zlacker

>>surpri+(OP)
What would happen (theoretically) if ublock would be changed to not only hide the ads, but click on each and every one of them. Would that disincentivize ad networks to run ads because the data would be poisoned?

>>63stac+d7
Adnauseam (https://adnauseam.io/) does this

>>rahimn+q7
It's also illegal in many jurisdictions (e.g. in the US, viewed as a scheme to defraud advertisers by generating invalid clicks that cause financial harm, by depleting their budgets and push them to spend for fake traffic), but in practice it's way easier to just blacklist that IP / user.

The big networks filter such traffic, the small networks benefit from it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/legal/comments/1pq6kgp/is_it_legal_...

You may also get accidentally get your own website blacklisted or moved to a lower RPM tier, or provoke shadow-ban websites that you like to visit, or... generate more ad revenue for them.

>>rvnx+b8
Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face.

Any jurisdiction where this is supposedly illegal, it hasn't been court tested seriously.*

Per your link: "What you're describing is essentially the extension AdNauseam. So far they have not had any legal troubles, but they technically could." That stance or an assertion it's not illegal is consistent throughout the thread, provided you aren't clicking your own ads.

"The industry" thinks you shouldn't be allowed to fast forward your own VCR through an ad either. They can take a flying .. lesson.

* Disclaimer: I don't know if that's true, but it sounds true.

>>Terret+d9
>Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face.

No, the illegal-ness doesn't come from the clicking, it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. That's also why filling out a credit card application isn't illegal, but filling out the same credit card application with phony details is.

>>gruez+Nd
> No, the illegal-ness doesn't come from the clicking, it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. That's also why filling out a credit card application isn't illegal, but filling out the same credit card application with phony details is.

You might technically be right. But I'd recommend contacting EFF, if, somehow, installing AdNauseam brings you into legal trouble.

On the realm of search engines and ad networks I love to remind people that Google took out "don't be evil" from their motto and pressured anyone within US jurisdiction to remove Page and Brin's appendix #8 (at the least it's removed from their original school of Stanford).

8 Appendix A: Advertising and Mixed Motives https://www.site.uottawa.ca/~stan/csi5389/readings/google.pd...

>>prophe+O23
Even if they are wrong:

1: Ad companies are not going to go after individual users, rather they would target the maker of any such plugin

2: If they did go after an individual user, they would have to prove damages, and an individual is unlikely to do more than a few bucks of wasted ad spend for a company, not even a rounding error, making the legal cost and political cost of targeting the person running the script enormous compared to the potential return from anything other than a grand slam nuclear judgement in their favor.