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Google's Chrome Browser Starts Disabling uBlock Origin

(www.pcmag.com)
178 points elsewhen | 2 comments | 15 Oct 24 21:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.412s | source
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keb_ ◴[16 Oct 24 01:08 UTC] No.41854693[source]▶
I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of malware and I don't have a lot of respect for the modern ad networks. However this culture of expecting websites to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly.

There is an unwritten social contract here. Websites are willing to host and organise a vast number of content because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may freeloaders resisting the ads then services won't host the content, and on the path to that the freeloaders are really just leeching off a system in an entitled way (unless their goal is to destroy the services they use in which case good on them for consistency and for picking a worthy target).

If people aren't going to be polite and accept that contract then fine, enforcement was always by an honour system. But strategically if a service's social contract doesn't work for someone then they shouldn't use that service - they'd just be feeding the beast. They should go make their own service work or investigate the long list of alternative platforms.

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1. barnabee ◴[16 Oct 24 12:18 UTC] No.41858217[source]▶
> There is an unwritten social contract here.

Nope nope nope.

The only “unwritten contract” (aka “my rights”) is that if you display something publicly (on the web or otherwise), I can choose whether to look at it or not.

If you put an informational poster on the street next to a billboard, I’m free to:

- ignore the billboard

- take a photo including only the poster and look at it later

- get someone else to take a photo of just the poster and send it to me

- get someone else to look at the poster and summarise it for me

- etc.

When you put something in the public sphere you give up control of it. If that deal doesn’t work for you, find a new business model.

In fact, as a society, we ought to protect ourselves better and ban most or all forms of passive/unsolicited advertising. So not only is there no “unwritten social contract” that requires us to accept ads everywhere, there’s a moral and ethical imperative to fight to reject ads.

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2. neodymiumphish ◴[17 Oct 24 17:28 UTC] No.41871684[source]▶
Your analogy isn’t fair.

The site is owned and operated by someone, and there are costs associated with its operation. It’s not the same as a billboard on the roadside, since you have to actively go to the site to read its content.

A more apt analogy is to a store, where you can freely walk into the store and browse whatever you want. Some stores might require a membership (Costco/NYTimes) and others might let anyone in, with distributors paying the store for prime real estate of their product (Walmart/CNN).

In either case, these stores may use Bluetooth/WiFi technology to closely monitor you when you go to their stores, and they may set requirements against masks to anonymize your activity in their stores.

I’m not anti-adblocker by any means, but we have no choice but to accept preventions imposed by site operators, and if we accept terms of service that include not utilizing adblockers while browsing their sites, we may be subject to whatever legal impositions they apply.