There are ad networks that do take positive steps to ensure that code is not harmful. Do you look into the ad networks you block and whitelist ones that are clean? Or do you rely on Eyeo/ABP by using their acceptable ads list while they take a cut?
To my knowledge, there isn't a single publisher or ad network that take full legal responsibility if they distribute malware, false goods, or have other form of illegal ads. If there is one, let me know and I will take a look.
Got burnt by some ransomware, now what? Use that backup you hopefully have and that's it. In the time between backup and damage, the primary browser would have touched just about every ad network in existence and nobody knows how many other unpublished holes might have been responsible for the malware to leak in.
Art the other end of the range, if you are a security expert analyzing the incoming flood, you may have an abstract case of attempted computer fraud, but no concrete damages.
Edit: could this change once ad-blockers have caused the introduction of server-side splicing of ads and content? (I suspect that this will become the main business of edge server operators not too far down the road)
That's a good point. Maybe ad-blockers will impose accountability.
Edit: There's a tendency to be irresponsible when effectively anonymous. But there's still risk. Let's say that some ad network is hosting ransomware. Well over 99% of victims will have no provable damages. But maybe you take out some business and all of the day's backups. There's also the potential for class tort.
Each personal computer and laptop should be in the range of a $200. A work desktop or server should be in the range of $2000-5000, since then you got to verify the integrity of data and secrecy of costumers. Since a maladvertisement attack hits tens of thousands of users, a class action suit could be in any range, and it would be hard to guess the end result.
No. I'm not incentivized to and it is not in my best interests.
> Or do you rely on Eyeo/ABP by using their acceptable ads list while they take a cut?
Is that enabled by default? I rarely see / notice ads.
The only time an ad might be remotely useful to me is if it's product placement which is on topic for a search that I am performing where I am already looking to buy something. At any other time it's just wasting bandwidth (which on some networks might actually cost me).
I think that 'ads' are the wrong tool for the job. Ads are about 'making impressions', but doing so is actually an attack on the intellectual process of the subject that is being impressed. The very least an Ad should do is compensate for that attack by delivering actually useful and desired information. An ad should know from the context it's presented in what that user seeks and attempt to deliver value to that user. Ideally it should be about finding a match between consumers and the producers that match their need. The toxic part of ads is that they are not driven by this bounty, but instead by attempts at various companies to become the thing that fulfills a need which might not exist or which might be actively unhealthy.
All advertising was "clean" at some point, consisting of just images and links. Web advertising changed direction at some point, following the money vendors paid them. And it's absolutely impossible to guarantee that owners or investors won't change policies later. Even if a company says that they'll never do it and put it in the TOS, they can still change it at a later date with no repercussions. Even doing something outside the TOS has few consequences, so sites and ad companies can lie about their policies. Which would be cheaper than actually reinventing themselves. So, thinking about it like this, your incentives aren't reliable and will likely expire at some point in time, rendering this approach useless.
Expecting users in various industries with various levels of skill to have the motivation and expertise to clean up your industry for you is beyond ridiculous. Each individual user has such a low financial impact on final ad revenue that it would take a social movement beyond massive to have any reasonable effect.
You're really targeting the wrong audience, here. There either needs to be some type of reliable third-party (if that's even possible, given the corruptability of this industry) who tracks ad network reliability, or vendors need to incentivize clean ad networks by not buying ads on networks that allow for exploits. You need to either self-regulate, or eventually be forced by regulation (either legal or through ad blocking). If there was a reliable, trustworthy industry clean up solution that didn't revolve around people paying to remove demerits (e.g. Yelp review), maybe we could all stop furiously ducking ads and see what's left after the adpocalypse.
Here's a solution for you. Perhaps an enterprising "clean" ad network could build an extension that checks pages for third-party-hosted javascript, hidden images, and all the other tracking/exploitation techniques and rates them with an icon. That would be a far better way to market, as long as they don't try to exploit that gained goodwill. Post it on Github, keep it open. Base the entire thing about tracking sites that (directly or indirectly) use subversive techniques. Rate them and give them a black eye publicly, and include a public appeals process. This has to be automated and updated so that they can't get around it with new exploits. Build the results of this into a list that can be used by adblockers directly. But even without disabling ad blocking, you could see from this extension at a glance which sites operate in a non-user-hostile manner.
EDIT: This solution here means that users don't have to "check" to see which sites and platforms are clean. They opt-in to find the information, and then it shows up on whatever site the see. All major browsers have been adding support for Chrome-style extensions. And I can find this information out before disabling ad-blocking, and be notified of sites that have significantly worsened. Seriously, if serving ads is something you want to do, I can't think of a better way to increase reliability than this. Also, you can't use this extension to track users, either. Even anonymously.
Once again, users shouldn't have to go seek out clean advertising. There's literally no incentive at all for someone to say, "I want to see ads, so I'm going to spend hours investigating agency practices and which servers belong to which agency". And there never will be. As a user, it would cost me hours of time to educate myself, and I'd have to do it repeatedly to keep aware of which companies are toeing the line this week. All to earn you a few cents out of the goodness of my heart. The people who are buying and serving ads need to clean it up, or risk it collapsing around them. And they really should not expect sympathy or understanding until it's no longer risky to offer it.
I think ads are an awful solution to the problem.
I don't know what the better solution is but there have already been attempts made with flatr and similar.
In my opinion everyone should run adblock and the industry should move on.
Currently there is a massive movement towards ads you can't tell are ads in websites and news articles.
These are about as bad but they do fix a lot of the current issues with display ads.
Very occasionally, I even see an ad that is useful to me as well.
You might not like it, but sites are going to have to go back to the days where they host the ads on their own domain. I suppose they may still interact with an external network so they don't have to handle the sales themselves, but making sure everything is hosted from their own domain means it'll be much easier to hold them liable if malware is delivered through their site.
For web ads, I thought that most places had given up on charging by impression, and only charged by click-through.
Not blocking ads in this context is kind of like not patching your server after hearing of heartbleed.
You'll need to have turned on advanced mode for it to work. And of course, this only works with PW because PW serves ads from only its domain. Most ad networks aren't nearly so nice.
When you're sure your changes are good, hit the lock button to save them.
... it's complicated, I know. Sorry!
The task of whitelisting becomes much more involved when networks are incentivized to act maliciously or turn your private data into something profitable.
You'll have to be on the constant look out for when Network A decides "don't be evil" affects their bottom line.