And, as for re-routing ads, I believe it’s been done:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpposted/archive/2007/12/19/trojan-virus-takes-down-google-s-adsense-program.aspx

http://j-walk.com/other/googlecb/index.htm

speaking of being evil, I expect that if a browser could automatically remove ads without the user really noticing, then a browser could certainly replace ads on a page with its own ads (i.e. ads for companies that are paying the makers of the browser for ad space) with people noticing even less. that would be pretty evil. also, please nobody do this.

Seriously, I realize the danger of replacing clearly demarcated ads with product placement or worse. But, in all sincerity, I do have the audacity to hope that we can make it work and move to a world where the negotiation of attention isn’t so wasteful and adversarial.

Assuming companies don’t just decide to just spend their marketing dollars in some other way. Is there really a company out there that would think first of scaling back their marketing budget? Well, maybe they’d actually spend it on something useful like letting potential consumers use their product for a while.

Let me qualify my “feature request”–any ad-blocker should allow you to opt out / disable it. Mark, I hope that addresses your security concerns. Any other concerns I should bring to product management?

And, to Jeremy’s point, it would be interesting to see what would happen if the question of whether to enable an ad blocker were part of the initial browser set-up.

But Google ads are by no means as invasive as having to sit through TV ads. If the ads don’t leap up in your face I’m personally OK with that trade-off for free content/services. For example, I use a Flash-blocker because Flash ads are much more annoying.

>>a virus / plug-in that auto-updates would have no trouble playing in an arms race

But then websites would start randomizing page layouts for different users, making it hard to strip automatically. Like you say, an arms race.

I know GreaseMonkey etc and yet I would feel more comfortable living with a few text-ads in a page than installing an auto-updating browser plug-in that is monkeying around with my page views in whatever way it sees fit on a given day. That seems like a potential security nightmare.

I’ve long thought this. You’re the first person I’ve heard actually say it. Hear hear!

I almost always agree with you, but remember the old motto, the customer is always right? If consumers choose to tolerate ads for content rather than paying for the content directly, given both options, then the “free” version is better.

But do customers really tolerate ads? Or are they simply not savvy enough to know how to install greasemonkey, to strip the ads themselves?

I’ve seen Nielsen DVR studies that show that 80% of Tivo users skips ads on their pre-recorded shows. 80%. That tells me users don’t really tolerate ads.

So what about the following proposal: Internet Explorer should come built with an option that lets the users automatically strip/hide ads. In fact, you know how Google had forced MS to put a “what would you like your default search engine” question in, the first time a user runs IE? There should also be at that stage a question about “Would you like IE to automatically strip advertising from your web experience?” question.

For that matter, Firefox should be required to do the same (both default engine selection as well as adblocking choice).

Let’s see how many users, when consciously presented with such a choice, would really tolerate ads.

I’ll bet if you actually gave users that choice, they would, like 80% of Tivo users, not tolerate ads.

And in that case, you could go back to a much fairer marketplace, one in which users are given a choice about whether or not to pay vs. watch ads. Right now, consumers don’t have that choice; most everything is ad-based.

So let’s bring freedom back into the marketplace, by letting Microsoft (and making Firefox) release this technology!

I don’t know if or how we can get to that scenario from here, but I’m certain it is better for both content providers and content consumers.

If consumers choose to tolerate ads for content rather than paying for the content directly, given both options, then the “free” version is better.

That’s for now. That said, there are a couple of possible futures I foresee.

Scenario 1
The saturated web publisher market falls victim to the tough advertising market, and ads become too inexpensive to turn a profit. Web publishers start failing until enough fail to increase the rates for advertising again.

Scenario 2
The saturated web publisher market falls victim to the tough advertising market, and ads become too inexpensive to turn a profit. Web publishers start failing until enough fail to cause the survivors to move to a paid model. Users pay, because the alternatives are primarily gone or saturated with advertising.

As for ads vs. subscription models, I understand your perspective. But I think that the reason subscription models have failed is that they have to compete with “free”, and “free” is only a viable option because of ad-supported models.

And, of course, free isn’t really free, even beyond the intangible attention costs. Presumably the advertisers are rational, which means they’re advertising to their collective customer base. That, in turn, means that they price their ad budget into the products and services they sell to those customers.

Undermine the viability of the ad-supported model, and free goes away. Then users pay for content, but pay less for products and services. Win-Win.

The next steps would be:

1. Ad delivery engines “tinyurl” their click-through addresses so that they would be obfuscated.

2. After that method is cracked in record time, ad delivery engines will have to encrypt the click-through urls onto the query string.

3. After that method is cracked, a more sophisticated solution from the ad delivery engines would be to encrypt the urls dynamically for each display of the ad.

4. ….
5. ….

I already feel like I’m watching AOL, Yahoo and MSN block Trillian all over again. I don’t think that went very well

I would argue that the ads should be there, to keep the companies afloat that are bringing content. Users want that content, and are willing to tolerate ads to get it. Most content subscription models have failed. I think that blocking ads on a massive scale would help…nobody. The sites have to shut down because they can’t afford to stay in business. Users lose the content they enjoyed having for free. Lose-Lose.

Of course, there would be a check box to never display that warning again.

Of course for *users* who knowingly choose to strip ads there is always GreaseMonkey: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/2707