Also, I don't see how this is defrauding (in legal sense), it's just shoving shitty behaviour back at the source.
Also, even if you don't like it, it's still more ethical than what Uber is doing, so I think it should be encouraged at least as much in the tech world. ;).
It's fraud because it aims to register false clicks to deceive and confuse the companies that provide ads. It causes trouble for website owners, who can easily lose their entire income stream because they will be banned if the amount of false clicks on their site is deemed to be too high. If you don't like ads, don't go to sites that have them.
But let's drop that, it was just me being snarky in the morning.
It's not a fraud, no matter how advertisers want to call it. It wouldn't fly in court. You serve me some buttons, I click them. I haven't signed any document, implicitly or explicitly, between me and ad network that would oblige me to view or click their buttons in a way they want it to. So let's not use strong words where they don't belong.
Yes, it aims to register false clicks to deceive and confuse the companies that provide ads - because those companies give negative utility to users an it's in everyone's personal interest to get rid of them. It's tracking, it's spreading malware, but it's also simply shoving ugly shit in users' face. We have a right to strike back.
> It causes trouble for website owners, who can easily lose their entire income stream because they will be banned if the amount of false clicks on their site is deemed to be too high.
I say, good riddance. Site quality and trustworthiness is anti-correlated with ad count anyway.
> If you don't like ads, don't go to sites that have them.
No. If you don't like people not viewing your ads, paywall. Oh, but your paywall has to be leaky or else Google goes away? Well, welcome to the Internet. It was supposed to be a medium of information exchange, not a shopping mall.
You should consider it lucky that we're only talking about this extension. Per the other article that's currently on the front page[0], we could instead build an army of robots that would roam the world and punch advertisers to keep them down.
Fortunately, ad blockers are pretty popular right now and the agencies will have to get their shit together wether they like it or not. Or maybe come up with even more evil techniques, who knows.
That's not really a viable solution. You cannot know the site you are about to visit has ads on it or not.
Otherwise, I have an ad blocker so that I can go to the site, not see the ads and continue reading. Or if I feel particularly inclined to fight this shitty business model, I may install this ad clicker.