From what I can figure out, this ISP merely provides a modem/router with a built-in optional adblocker.
I don't see anything wrong with that in particular, especially in the context where virtually all display ads violate European privacy laws because of cross-site user tracking without explicit permission.
It's just one more additional security/privacy feature on a consumer router to help ordinary users protect themselves.
Anyway, don't trust google translation. I found some info in english : http://www.fastcompany.com/3004452/french-isp-free-blocks-al... http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/3/3832126/french-isp-free-add...
What does the ISP gain with it ? I think most people won't notice. I'm more worried about the step back regarding net neutrality of this ISP.
Some people suggest that this filtering is a move in the long fight the ISP has with google to get it to pay a share of the network usage cost.
While the ISP is very user friendly, for net neutrality and open minded, Google and more specifically Youtube, is a totally abnormal situation. Google earns billions in advertisment and don't give a cent to ISP while the traffic of Youtube is largely dominant on networks.
One move the ISP did in the last years is to reduce Youtube traffic bandwidth and claimed the problem was due to a network peering issue. More and more people complained of the problem so that the ISP had probably something to do about it.
It is thus suggested that the ISP might be targetting the revenue source of Google without impairing user experience.
The thing is that Google has probably pushed the shared network usage model beyond its reasoable limit. It kind of make sense to me that the network infrastructure cost should be sharde between producers and consumers. This usually tends to naturally balance and even itself. But with Youtube and Google there is a very strong imbalance regarding network usage and profit making.
If other ISP would make a similar move, this could initiate discussion to find a fair solution.
I doubt The ISP would try to cut revenue of reasonable free web services living from ad revenue, because this is its bread and butter.
Once by the consumer by way of a monthly internet bill and once by the content provider(website) in the way of their hosting/bandwidth costs.
It is not clear by the ISP's name(Free) whether or how much they are charging for internet access. negrit seems to suggest that this ISP has a fairly aggressive pricing model.
However, if the cost of people actually using their internet access, especially just to browse websites, is too much for Free, they should look to their pricing model or consider upgrading their networks, as opposed to trying to extort(or at least block) advertisers.
As you mention, this ends up being a much bigger issue in regards to net neutrality. For now, it is just youtube that is using 'too much' bandwidth, but blocking that will only mean other sites will take its place as bandwidth hogs.
Hopefully this will result in discussions to finding a fairer solution, but I believe that should involve upgrading infrastructure and providing better service, rather than blocking sites like youtube or netflix.
http://www.generation-nt.com/blocage-pub-freebox-revolution-...
But yes, the fact that it's on by default is questionable.
However, most ISP-supplied consumer routers have firewall rules on by default, for very good reasons. Although I personally think this one should be opt-in, on by default is not necessarily evil in this particular use case.
Besides being a bit ham-fisted, there's nothing inherently wrong with an ISP offering filters against malicious content.
Also, with the user-accessible opt-out, it would even be legal under the Netherlands' much praised Net Neutrality law. Unlike most of these alarmist headlines, the ISP is not blocking anything.
If it happens to be that enough people share that preference with me to make the current ad-ridden web unprofitable for many sites, well, then so be it. In that case a new model will appear in due time.
This is why I never liked IE's DNT on by default solution either, which besides being mostly pointless, and making it even more pointless by activating it for everyone and making advertisers not even consider it, I think it's a really bad idea to get gatekeepers like these (ISP's, browser vendors, etc) to block ads for everyone by default - all ads.
Imagine if cable companies blocked and skipped all TV ads by default. There would literally be a revolution from the networks.
I'm pretty sure Google can win a lawsuit against this ISP if they sue them, and they should. However, France is also pretty weird about Internet stuff. They forced Google to offer paid Maps instead of free before, and other such silly backwards things.
It's the same trade-off for the web: if you want good content, either you pay for it (NYTimes), or you have to deal with targeted ads.
TV networks don't target ads not because they don't want and prefer their own business model. They don't do it because they can't.
And anyway: targeted ads are also way better for the user experience. If the advertiser know you're blind, it won't show you 1000 times an ad for sunglasses.
Tracking and ad targeting mean less ads across the web.
Here are the real questions:
- how can we mitigate the use of tracking, make sure that harnessed data is not misused?
- if it is not possible, why not enforcing on the web an advertising system similar to the TV one, to get rid of the tracking nightmare we're building? We should seriously think about that fallback solution, because we're going to get it in our face (or some other place) anyway (the mandatory ad spot is becoming a reality on many sites now), and we still have tracking on full speed.
The ad was served by Google.
Of all possible crows I would expect the Hacker News one to be the more rational about this; but no; many here are pretending this is somehow OK; lets be very clear, for many sites this for all practical reasons the same as hiding the pay button in any SaaS or PasS start-up.
The tracking done by many ads could be stopped by deleting cookie-headers and using a proxy to serve the ads to hide the real IP from advertisers; but no; they decided that removing the ads completely was a perfectly good idea.
Google should stop allowing all users from that ISP to use _any_ Google service at all (Including Google search and Gmail) with a little message saying that "Your internet provider is actively hurting our business model by using default ad-blocking in all their routers including yours. If you like to keep enjoying our services please contact them and ask them to stop using such aggressive tactics. Thank you."
The only reason we the people with ad-blockers as browser extensions are not actually harmful is because (believe or not) we are a minority.
[0]Yes, calling "bullshit" the title someone decided was appropriate for this article is just as offensive as calling your comment the same way.
If you mean the ISP should modify any information coming over my connection, no thanks. IP blocking (which I understand is what they are using) is nice and simple.
The blocking should be opt-in rather than opt-out, and I am not opposed to Google blocking everyone on Free because of the ad blocking. But do not advocate intrusive methods that involve an ISP actively modifying data.