Forum Moderators: martinibuster
This is the message in news articles all over the Web. Security is the #1 priority, I understand -- but the unintended consequence is that AdSense ads will not be displayed for users who set their Internet Zone security to "high."
Obviously not all Internet users will read these articles and even less will follow the instructions, but I'm betting that quite a few will.
What if a future security update that was delivered to millions of machines via automatic updates changed the default security to "high" for everyone? As someone who depends on AdSense revenue, I find this very concerning.
I just tried it myself, and setting the Internet security setting to HIGH does block AdSense. It completely blocks it, and the space the ad would normally occupy vanishes.
Maybe that's why Microsoft is encouraging users to set security to hgh?! lol
You never know hehe ;)
This is one of those nice "unintended consequences" for MS. :)
So, it's time we all encouraged our visitors to Get da fox.
Until they start looking into extensions, of which Ad Block is one of the most popular...
Until they start looking into extensions, of which Ad Block is one of the most popular...
99.9999% of web users will never become aware of this issue, let alone potential fixes.
That's certainly true of my visitors but I'm afraid it wont be that long before blocking like this will be a part of all viris checkers and even built into the new computers. My people would have no idea how to unblock the ads even if they wanted to.
However, most people don't run antivirus programs or antispyware programs, even among the more pc savvy. Re: antivirus stuff, most use whatever limited-time program was installed on their pc at purchase. And when it runs out, they don't renew the subscription. And I never ever run into a "normal joe" who ever updates his OS. Re: antispyware, almost nobody among the general public has heard of adaware or spybot. I could run a business just making housecalls cleaning up people's temp files, cookies, xrated toolbars, and hijackers. 75 bucks a visit for 10 minutes to clean all that out, do a disc scan and reset the browser defaults.
I think the people at google know this, that's why they're not particularly worried in the short term. But, for the long term, they might want to consider buying up entities like mcafee or norton. Is mozilla private? Is so, buy it to get control of firefox. They might also want to develop the next best antispyware program (adsense friendly) and give it away and market it heavily so it becomes the chosen default.
And I never ever run into a "normal joe" who ever updates his OS. Re: antispyware, almost nobody among the general public has heard of adaware or spybot. I could run a business just making housecalls cleaning up people's temp files, cookies, xrated toolbars, and hijackers. 75 bucks a visit for 10 minutes to clean all that out, do a disc scan and reset the browser defaults.
I might have agreed with this a year ago, (all except the 10 minute part which is silly) but with every local news station doing "consumer alert" segments on the spyware epidemic people are aware of the problem and many are pushing the "update" button on their PC and even doing some reading.
People ARE running Microsoft products and they turn to Microsoft or the producer of their PC when they get scared, if MS or Dell says "quick, click here", they'll do it, heck these are the same folks that answered yes when they got a popup that said "do you want to download and install the new super shopper toolbar?".
It seems to me that in the end, Google may need to rethink the way adsense is served, would a PHP include work for them, don't know just guessing now...
I've been getting quite a bit of extra work doing that!
Possibly true, but this is going to change. This is about user's direct experiences, and about perception of a threat. Perception-wise, California has just outlawed spyware [news.bbc.co.uk...] and I'm sure a sizeable portion of the 35 million or so who live there will have read about this.
Also, the 'average joe' is going to be getting more and more info about such things thrown at them by the media. Antivirus software makers will respond, as will PC manufacturers bundling software.
On top of that, in terms of direct experiences, as more average joes suffer directly from troublesome elements, the more this will impact further. For example, only last week a very non-technical friend had to pay for diallers on his phone bill - he now has a very protected machine.
I think I heard about a company that did something similar to this once... They developed some software that was "company friendly" and quite hostile to other developers' software, "blocking" it from working. I'm not sure, but I think they were called "Microsoft," and I believe their tatics lead to an anti-trust lawsuit, but I might be wrong.
> Get da fox. One more reason here, now
Yes, lord knows my life would be an empty shell if I didn't get to see a thousand ads for a thousand products I would never buy...
it doesn't make a difference if 90% of the users use IE. Can't say that I'm not smiling a bit. We have been begging Google for months to do something since many of our sites are essentially gone from Google for no fault of our own (linked via 302 links), yet Google doesn't seem to care. It sucks when your livelyhood is impacted greatly there's nothing you can do, doesn't it Google? Now all MSFT has to do is make this the default setting...
I for one have no intention of letting users who block ads on my websites view for free the content I worked hard to produce.
