Top iOS ad blocker Crystal lets advertisers pay to bypass restrictions

145679

Comments

  • Reply 161 of 184
    dasanman69 wrote: »
    On 3 separate occasions I've driven past a red light right in front of the cops because I wasn't paying attention, and every single time I was not ticketed because I seem like a nice guy.

    "On 3 separate occasions I've driven past a red light..."

    Um...

    I drove, I started wording it one way, then changed it, and didn't proof read after I was done writing.
  • Reply 162 of 184
    freediverx wrote: »


    One time I was on a business trip in Dallas. Before heading back to my room I stopped at the hotel bar for a drink. A conversation ensues with a fellow bar patron who asks where I'm from. After I answer "Miami" he laughs and replies, "Ha, well not too many fuckin' Cubans here!" I am Cuban-American.

    At times I feel like Eddy Murphy in that old SNL skit where he's made up and dressed to look like a white guy and discovers the "secret world" of of white people in NYC. 

    That was funny. Why not so much these days?

    Anyway... you missed my memo that the only good thing in Dallas are the Cowboys Cheerleaders!

    So many examples of excellence in free-market economies... but this one stands out "collectively" and rather Communist in spirit :smokey:

    1000

    Why not so much these days? Because of the politically correct mafia will break your legs.

    Speaking of legs. WOW on the ones of the cheerleaders.
  • Reply 163 of 184
    dasanman69 wrote: »
    Why not so much these days? Because of the politically correct mafia will break your legs.
    Don't you mean "balls" as in Soprano style?

    Also, it's not like I'm playing it safe here either... :err:

    Speaking of legs. WOW on the ones of the cheerleaders.

    Yes! What a stunningly fine display of the diversity found in [@]SpamSandwich[/@] Communism. That guys got his finger on the pulse of the....????
  • Reply 164 of 184
    sog35 wrote: »
    This is a great article about how messed up online ads are:

    http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-click-fraud/?cmpid=BBD092415_BIZ

    “I can think of nothing that has done more harm to the Internet than ad tech,” says Bob Hoffman, a veteran ad executive, industry critic, and author of the blog the Ad Contrarian. “It interferes with everything we try to do on the Web. It has cheapened and debased advertising and spawned criminal empires.” Most ridiculous of all, he adds, is that advertisers are further away than ever from solving the old which-part-of-my-budget-is-working problem. “Nobody knows the exact number,” Hoffman says, “but probably about 50 percent of what you’re spending online is being stolen from you.”


    The advertisers are getting the shaft also.  So many of the 'viewed' ads are not even viewed by humans but by bots.  Yet the advertisers pay for those views as if they were humans. Unreal.  I bet there are massive server farms that constantly view ads in order to charge advertisers more money.  Dirty as hell.

    You're right and so is the article.

    BTW: Thanks for summarizing my Read Later article for this evening which I ran across earlier today as well. :p
  • Reply 165 of 184
    sog35 wrote: »
    This is a great article about how messed up online ads are:

    This one also looks like it will be "interesting":

    Apple’s brilliant assault on advertising — and Google

    Assault: a new word for your Thesaurus...;)
  • Reply 166 of 184
    joshajosha Posts: 901member

    OMG, I was going to install Crystal today. With this SW ethics is no more.  Is VW involved here ?

     

    Well I'll have to look over the available Apps again.

  • Reply 167 of 184
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ThePixelDoc View Post





    That was funny. Why not so much these days?



    Anyway... you missed my memo that the only good thing in Dallas are the Cowboys Cheerleaders!



    So many examples of excellence in free-market economies... but this one stands out "collectively" and rather Communist in spirit image




     

    Agreed.

  • Reply 168 of 184
    mechanic wrote: »

    You need to read closer the person in the article said 

    Hmm... I'm not so sure that line was in the article when I first read it.
  • Reply 169 of 184
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ThePixelDoc View Post





    You're right and so is the article.



    BTW: Thanks for summarizing my Read Later article for this evening which I ran across earlier today as well. image



    See, I knew we could all get along. 

     

    :D

  • Reply 170 of 184
    freediverx wrote: »
    From an advertiser's perspective, there's a reasonable argument to be made for wanting to know how effective an ad placement is before deciding how much to pay for it.

    Imagine yourself as the marketing director for ACME, Inc., and you want to place some ads for your latest widget. Would you pay the same amount for a regular ad (e.g., a billboard) as you would for one where you could pre-select the audience's age, gender, education, income bracket, location, and brand preferences (e.g., a targeted web ad)?

    It's no excuse for invading my devices and sucking up my allotted bandwidth. The only reason advertisers do that is to make more money while they cost me money. I never give them permission implied or otherwise to write their script and use up my data.

    The point users are making to advertisers are that (1) trust has been abused (2) Stop tracking us (3) Advertisers has no right or permission to use my resources to make money (4) non-tracking non-profiling ads are acceptable (5) STOP the abuse!!!
  • Reply 171 of 184
    unded wrote: »
    It's no excuse for invading my devices and sucking up my allotted bandwidth. The only reason advertisers do that is to make more money while they cost me money. I never give them permission implied or otherwise to write their script and use up my data.

    The point users are making to advertisers are that (1) trust has been abused (2) Stop tracking us (3) Advertisers has no right or permission to use my resources to make money (4) non-tracking non-profiling ads are acceptable (5) STOP the abuse!!!

    You're preaching to the choir. I was merely providing some context for those who don't understand advertisers' desire for user data.
  • Reply 172 of 184
    How about letting the users define thresholds for "active" ads, the type of tracking and the number of ads per page. Say only the first 5 ads on a page that have no active components... Then let the advertisers pay the sites to sit higher up in the slots and with less active components will get the most "views".

    I'd go for that. In this way the user defines how much pain they are willing to endour for a particular site.
  • Reply 173 of 184
    splifsplif Posts: 603member

    Douchebag move. If you didn't want to block advertising or tracking why would you even have an ad blocker on your device? Since annoyance with types of advertising are purely subjective, shouldn't the user be the arbitrator of what is acceptable to them? I'm sorry this has douchebag opportunist written all over it. If he plans to make changes to the app to accommodate users why is he taking what essentially is payola to allow companies to skip past filters before implementing user control? Sounds like douchebaggery at the highest level here.

  • Reply 174 of 184
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Reply 175 of 184
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dklebedev View Post

     

    Tested and trusted. Pay what you want: https://itunes.apple.com/ru/app/adblock-mobile/id1036484810?mt=8

    Currently doesn't update lists. Fix coming.




    Forgive me if I'm skeptical about installing an ad blocker from a Russian company...  :no:

  • Reply 176 of 184
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Reply 177 of 184
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,778member
    There are two ways to look at this. One way is "If you pay me I'll unblock your ad" or "Pay us or we block your ad". That in my book is blackmail!
  • Reply 178 of 184

    Per the developer this will be an opt-out option...deactivate this feature and Crystal will resume blocking all ads.

     

    You can all stop frothing at the mouth now.

  • Reply 179 of 184
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

     

    Thats not the point.  The point is the majority of people won't even know the option exists.  They will NEVER turn it off.

     

    If everyone turns off the feature why would advertisers pay a fee to Crystal.

     

    Stop trying to defend the indefensible. 

     

    People are PAYING money to block ads.  Then the person receiving the money does the EXACT opposite and receives a payment. 


     

    Oh ffs why do you even care??  You paid for an app to provide a certain function, and the app will continue to provide that function.  The developer owes you nothing more than that!  And why do you assume that nobody will know the feature will exist?  That's nothing but speculation on your part.

  • Reply 180 of 184
    Quote:



    Originally Posted by igorsky View Post

     

    Per the developer this will be an opt-out option...deactivate this feature and Crystal will resume blocking all ads.

     


     

    It should be opt-in not opt-out. But that's really irrelevant at this point because the real question everyone should be asking themselves is whether they want to trust an ad blocking app whose developer is in bed with advertisers.

     

    Use 1Blocker instead. It's more effective and faster, whitelists The Deck (which is a perfectly reasonable ad network), and doesn't have any deals with advertisers like Google.

Sign In or Register to comment.