Show HN: Adboost – A browser extension that adds ads to every webpage
github.com106 points by surprisetalk 20 hours ago
106 points by surprisetalk 20 hours ago
This reminds me of a company my best friend’s brother worked for, alladvantage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage
They paid you to put a little ad banner at the bottom of your screen, and paid you like 5 cents an hour that you had the banner up and you were browsing the web.
It tried to watch your browsing to make sure you were actually there, but of course we wrote some script to programmatically visit random web sites. Then they added mouse tracking, so we added mouse movement to our scripts.
The most insidious part was that it was also an MLM… you would also get paid for usage by people you referred, too, and then even by people those people referred, with diminishing returns from each level. So like 1 cent an hour for my referrals and .5 cents an hour for their referral referrals.
We were broke high school kids, so we put so much time and effort into recruiting people and getting them set up with the auto scripts. By the end we were making in the low 3 figure a month. We knew people who were making even more.
Of course, it soon went out of business because of the dotcom bust as well as the ridiculous business model and rampant user fraud, but it was fun while it lasted.
I remember allAdvantage. I remember hitting like $20 or some low figure which was their base payout. For a 12 year old kid that would have been awesome. Lo and behold I got an email saying they had increased their minimum pay out to $50 and I never used it again.
they paid you nothing for the things you taught/did for them :D
but it does sound fun. let's see if all these large coding models and agents are a similar scheme.
But who do earns money from the clicks?
I would like to give this to people who argue that you shouldn't use ad blockers because ads help the website's owners financially and that's a way to support the owner. If this extension would send the money to the owner of the site where the ad is displayed, then I could refer them to this plugin so they can have ads everywhere and help all website owners ; )
I've been waiting for something like this for ages. Hope there's auto-playing video ads too
Yes, I especially love it when the auto-playing video automatically goes to the lower-right hand corner of the screen when you scroll down so you don't miss anything. So convenient! Can't wait for this exciting new feature.
It's better when the auto-playing video automatically reopens itself in case you accidentally close it.
What would happen (theoretically) if ublock would be changed to not only hide the ads, but click on each and every one of them. Would that disincentivize ad networks to run ads because the data would be poisoned?
Adnauseam (https://adnauseam.io/) does this
It's also illegal in many jurisdictions (e.g. in the US, viewed as a scheme to defraud advertisers by generating invalid clicks that cause financial harm, by depleting their budgets and push them to spend for fake traffic), but in practice it's way easier to just blacklist that IP / user.
The big networks filter such traffic, the small networks benefit from it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/legal/comments/1pq6kgp/is_it_legal_...
You may also get accidentally get your own website blacklisted or moved to a lower RPM tier, or provoke shadow-ban websites that you like to visit, or... generate more ad revenue for them.
Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face.
Any jurisdiction where this is supposedly illegal, it hasn't been court tested seriously.*
Per your link: "What you're describing is essentially the extension AdNauseam. So far they have not had any legal troubles, but they technically could." That stance or an assertion it's not illegal is consistent throughout the thread, provided you aren't clicking your own ads.
"The industry" thinks you shouldn't be allowed to fast forward your own VCR through an ad either. They can take a flying .. lesson.
* Disclaimer: I don't know if that's true, but it sounds true.
>Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face.
No, the illegal-ness doesn't come from the clicking, it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. That's also why filling out a credit card application isn't illegal, but filling out the same credit card application with phony details is.
> No, the illegal-ness doesn't come from the clicking, it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. That's also why filling out a credit card application isn't illegal, but filling out the same credit card application with phony details is.
You might technically be right. But I'd recommend contacting EFF, if, somehow, installing AdNauseam brings you into legal trouble.
On the realm of search engines and ad networks I love to remind people that Google took out "don't be evil" from their motto and pressured anyone within US jurisdiction to remove Page and Brin's appendix #8 (at the least it's removed from their original school of Stanford).
8 Appendix A: Advertising and Mixed Motives https://www.site.uottawa.ca/~stan/csi5389/readings/google.pd...
The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet.
You’re not defrauding anyone if you have your extension click all ads in the background and make a personalized list for you that you can choose to review.
The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.
>The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet.
How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever?
>The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.
You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference.
>How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever?
It's so different that it can't even be compared. There's nothing similar there.
>>The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.
> You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference.
No, you're not harming the business. You're simply not following the business idea of the "business". Anyone can have a business idea of some type. Not a single person on earth has any obligation to fulfill that business idea. But somehow some people believe the opposite.
In a credit application there is a signature and binding contract. If I fill in false information knowingly, the intent is clear and written.
If you send me an unsolicited mailer with a microchip that tracks my eyes and face as I read it, you’ve already pushed too far. To then claim my using a robot to read it for me is fraud ignores the invasion of privacy you’ve already instituted without my express consent (digital ads are this).
It’s not fraud if it’s self-defense from corporate overreach.
>In a credit application there is a signature and binding contract. If I fill in false information knowingly, the intent is clear and written.
At best that gets you off the hook of fraud charges, but not tort claims, which are civil, and don't require intent.
>It’s not fraud if it’s self-defense from corporate overreach.
There's no concept of "self-defense" when it comes to fraud, or torts.