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16 wrote:

google just now banned ad blocking apps from the google play store. seems they not very happy about that

lol (: 

 

It's not surprising. Google is the biggest advertising agency in the world. It's their main business. They have other irons in the fire (not the search engine because search doesn't make money) but advertising is their main stock in trade by a *very* long way.

 

ETA:

I am more than happy with ad blockers, if only for the reason that I want Google to be reigned in. They have become much too big on the web and have been doing some unscrupulous and immoral things, and it's the profitability of their advertising section that's made them much too big.

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Phil Deakins wrote:


16 wrote:

google just now banned ad blocking apps from the google play store. seems they not very happy about that

lol (: 

 

It's not surprising. Google is the biggest advertising agency in the world. It's their main business. They have other irons in the fire (not the search engine because search doesn't make money) but advertising is their main stock in trade by a *very* long way.

 

ETA:

I am more than happy with ad blockers, if only for the reason that I want Google to be reigned in. They have become much too big on the web and have been doing some unscrupulous and immoral things, and it's the profitability of their advertising section that's made them much too big.

I was really more thinking about the google board sitting in their boardroom going o.m.g !!! if they did allow google ad blockers to be distributed thru their own site and it end up the No.1 download on their own site. the boards of the companies who buy google ads probably have even more of a fit

+

when google first start then they had the do no evil thing going

on their website once they used to have this page. you could go on it and put in your RL name and your email. and ask for them to remove you from their search. they would email you a link to confirm. when confirm then they remove you entirely

was a one time offer. if you go on the interwebz again after that then they say be fair. like we cant keep cleaning up after you each time. but one time yes ok we do for you

then they change and they not do even onetime anymore. that page disappear off their website

was about then that they changed from a few young people taking on the big guys to being just like the big guys. is a bit of a shame that they went down that way

even more now. with lots of young people posting dumb stuff on the interwebz and not thinking about it until later on in their life

maybe one day google will change back. and not be evil like they started out to not be when they was young themselves

is not really evil evil. is more evil uncaring I think. like they don't care about people anymore on the person to person level

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I remember when Google first started and began to get users. I thought, "Great. Another search engine to play with" :) I was an SEO. You are right - their mantra was "Do no evil". But after some years, when, through their advertising (AdWords and then AdSense) they'd made themselves in the *the* big player, they did some unscrupulous things such as...

1 Altering other people's web pages in web users' browsers. That had nothing whatsoever to do with users using the Google engine. If a person had the Google toolbar, and they got a page from a website - any website - that contained an ISBN book number, the toolbar would alter the page and turn the ISBN number into a link to the Barnes & Noble site. That was unscrupulous because it cheated both the user who assumed that the webpage author intended them to use the link, and the website owner where the page came from because nobody has any right at all to alter their pages when they are viewed in a browser. *

2. Publishing the books of authors against the authors' stated wishes. Google do it because they can do it legally - because they can. Google doesn't gain by it but the authors do lose by it. It's a nasty thing to do.

Both of those things contravened Google's mantra - Do no evil. As far as I know, they still do those unscrupulous things, and those kind of activities are what makes me seriously want Google to go into decline.

Another thing I seriously dislike about Google that isn't in quite the same league as the above examples, is their image search. I'm ok with the image search but I'm not ok with Google fetching the images on-the-fly from the websites that contain them. If you click one of the images in the image search results, you get a Google page displayed that contains the actual size image, and that image is brought from the site that has it in it's page. The bandwidth used for it is at the website owner's expense but there is no way for a website owner to opt out of being abused by Google in that way.

 

*Note: I've just had a look at Google's image search and it's changed since I last used it. Maybe they no longer use other people's bandwidth and maybe they still do. I haven't checked. It wouldn't make any difrerence to me if they've stopped doing it because they did it for many years without any concience whatsoever, and they are the same people.

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Six Igaly wrote:

Did some research in the browser preferences..it is obvious, already using AdBlock, that explains.

Smug responses like this forget that AdBlock only works because you're willing to put your trust in [unknown] people to malform your received web content, and subjugate to others the power to decide what you shouldn't see.

What happens when those up-stream decide they don't want these things getting in the way of their profit margins? For those who once enjoyed Google's toys, this is already happening on mobile devices.

The purity of the stream starts at home; LL can do whatever they like to their revenue. AdBlock is a poor noob's solution.

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Mm, well I don't see why this is a smug response to start with. I was really wondering why I did not see this adverts. And it turned out I use that adblock thingy, totally forgotten about that.

You have a point there though, that other people decide what I get to see or not get to see. Never thought of it that way.

Yet I am not waiting for advertisements of any kind, never ask for them. So what brilliant no noob solution do you have in stead?

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Smug was an analysis of tone, not a judgement of character. Your statement reads as I'm okay, you're not okay.

There is no solution; LL decides for us how their own webpages should look. Continuing to provide traffic to pages that serve ads implies your consent to viewing ads, whether you see them or not. Asking for a pageload implies asking for them, and will result in waiting for them, your expectations notwithstanding. Your options (as always) remain in the binary present/not present.

LL has for the longest time tried to prevent the creation of fractioned viewing perspectives between user accounts. Congruence is stressed within their operating procedures, as is internal server security. No-one can guess at their motives, but flying somewhat in the face of ten years of the Tao of Linden must be notable behaviour.

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That was not my intention.

I try to understand what you are saying here (since my english is not that bad as long it stays on sesame street level). I get it when you mean it still is there even when I don't see it, it is a blocker afteral, not a remover.

 

Now here it gets abacadabra for me, I know all the words on their own but have no clue what you are trying to tell me here;

LL has for the longest time tried to prevent the creation of fractioned viewing perspectives between user accounts. Congruence is stressed within their operating procedures, as is internal server security. No-one can guess at their motives, but flying somewhat in the face of ten years of the Tao of Linden must be notable behaviour.

No joke.

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Words move quickly when unfiltered, apologies.

There is a concept within the 'Net that congruency is king, an adage that has been quite ruthlessly applied in Second Life (with the only exception to date being Avatar Visibility). All users see the same thing from the same position in-world, and all users see every Marketplace product presented identically. The serving of customer-specific, driven content from external servers appearing on the secondlife.com domain can be assumed to be a break in this code (due both to the customised nature of mined responses, and the high assumed incidence of AdBlock tools and advertising-unfriendly behaviour amongst Second Life's core), a rare run away from the rules by which LL has been bound since its formation.

As a practical example:-

  • Typical SL user searches marketplace.secondlife.com for [any keyword that would be filtered by Lithium with a **bleep**].
  • SL user hits search button, the page requests the server at marketplace.secondlife.com.
  • Adverts see this page request, and catalogue the search string data. They make the inferance that the typist behind typical SL user must have same interests. This function is likely to run regardless of whether SL user sees the ads or not.
  • Typist begins to be targetted with adult material, both on secondlife.com and anywhere that the ad-provider shares this inference (usually: everywhere).
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Thank you for your patience :smileyhappy:

I think however, what I really need to hear, is it or is it not a bad thing to use, for me or for others because of me? I don't want to spoil anything for anyone you see. And if it is a bad thing (and somehow I sense it is in the meanwhile) I will be the first to delete it.

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Six Igaly wrote:

is it or is it not a bad thing to use, for me or for others because of me?

It is ineffectual. There are 3 external parties involved:-

Other SL users - Not affected by your settings. However your willful separation between 'the world as it is' and 'the world as it should be' grows larger, making it harder to relate. This is a very minor issue.

Linden Lab - Not affected by your settings. They assume you are being served with ads for as long as ad-servers continue to pay. In fact, they realise they can start serving ads on any page they like, since fewer people complain about seeing them, because the burden is shifted onto the individual user. This has importance because Linden Lab are the only entity who can make changes to how much access advertisers get.

Ad-Servers - Not affected by your settings. The majority of searches carried out on marketplace.secondlife.com yield little-to-no commercial benefit to advertisers on their own (when was the last time you saw an RL commercial interest in SL?), but likely provides significant value to priority targets where inferences can be made confidently between sites. Ad-Servers also know that users are unlikely to interrupt their actions on Secondlife.com to jump to external sites; it is unlikely they're expecting page hits except for the LCD ad-servers who can afford to waste ad-serves. Profiling data continues to stream for inferences, and where malicious entities sneak into the ad-serving platform, customer data gets compromised regardless of your ability to see the ads.

So do as you please, but be aware of the men behind the curtain (especially if you're the one hiding enemies behind curtains in the first place). MOST importantly, try to learn as much as you can about how this business model operates. You should trust me and anyone else here to inform you on data security/inference tracking as much as you would trust them to hold your personal browsing habits (i.e., not at all). The vast majority of modern SL users are non-technical or non-current in their understanding, and basically everyone has a horse in this race.

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Six Igaly wrote:

Thank you for your patience :smileyhappy:

I think however, what I really need to hear, is it or is it not a bad thing to use, for me or for others because of me? I don't want to spoil anything for anyone you see. And if it is a bad thing (and somehow I sense it is in the meanwhile) I will be the first to delete it.

Using ad blocker software only blocks what you see on your PC; it has no bearing whatsoever on what other people see on their computers.

An analogy that came to mind on this topic:  television programs sell ads (commercials) to bring in revenue; however, there are now many devices that allow people to skip commercials entirely, usually via taping the program in some manner.  Someone who skips commercials (or simply walks out of the room when they are on) does not prevent someone else from seeing the commercials.

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Ok I am starting to feel lost now. Your first reply to my reply made me feel like I was a bad guy using AdBlocker.

If your intention was to educate me you succeeded partially. I think I'll have to re-read all a couple of times before it finally gets to my thick head here.

If there are enemies hiding behind my curtain then they sneaked in.

What stays is I still don't want advertisements of any kind. If I want something I will find it myself. So for now, in this case, I will not delete anything. 

Thanks for your time...

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It is intentionally difficult, simple systems are always gamed and advertisers have far too much money invested in their methodolgies to let you understand them.

As I say, the trick is to be cautious and critical with your inspection; I find that I have difficulty observing my opponents moves if I cannot see them.

Not wanting to see advertisements is a fine goal; I would say not one that can be aligned with not wanting to be taken advantage of. AdBlock works fine if you are in control of your profiling stream, but by the time ad-servers reach your PC it is already too late.

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I was thinking that yes. 

And for tv commercials, I'll either zap when commercials strike or go to the bathroom or the fridge. That, IMO, is the reason why they make more and more funny commercials, to make people watch them. And it works though, these commercials I do want to see when people are talking about them. Because I like humor, not to spent money in the end.

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As you may have noticed, we recently added some banner ads to SecondLife.com. Today, we’ve also added them to the Marketplace, and we’ll soon expand the program to other Second Life web properties as well.

 

This is just the way to get money is all... This is just the beginning they will be doing other stuff as well... They say web properties but I doubt it will end there. The ecomony of real life is leaking into second life they dont want to lose a buck and they will do anything to get it back... Kinda sad really...

 

I thought this was intresting and if they keep this up she is probably right with her predictions.  

 

 

 

http://metaverse-traveller.blogspot.com/2013/01/second-lifes-embarrassing-start-to-2013.html

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I disagree with the AD's too having these AD's is a waste of my bandwidth while it is true they can be  disabled by AD Blocker Plus there really is no need for these AD's.

Another thing as far as Steam Goes for Second Life as soon as SL goes to steam I am already warning the community over there about the problems Second Life has, I can't post a direct link but its in the off topic discussion.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=34

The problem with Second Life on its decline is the decisions Linden Lab has made over the years I admit in the past when I first start SL I was able to find very helpful Lindens, and I appricate, and am very thankful to those lindens however lately calling customer support on the phone its put in a ticket wait days before a response and even then they told me the issue couldn't be fixed and I filed bug report and finally I get one linden on the phone who thankfully was helpful to resolve some of the problems the rest LL still didn't seem to know how to fix but I figured some of them out.

LL Needs to do the following.

1. Improve peoples account security and give people the option to restrict it to only their IP login verification by emai.
2. Keep back-up of peoples inventory incase of asset loss or account compromise.
3. Require RL info on sign-up.
4. Give First & Last Name Back.
5. Get rid of griefer groups in SL Full of nothing but such, ban people who support such.
6.Get better customer service, some of the people are very helpful with LL, and I am very thankful to those few because its hard to find such, and some are not.
7. Instead of all these main-land regions and tier of $195 give players private sims for $200 a month old GF price again make them stand alone.
8. Linden Homes was a mistake isntanced housing at different tier levels would have been better aka a small instanced world where players can invite friends privately and add to guest list and such.

On the other hand these AD's just recommend other MMO's to other people, which likely players rather spend their time at.

Don't get me wrong I still like SL because its Unique I just don't feel the company is doing its greatest and needs to be seriously improved I mean let me give examples.

1. The only reason I play SL is because of the Unique customization, and things you can do that you can't do in most other games excluding Red Light MMO, Building, Cars, Bikes & social hangout.

However if I am really into the following I can find better outside SL.

1. Military Combat, I don't even spend much time in SL because of all the rules and politics I respect one group I was a member of and got kicked because of some stupid griefers and uninformed people because they wanted to keep a good name but I still respect them great group, however if I wanted combat I could just buy Call OF Duty, or any of these other MMO's with Combat.

2. Mech Warrior in SL, It is just laggy as hell, confusing compared to playing the version online, I still like the SL Version but it seems to be dying last time I heard about it lack of players and all.

3. Role-Play in General, is full of abusive admins, Drama, Griefers I can go to any MMORPG and play without having to go through a very bad experience or worry about CopyBotters ruining my group cloning my avatar and all this other BS that has to go with SL. While it does have a unique experience it lacks Realism and actual play for example I have always liked the "GM" system & "DCS" But I feel that SL needs a way better RP system possibly designed by Linden Lab made open sourced in the library that people can easily edit and setup their own meters/servers, I mean I want things like HeadShots, arrows to the knee etc compared to other games SL lacks this and is just too laggy in general 10-20 FPS vs any other game 60+ FPS all times.

If Linden Lab would only make the right changes to make SL better more people would join without the need for their massive advertisement and recruitment AD's I can only hope that in the future LL will improve this grid as a lot of my top merchant developers have quit this game already and it sucks, everything I purchased from them thousands of lindens of stuff when my account got hacked, I can never get it back again because they quit.

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