The founder of AdBlock Plus weighs in on PPA:

Privacy on the web is fundamentally broken, for at least 90% of the population. Advertising on the web is fundamentally broken, for at least 90% of the population.

Yet any attempt to improve this situation is met with fierce resistance by the lucky 10% who know how to navigate their way around the falltraps. Because the internet shouldn’t have tracking! The internet shouldn’t have ads! And any step towards a compromise is a capital offense. I mean, if it slightly benefits the advertisers as well, then it must be evil.

It seems that no solution short of eliminating tracking and advertising on the web altogether is going to be accepted. That we live with an ad-supported web and that fact of life cannot be wished away or change overnight – who cares?

And every attempt to improve the status quo even marginally inevitably fails. So the horribly broken state we have today prevails.

This is so frustrating. I’m just happy I no longer have anything to do with that…

  • @InternetCitizen2
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    42 months ago

    Many ads are scams or malware too, which ad brokers don’t want to address because they get paid. The “we need ad money to support our service” sounds close to the mobs protect racket given the security risks on some ads.