France’s second-largest ISP deploys ad blocking via firmware update
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Free.fr, and beyond the company its boss Xavier Niel, has a consistent track record of pissing of big players in established markets. Niel made his wealth with Minitel, including sex and dating sites, then consistently disrupted networking markets with Free.fr:
* they first sold dialup connection for the cost of a local communications, without ads;
* they established the price of unlimited ADSL around €30/month;
* they introduced TV over IP and free phone calls over IP through the freebox (the ADSL router that comes with a free.fr subscription)
* they started a bandwidth race, offering tens of MB/s when historic operators were stuck at 512KB/s.
* they slashed mobile phone prices: no subsidized phones, no contract, but unlimited calls and data (bandwitdth capped beyond 3GB/month) for less than 20€/month.
Their whole business model has always been about pissing off fat cats, big time. They're trying their luck against Google.
It's one thing to piss off your competition, but pissing off the people who supply the only reason why you have customers is kind of stupid. Sorry, but if I couldn't get Google I'm switching ISPs tomorrow.
If DNT were turned on by default instead of this ad-blocking would there be as much furor raised? Likely not.
What about Free mobile? We have the lowest price in the world now.
I'd rather pay money for many of these services, but I'm rarely given the option. In the meantime, my browsing is regularly interrupted by ads that I have to click through, ads I have to wait through, ads that pop up and block what I was trying to read, and ads that play noises I don't want to hear.
I think it is fast becoming time where ads as a source of revenue for a site is going away; it's time for people to find better ways to monitize the content they're publishing.
Also we are a global site and get a good deal of traffic from overseas, so this French ISP is actually affecting our business (it's not going to get anyone laid off though).
Just something to think about -- the internet is working relatively smoothly as it is. Playing around with the basics like this will have more effect than you may realize.
If I speak as a consumer, then it's not very smooth when I want to read an article and can't, due to the in-line words which pop up intrusive ads when your mouse comes anywhere near them. I can't hardly watch a 30 second video without spending another 30 seconds to 2 and 1/2 minutes watching ads. It actively annoys me that Amazon has started serving ads on their homepage. I've ended up going to other retailers to purchase things on the principal.
As someone working (indirectly) for companies that make revenue off of ads, I've noticed that there's always that nagging fear in the back of their minds about Google cutting them off with no recourse. Of loosing customers when a new ad in the rotation pisses of parents due to the scantily clad nature of the characters in the ad. Of loosing customers due to poor performance of ads or conflicting javascript.
It is always very unfortunate when people get laid off. However, to have to lay people off just because someone doesn't download specific bytes from the internet signals a broken system to me.
They should not inspect or monitor their users traffic for any reason short of court order.
If the title was - French ISP upgrade routers to block porn it would have been an uproar. It is the same.
So the ISP is not being just and ISP it is assuming the role of a gatekeeper with a device on which they have root access.
As said already, Free is trying to disturb industries, to break the status quo. €60 per month for 512Kbps vs €20 per month for 20Mbps... €60 per month for unlimited calls plus 1GB fair-use data plan vs €20 per month for unlimited calls plus 3GB fair-use data plan...
It's all about disrupting the big players. Lots of people try to access Google's services, I'd argue it's only fair if hugely-profitable Google help ISP's users better access their services.
I found the script here http://www.shadowandy.net/2012/11/adblocking-with-tomatousb-...
It seems to be working pretty well so far.
Another bonus is when people visit, ads are blocked for them as well.
Blocking ads at the router level lets you escape ads on any device.
Dolphin has extensions as well, including an ad blocker.
This is not a net-neutral move by the Free.fr. Clearly some content is being treated differently than other content, based on source.
However, I think it’s up to users (and by extension, the services they purchase) to decide how to handle web content. Users might or might not like this particular move, who knows. But it’s up to them to keep using the ISP, or to change the setting in the router.
Under net neutrality law, should it exist, the ISP’s move would be illegal, no? Which means that Google uses regulation to ensure delivery of its product. Incumbency protection.
In fact, look for Google to posit exactly this net neutrality claim. My preference is that Free.fr and Google fight for your affections.
Net neutrality means that all content fetching should be treated equally. I have no idea how that can be contorted into incumbency protection, since no one is advantaged by it.
I don't pay for an ISP so that they decide to become a cable TV provider, deciding for me what I do and don't want. I pay for an ISP to allow me to go onto websites. They should act as disinterested as possible as to what I'm trying to get (apart from obvious load balancing things).
Free wants to add a software layer ad blocking? Don't turn it on by default, that is the same thing as filtering for 90% of web users (at least). I hope you'll enjoy when they start throttling other things by default as well.
I see a comment on Ars that says ad-based malware is overblown as a concern, and let me assure you it is not. Hijacked ad servers are an incredibly effective way to spread your malware across many unsuspecting users. If this was overblown, you wouldn't see so many people working so hard to find new browser 0-day exploits.
Sure users can already do this, but that has been limited to a very small subset of users, and was always user choice. Automatically doing it for everyone through that isp is crazy.
I wonder how this could relate to censorship, first ads, what next? Just a thought...
On a side note, I understand the economics of ads. But lately they have become increasingly annoying, and most of the time they're badly targeted. Fix that and I'll stop blocking them.
This is not a matter of being pro or anti adblocking, but rather about realizing how far the consequences of a default value can reach.
It's that simple, without adverts the world wide web would be locked down into silo's that make the Facebook of today look like a charity.
Want to read that article, get ready for the "do you subscribe to one of our partner services? if not click here to pay only $20 a month for unlimited PaidContentOnDemand" messages
I think there are legitimate questions: at which point would it become not acceptable for you? who decides what is blocked? should it be enabled by default?
Also if the ISP is in the business of "editorializing" what the user sees, maybe it becomes actually responsible for the content (no safe harbor). That also seems like a dangerous game for them.
Advertising is responsible for all the treason of the 2000-2010 websites that took all the privacy of people in exchange for pity digital beads and mirrors, the cost is an ongoing avertisement harrasment into people's private sphere.
Also due to laziness, complacent and risk adverse handling of the receivers of that advertising money, it made the advertising companies too powerful, while these sell nothing but broken promisses and bullshit, so no value for whatever price.
All the stuff that advertising bought and brought to the people is mediocre and bland.
I personally hope that advertising will face the same "pull the carpet from beneith them" treatment as all the other big media industries like RIAA and MPAA.
My personal opinion on advertising is very critical, very much like yours. It litterally cripples content quality for pebbles.
As a side note, I currently make about 100$/month with advertising on my mobile apps (~10-15k active users). I really want to switch to a paid product but I'm having trouble picking a correct price for it since I'm not completely satisfied with it myself. There are some mental barriers that I need to break first. Ads were an easy way out, I totally see myself in your pamphlet: a lazy and complacent developer, so afraid to see his pricing expectations shattered that he preferred to ship a free app with a bland and mediocre ad banner. Again, for pebbles.
So many times I heard the argument that advertising was the thing that made the internet cheaper and accessible to all, this is simply not true, upscaling made it cheaper and better software made it more accessible.
As I am online for quite a while (over 15 years), I have seen so much crap appearing due to the advertising industry. The quality of what is available online has only got worse, I personally think that the more expensive internet of 15 years ago was worth every penny while the cheap access nowadays is too expensive for the crap that is being offered.
I am glad that paid services are coming back online and will hopefully normalise this webworld again to pre 2000-2010 norms.
Unlike the advertisement world, I think not everything should be free, quality can have a price tag and rightfully so.
I wish you all wisdom and luck and hope you can convert your business.
b.t.w. I do not think that an ISP should decide to block adverts, however I do think the public should be able to choose, I use the HOSTS file to black out all adverts, which is quite efficient and does not need external code (like in the router or in a firefox add-on).
I assume that this sort of thing is a for-runner to general opt-in censorship, like parental controls. Now, we in the UK avoided mandatory opt out porn filters. Meaning that if I didn't want it, I had to essentially declare my self an internet pervert to my ISP. Well, as a parent, I would welcome some controls. If I could have this function on my router, on a per machine basis, that should cover all concerns. Odd to me that the French started with ad blocking and not porn blocking.
And it might also be part of the negotiations to get Google to pay for peering that's been going on for a long time.
Is this where I get to say "information wants to be free" and "if your business model can't handle technological change, it needs to die?"
An easy solution is to equate blocking AdSense with blocking Google.com. I am not sure why Google hasn't already taken this step.