<story><title>“We&apos;re considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”</title><url>https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4if65h/mod_announcement_were_considering_banning_all/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>devishard</author><text>&amp;gt; At any one time, a publisher can be serving ads from a few exchanges, a few different private sellers, and custom built ads for brands. And these all are served in different combinations across several different ad units on multiple pages. And some of those ad sellers may be backfilling with other ad networks, or maybe the publisher is backfilling certain ads from the ad exchanges at certain CPM prices.&lt;p&gt;So, don&amp;#x27;t do that.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s not that simple.&lt;p&gt;It is absolutely that simple.&lt;p&gt;Your argument is basically, &amp;quot;Their process is so complicated they can&amp;#x27;t avoid serving up malware.&amp;quot; But that&amp;#x27;s not a justification for serving up malware. If your process is too complicated to avoid serving malware, then you need to simplify your process until you can avoid serving up malware.&lt;p&gt;You don&amp;#x27;t get a free pass on ethics just because ethics are inconvenient for your business model.</text></item><item><author>econnors</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not that simple. At any one time, a publisher can be serving ads from a few exchanges, a few different private sellers, and custom built ads for brands. And these all are served in different combinations across several different ad units on multiple pages. And some of those ad sellers may be backfilling with other ad networks, or maybe the publisher is backfilling certain ads from the ad exchanges at certain CPM prices.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d liken it more to a hardware product being shipped with faulty materials when multiple manufacturers are involved and it&amp;#x27;s extremely difficult to identify the responsible party. Sure, they&amp;#x27;re responsible for the end product, but it&amp;#x27;s not so black and white.</text></item><item><author>tomp</author><text>Of course they are malicious. They&amp;#x27;re serving the high-profit ads, which obviously includes malware, where they could be serving low-profit, safe (but boring) ads.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s equivalent to pharmacists selling illegal drugs (heroin, cocaine) simply because they obviously make them more profits.</text></item><item><author>econnors</author><text>As noted other comments, this would only apply to the &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;technology subreddit. The general feedback is in favor of blocking these types of sites.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m pretty amazed at the current state of ads. With multiple ad exchanges, private sellers, and static brand deals, the entire serving process is a mess and users are paying for it. I don&amp;#x27;t think publishing websites are being malicious; they&amp;#x27;re incentived to make money and just haven&amp;#x27;t figured out how to do it at a high enough margin while keeping users happy. I just think the entire internet ad industry is in shambles and nobody really knows a solution that makes everyone happy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>econnors</author><text>But it&amp;#x27;s not the publishers process or business model that is causing the problem - it&amp;#x27;s the process of filling ad space that is broken. Sure, you could pick one ad network and micro monitor it, but you wouldn&amp;#x27;t make enough money to sustain quality content. CPM optimization is a requirement of the field if you&amp;#x27;d like to profit enough to sustain quality journalism and not be the next you-wont-guess-the-top-10-craziest-things site.&lt;p&gt;Yes, I think publishers have a responsibility to monitor their ads and keep their users safe. But I still don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s a black and white ethics situation. The exchanges and other ad providers need to fix their business model and not depend on publishers to filter the malware ads they&amp;#x27;re sneaking onto their page.</text></comment>
<story><title>“We&apos;re considering banning domains that require users to disable ad blockers”</title><url>https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4if65h/mod_announcement_were_considering_banning_all/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>devishard</author><text>&amp;gt; At any one time, a publisher can be serving ads from a few exchanges, a few different private sellers, and custom built ads for brands. And these all are served in different combinations across several different ad units on multiple pages. And some of those ad sellers may be backfilling with other ad networks, or maybe the publisher is backfilling certain ads from the ad exchanges at certain CPM prices.&lt;p&gt;So, don&amp;#x27;t do that.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s not that simple.&lt;p&gt;It is absolutely that simple.&lt;p&gt;Your argument is basically, &amp;quot;Their process is so complicated they can&amp;#x27;t avoid serving up malware.&amp;quot; But that&amp;#x27;s not a justification for serving up malware. If your process is too complicated to avoid serving malware, then you need to simplify your process until you can avoid serving up malware.&lt;p&gt;You don&amp;#x27;t get a free pass on ethics just because ethics are inconvenient for your business model.</text></item><item><author>econnors</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not that simple. At any one time, a publisher can be serving ads from a few exchanges, a few different private sellers, and custom built ads for brands. And these all are served in different combinations across several different ad units on multiple pages. And some of those ad sellers may be backfilling with other ad networks, or maybe the publisher is backfilling certain ads from the ad exchanges at certain CPM prices.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d liken it more to a hardware product being shipped with faulty materials when multiple manufacturers are involved and it&amp;#x27;s extremely difficult to identify the responsible party. Sure, they&amp;#x27;re responsible for the end product, but it&amp;#x27;s not so black and white.</text></item><item><author>tomp</author><text>Of course they are malicious. They&amp;#x27;re serving the high-profit ads, which obviously includes malware, where they could be serving low-profit, safe (but boring) ads.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s equivalent to pharmacists selling illegal drugs (heroin, cocaine) simply because they obviously make them more profits.</text></item><item><author>econnors</author><text>As noted other comments, this would only apply to the &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;technology subreddit. The general feedback is in favor of blocking these types of sites.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m pretty amazed at the current state of ads. With multiple ad exchanges, private sellers, and static brand deals, the entire serving process is a mess and users are paying for it. I don&amp;#x27;t think publishing websites are being malicious; they&amp;#x27;re incentived to make money and just haven&amp;#x27;t figured out how to do it at a high enough margin while keeping users happy. I just think the entire internet ad industry is in shambles and nobody really knows a solution that makes everyone happy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tracker1</author><text>It isn&amp;#x27;t that simple, but it should be... This is a space ripe for &amp;quot;safe networks&amp;quot; and self-serve ad platforms to take hold.</text></comment>