this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
28 points (91.2% liked)

Privacy

32173 readers
539 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I just switched from ubo to adnaseam, and I'm wondering who's wallet is getting hurt by those ads "I" click? the ad company? does the site then make money? if the sites make money, can I choose where I click? I'd like to not give sites I don't agree with anything, but certain news sited I would

thanks :)

top 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The announcer (the enterprise on the ad) pays to the advertising platform (for example Google) which gives a small amount to the site displaying the ad.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

so by clicking I'm making google pay the site?

[–] Tangent5280 3 points 10 months ago

Yes, I think that's how it works. The company who hired the ad space pays google, google pays the site that had the ad banner.

[–] PirateMike94 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

You mostly hurt the owner of the website displaying the ad, if their platform depends on it.

Both the ad distributor (Google, Facebook,etc) and the business advertising are generally not affected because ads not shown aren't paid for. Advertisers pay per 1000 impressions (views, clicks, etc), so if an ad doesn't even load, it does not count as an impression and therefore the ad distributor doesn't charge for that impression.

[–] Voyajer 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Adnauseum does load the ad, and clicks some of them.

[–] PirateMike94 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I see, I was unfamiliar with adnauseam. In those cases then, in theory, you're harming all the interested parties.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm hurting the website owner?

(Exclusively) that sucks.

[–] PirateMike94 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yeah, potentially. Some bloggers live off of the ads their blogs serve visitors. So yeah, in that case it can suck. However, others make most, or all, of their money from affiliate links on their pages, or partnerships with other blogs, or a combination of 2-3 of these. I think you'll be hard-pressed to find a blogger nowadays who lives exclusively off of ad clicks/views, since that market has become increasingly less worth it even before ad blockers became more mainstream. One thing to keep in mind is that there are different types of ad campaigns, and if the blogger get paid per view or per click, in theory adnauseam could be triggering an impression and causing the blogger to be paid at the expense of Google/FB/etc. It really depends on how Google and Facebook deal with adnauseam's false clicks. So do with this information what you will.

Edit: Just as a matter of comparison. I knew a guy who, in 2008 built a blog where he had AdSense, and would routinely make £500 (~600 USD) PER WEEK, just from him clicking his own ads and changing his IP. Of course this isn't possible anymore nowadays (the change IP easily part) but also no way in hell Google would still be paying that much for as clicks. Those times are simply gone as Google, Facebook, Yahoo became greedier, not because of Adblockers, so you shouldn't feel bad for using them, imho.

Edited for added content.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

distrubuter charges? I thought they paid to be on the site? what?

[–] PirateMike94 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

More or less. Adnauseam could potentially be better for bloggers than UBo, but it really depends on how Google, Facebook, Bing interpret those "fake" clicks. If Facebook/Google can identify these clicks, they could make the choice of charging the advertiser regardless (and pay the blogger), OR exclude that impression (meaning the blogger doesn't get paid), OR, if they identify a particular blog attracts more adnauseam users than usual (perhaps a privacy/security-related blog), they could exclude the blog from their ad programs entirely. Please understand this is all highly speculative because we don't really know how these platforms treat fake clicks, if they are even aware of them at all, and so on.

I expanded further on how online advertising works on another thread in this post, if you'd be like to read it.