Well, if websites stop serving their ads via centralized servers tracking my every move across the web, I might consider not blocking them anymore (provided they're not animated and/or huge).
If you don't like it, don't consume the resources of the site serving the adds. This idea that your entitled to the content, without actually 'paying' for it (you pay by giving up a bit of privacy to heighten the value of the ads) is just wrong in my world view.
It's not stealing. It's not piracy. It's just the wrong thing to do.
Selling people's privacy is part of an ad company's revenue stream. Ad networks pay sites to post ads. Sites make money, in part, from selling their user's privacy.
One can quibble whether or not this is a big deal, but I don't think one can say it simply doesn't happen.
Now we can argue the semantics of whether the act of visiting a website is considered private knowledge. I'd argue not - it's like walking into a shop, the shop has the right to say "hey you know who was here earlier?". But at the end of the day "they are selling my privacy" is over dramatizing what is happening. By visiting any website you run the risk - how do you know they are not selling the IP logs directly etc.
Visiting websites is just, within reason, public knowledge.
I also wonder how many advertisers actually use the data to target ads - and how much of it is used simply for numbers tracking (I dont know either way but it would be interested to see). I mention this because, when I run w/o ad blockers I don't really see anything actively targeted at me.
This incessant use of the word "privacy" in contexts where it doesn't really apply frustrates me: because it dumbs down situations where privacy is actually affected.
Regardless of what you call it I'm not comfortable with it, and I'm not going to disable my ad blocker any time soon. The only reason I even went to ars technica was to read this article; I'll be happy to not return.
If you don't like it, don't consume the resources of the
site serving the adds
I suspect part of the problem is for sites like this is that when your top story for the week is the new Ubuntu colour-scheme, then your users probably are not going to pay for your information and analysis.
p.s. For the avoidance of doubt this comment is free to view and unencumbered.
Also if you're using whitelists, they will only track you on the sites that you're choosing to whitelist, so it's not as if whitelisting Ars will immediately allow them to track all your moments.
Neither of these are perfect solutions to your concerns, but I thought they should at least be mentioned.