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Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, I don't really mind so long as the ads are being served by FB and not third-party networks, and their performance isn't abysmal.

The major reason I block ads in the first place is for usability reasons - ad networks are slow as all hell especially on mobile. They also make certain pages completely unusable either through ad overlays, interstitials, or just constantly causing layouts to change as you're trying to use the website.

If FB can eliminate all of these pitfalls (and the current model of FB ads is certainly way less intrusive than most web ads) I'm cautiously on board.

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This is the biggest point for me. I don't block ads because I hate being advertised at.

I block ads because I hate it when a tab starts playing sound without being asked. I hate getting malware from ads. I hate having pages take 30 seconds to a minute to load because of ads. Or when the page loads fine, but then a minute later the article I'm reading jumps because an ad loaded. Or changed. Or popped up on a timer.

I hate ads because ads hate the user experience.

Google does ads right. They are subtle and don't get in the way of using it.

And if Facebook actually commits to having oversight over what they serve. The idea that websites rent space to ad networks who then sell space on their servers to bad actors who then upload viruses and other such malware which then goes into my computer and everyone in this whole chain just goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is ridiculous. If someone added a billboard to a highway that caused every thousandth car that passed to blow a tire, there would be lawsuits. How they're allowed to get away with it so easily online is beyond me and maddening.

Yeah, the security angle is a big deal. The long and short of it is that ad networks and publishers are both apathetic to what a gigantic dumpster fire ad-serving is.

Publishers are eager to blame ad networks for the terrible performance, while ad networks just can't give enough of a shit to work on it. Publishers also are eager to blame ad networks when they're caught serving scams and malware, while networks just don't care.

I'm a huge proponent of making publishers serve their own ads from their own domains, so they are forced to take ownership of both the issue of technical competency and abuse.

Either that, or make the networks directly responsible for the content they're serving. I don't understand why that's not the case now, if websites allow downloading of copyrighted work without authorization, or distribute illegal digital goods, they're held accountable. What makes ad networks invulnerable to this?

In the first case they're held accountable because business interests are compromised. In the second, no business interest is compromised by screwing up Joe Public's computer (except Joe's, but he has no material social leverage, so...). Thus no accountability for ad networks, even if there logically and legally should be.

I may be in the minority here, but I don't mind Facebook ads particularly because they track me so much that the ads are very well-tailored. There's nothing annoying to me about relevant advertisements and I've found decent stuff before. The ads for crappy pay-to-win flash games in the sidebar, on the other hand...

Generally agreed, though the industry's obsession with retargeting makes this annoying sometimes. Facebook is much better targeted than most, especially when it comes to interests/hobbies/brands I'd be into, but it's still very crude if it tries to get any "smarter" than that, especially with retargeting.

Retargeting: the ad technology that believes my home needs 54 couches and 36 vacuum cleaners.

Your tailoring from Facebook might be unique or mine is. I find the stuff they serve up just plain wrong. Or, it's one sided and I see the same ad over and over and over again.

Unmoderated proxied ads sounds very interesting from a legal point of view. If a user go to facebook domain, talk with facebook server, and the data the user got back from facebooks sever was malware, what reasonable defense can facebook actually make that they shouldn't liable for damages?

Agreed. One of the entertaining quirks of Facebook ads is seeing which of my "friends" are being invoked as supporters of this particular advertiser. There's a small tribe of people that cast ironic "Like" votes every now and then -- fashionistas who like WalMart ... that sort of thing.

I'm easily amused. Those nutty Likes tend to amuse me.

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