. Over time, we whittled down our network list to ad networks that strictly test and vet the ads they serve, no matter how much time that takes.&lt;p&gt;The networks blaming a &amp;quot;rogue advertiser&amp;quot; means they&amp;#x27;re not even passing ads on their network through automated malware detection software, and so they have responsibility here.&lt;p&gt;Creepiness factor aside, the explosion of networks is a problem, because so very few are actually providing more than a basic service. We really should be holding networks responsible for their ads.&lt;p&gt;We did, and we haven&amp;#x27;t had a complaint for a very long time.&lt;p&gt;Edit: this doesn&amp;#x27;t absolve Forbes, especially if they did nothing to correct the problem.&lt;p&gt;Edit 2: by &amp;quot;we should hold the networks responsible&amp;quot; I mean &amp;quot;we the publishers&amp;quot; - and as that &amp;quot;we&amp;quot; we still have a responsibility to our users&amp;#x2F;consumers. See Edit 1.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BlackFly</author><text>The problem isn&amp;#x27;t advertisements per se, the problem is advertisement networks that track users and sell their profiles. The only thing I have installed that counts as an ad blocker is Ghostery. I still get served advertisements at conscientious websites like duckduckgo.com or any other place that doesn&amp;#x27;t rely 100% on tracking networks.&lt;p&gt;Imagine if simply because you walked into Target, they hired a private investigator to follow you around and determine your personal habits, hobbies and other stores you visited. Imagine if they then used that information to attempt to lure you into the store, or sold that information to Best Buy so they could lure you into the store. I think most people would have a problem with such behavior. Making a more realistic physical analogy would be slipping an RFID token into your wallet without you noticing and only tracking you in stores that use the corresponding RFID reader.&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, tracking networks go the extra mile beyond a creepiness factor. My visit to your website isn&amp;#x27;t tacit approval for you to peruse my browsing of other websites. I shouldn&amp;#x27;t need to opt out of this behavior by installing Ghostery in the first place.</text></comment>
<story><title>Forbes asked readers to turn off adblockers then immediately served them malware</title><url>http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/08/you-say-advertising-i-say-block-that-malware/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>themartorana</author><text>Being that I make money from serving ads, I come at this a bit differently. In a lot of markets, it&amp;#x27;s one of the most passive ways to make money, but to be sure, the creepiness factor has been advertisers&amp;#x27; hubris-induced-downfall.&lt;p&gt;In any case, I haven&amp;#x27;t seen anyone here mention the ad networks themselves. Every once and a while we would get a complaint about a bad ad - it wouldn&amp;#x27;t dismiss, etc. Over time, we whittled down our network list to ad networks that strictly test and vet the ads they serve, no matter how much time that takes.&lt;p&gt;The networks blaming a &amp;quot;rogue advertiser&amp;quot; means they&amp;#x27;re not even passing ads on their network through automated malware detection software, and so they have responsibility here.&lt;p&gt;Creepiness factor aside, the explosion of networks is a problem, because so very few are actually providing more than a basic service. We really should be holding networks responsible for their ads.&lt;p&gt;We did, and we haven&amp;#x27;t had a complaint for a very long time.&lt;p&gt;Edit: this doesn&amp;#x27;t absolve Forbes, especially if they did nothing to correct the problem.&lt;p&gt;Edit 2: by &amp;quot;we should hold the networks responsible&amp;quot; I mean &amp;quot;we the publishers&amp;quot; - and as that &amp;quot;we&amp;quot; we still have a responsibility to our users&amp;#x2F;consumers. See Edit 1.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>geocar</author><text>&amp;quot;Holding networks responsible&amp;quot; sounds great, but the money chain isn&amp;#x27;t transparent, so whether you hold them responsible or not is irrelevant: Users hold &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; responsible if they see your URL and have a bad day.&lt;p&gt;By the way, your website is down.</text></comment>