AdNauseam is silently clicking ads. This directly costs Google money. Google happens to control the extension web store for their own browser. Removing it from the store really isn't that bad. Uninstalling it from existing browsers as malware? A little more malicious, but I would still consider it self defense.
There is even a method to install it directly[1] which AFAIK Google has not blocked.
Granted, if Google were not both running the browser and the ad network, these actions probably wouldn't have been taken. But the whole attitude that this is some sort of tyrannical thing is a little over the top.
1. https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/Install-AdNauseam-on...
No it doesn't, it is to obfuscate the results about your interest and make the information they sell about you - useless. They are not giving me any money so I have no obligation to provide truthful ad clicks either.
> (in a manner intended to bring the system down) but so do many DDoS attacks...
You can't be serious, it's not comparable to DDoS attacks. It is just obfuscation, pure and simple. It is not in any way unethical either, digital surveillance that ad companies practice is on the other hand very much unethical. When I visit one website, why should dozens of third parties be able to sella and that information? When did they ask my consent? The only way to make that info useless is to have automated add-on like this, if the majority would use it, we wouldn't have as big problems of ad networks spreading malware and proving government agencies with surveillance information.