Free.fr has been trying for years to force big content providers, and especially Google, to participate in ISPs' infrastructure costs. This move is most likely a way to dry up AdSense revenue, hoping that Google will cave in.
Free.fr, and beyond the company its boss Xavier Niel, has a consistent track record of pissing of big players in established markets. Niel made his wealth with Minitel, including sex and dating sites, then consistently disrupted networking markets with Free.fr:
* they first sold dialup connection for the cost of a local communications, without ads;
* they established the price of unlimited ADSL around €30/month;
* they introduced TV over IP and free phone calls over IP through the freebox (the ADSL router that comes with a free.fr subscription)
* they started a bandwidth race, offering tens of MB/s when historic operators were stuck at 512KB/s.
* they slashed mobile phone prices: no subsidized phones, no contract, but unlimited calls and data (bandwitdth capped beyond 3GB/month) for less than 20€/month.
Their whole business model has always been about pissing off fat cats, big time. They're trying their luck against Google.
Just wait until Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all block Free.fr IP blocks until they cut this out.
It's one thing to piss off your competition, but pissing off the people who supply the only reason why you have customers is kind of stupid. Sorry, but if I couldn't get Google I'm switching ISPs tomorrow.
Personally I'm very happy that advertising is falling by the wayside -- we have been excessively subservient to ad networks and ad agencies, especially with regards to the Do-Not-Track fiasco.
If DNT were turned on by default instead of this ad-blocking would there be as much furor raised? Likely not.
It also looks like Google and a lot of other people can and should sue them. From the featured comment on Ars, it seems they are blocking everyone's news sites, except for his own.
Free.fr was once a real game changer, but that was 10 years ago. Over the past few months they have been caught red-handed filtering Google services (starting with YouTube) in order to pressure Google into footing the bill for their peering. Did not work so far, now they go for the ads.
I have no say in the Free.fr/Google quarrel, but as an end-user I could not accept being taken hostage. The first time I could not access Gmail, Google.com, or Google play for several days, I took it as a breach of their contract and switched ISPs.
I have a hard time empathizing with the ad companies in this case.
I'd rather pay money for many of these services, but I'm rarely given the option. In the meantime, my browsing is regularly interrupted by ads that I have to click through, ads I have to wait through, ads that pop up and block what I was trying to read, and ads that play noises I don't want to hear.
I think it is fast becoming time where ads as a source of revenue for a site is going away; it's time for people to find better ways to monitize the content they're publishing.
Maybe you'd be willing to empathize with me, then? :) The business I work for lives off ads, and is actually a good business and supplies a lot of fun to millions of people a day. And as far as paying customers, most of our userbase are kids, so that's not going to work very well.
Also we are a global site and get a good deal of traffic from overseas, so this French ISP is actually affecting our business (it's not going to get anyone laid off though).
Just something to think about -- the internet is working relatively smoothly as it is. Playing around with the basics like this will have more effect than you may realize.
If I speak as a consumer, then it's not very smooth when I want to read an article and can't, due to the in-line words which pop up intrusive ads when your mouse comes anywhere near them. I can't hardly watch a 30 second video without spending another 30 seconds to 2 and 1/2 minutes watching ads. It actively annoys me that Amazon has started serving ads on their homepage. I've ended up going to other retailers to purchase things on the principal.
As someone working (indirectly) for companies that make revenue off of ads, I've noticed that there's always that nagging fear in the back of their minds about Google cutting them off with no recourse. Of loosing customers when a new ad in the rotation pisses of parents due to the scantily clad nature of the characters in the ad. Of loosing customers due to poor performance of ads or conflicting javascript.
It is always very unfortunate when people get laid off. However, to have to lay people off just because someone doesn't download specific bytes from the internet signals a broken system to me.
I setup a new router today (ASUS RT-N66u) with TomatoUSB; it lets one run scripts and I installed a script that does ad-blocking on everything / all devices.
Can you comment on how this technique is better than simply having AdBlock extensions in browsers? They seem pretty reliable to me. But maybe there's an advantage to having adblocking at router level? If so, please explain.
One that I can imagine is this works on all devices and all browsers regardless of any external factors. For example, is it possible to install an AdBlocker on Safari Mobile? I know it's not on my Windows Phone. Having to install an extension on every device, every browser, every computer gets tiring.
Another bonus is when people visit, ads are blocked for them as well.
On mobile devices it's pretty hard / impossible to setup adblocking; as far as I know mobile browsers don't accept extensions (Chrome for Android or iOS certainly doesn't, as well as Safari, for instance).
Blocking ads at the router level lets you escape ads on any device.
This serves as a good example of how net neutrality rules would impinge users’ rights and give big(ger) business an advantage.
This is not a net-neutral move by the Free.fr. Clearly some content is being treated differently than other content, based on source.
However, I think it’s up to users (and by extension, the services they purchase) to decide how to handle web content. Users might or might not like this particular move, who knows. But it’s up to them to keep using the ISP, or to change the setting in the router.
Under net neutrality law, should it exist, the ISP’s move would be illegal, no? Which means that Google uses regulation to ensure delivery of its product. Incumbency protection.
In fact, look for Google to posit exactly this net neutrality claim. My preference is that Free.fr and Google fight for your affections.
Yeah, I was going to complain that this is really something that the user needs to be able to disable or otherwise opt out of. As it stands there's content filtering going on outside of user control which isn't a good thing at all (seriously, there's probably less controls on free.fr than the local police station)
no, users ensure delivery by querying for the page. It's not like we are forced to open pages with google ads.
Net neutrality means that all content fetching should be treated equally. I have no idea how that can be contorted into incumbency protection, since no one is advantaged by it.
I don't pay for an ISP so that they decide to become a cable TV provider, deciding for me what I do and don't want. I pay for an ISP to allow me to go onto websites. They should act as disinterested as possible as to what I'm trying to get (apart from obvious load balancing things).
Free wants to add a software layer ad blocking? Don't turn it on by default, that is the same thing as filtering for 90% of web users (at least). I hope you'll enjoy when they start throttling other things by default as well.
Working in information security, I spent a good amount of time tracking down malware infections on our company's machines. While most of them are from email attachments, a good number of them source from ad servers that have been hijacked to serve malicious content.
I see a comment on Ars that says ad-based malware is overblown as a concern, and let me assure you it is not. Hijacked ad servers are an incredibly effective way to spread your malware across many unsuspecting users. If this was overblown, you wouldn't see so many people working so hard to find new browser 0-day exploits.
I cant see this being a good thing for the internet industry. A lot of websites rely on advertising to keep their websites running.
Sure users can already do this, but that has been limited to a very small subset of users, and was always user choice. Automatically doing it for everyone through that isp is crazy.
I wonder how this could relate to censorship, first ads, what next? Just a thought...
The problem is that an ISP is altering legitimate content that it's supposed to serve to their customer by contract, that they took this decision unilaterally without suggesting a change in the contract, that the feature is opt-out, that this unilateral decision will reduce by ~10% the global revenue that companies can make from advertising to French internet users in 2013.
This is not a matter of being pro or anti adblocking, but rather about realizing how far the consequences of a default value can reach.
Advertising has done nothing to make Internet access cheaper, that was due to upscaling infra from small mom and dad ISP's to telephone companies.
Advertising is responsible for all the treason of the 2000-2010 websites that took all the privacy of people in exchange for pity digital beads and mirrors, the cost is an ongoing avertisement harrasment into people's private sphere.
Also due to laziness, complacent and risk adverse handling of the receivers of that advertising money, it made the advertising companies too powerful, while these sell nothing but broken promisses and bullshit, so no value for whatever price.
All the stuff that advertising bought and brought to the people is mediocre and bland.
I personally hope that advertising will face the same "pull the carpet from beneith them" treatment as all the other big media industries like RIAA and MPAA.
I tried to be careful with my wording so as to come out as neutral as I can on the subject. My intent was to turn this into a design discussion about the importance of carefully choosing default settings - I failed obviously :P
My personal opinion on advertising is very critical, very much like yours. It litterally cripples content quality for pebbles.
As a side note, I currently make about 100$/month with advertising on my mobile apps (~10-15k active users). I really want to switch to a paid product but I'm having trouble picking a correct price for it since I'm not completely satisfied with it myself. There are some mental barriers that I need to break first. Ads were an easy way out, I totally see myself in your pamphlet: a lazy and complacent developer, so afraid to see his pricing expectations shattered that he preferred to ship a free app with a bland and mediocre ad banner. Again, for pebbles.
I did not mean to attack you, and I do understand the difficulties from the side of people that try to offer their thing online, everybody has the right to try and get some finance to be able to do their hobbies.
So many times I heard the argument that advertising was the thing that made the internet cheaper and accessible to all, this is simply not true, upscaling made it cheaper and better software made it more accessible.
As I am online for quite a while (over 15 years), I have seen so much crap appearing due to the advertising industry.
The quality of what is available online has only got worse, I personally think that the more expensive internet of 15 years ago was worth every penny while the cheap access nowadays is too expensive for the crap that is being offered.
I am glad that paid services are coming back online and will hopefully normalise this webworld again to pre 2000-2010 norms.
Unlike the advertisement world, I think not everything should be free, quality can have a price tag and rightfully so.
I wish you all wisdom and luck and hope you can convert your business.
b.t.w. I do not think that an ISP should decide to block adverts, however I do think the public should be able to choose, I use the HOSTS file to black out all adverts, which is quite efficient and does not need external code (like in the router or in a firefox add-on).
The modem is rented out by the ISP and it is their property -- this is not a clause in the contract that you signed. If it offends you then install your own modem.
Sure let's filter also porn by default, and anything that could be offending, or that might look like copyright infringement.
I think there are legitimate questions: at which point would it become not acceptable for you? who decides what is blocked? should it be enabled by default?
Also if the ISP is in the business of "editorializing" what the user sees, maybe it becomes actually responsible for the content (no safe harbor). That also seems like a dangerous game for them.
It's much more fundamental, it's are you pro or anti- the web as it currently exists?
It's that simple, without adverts the world wide web would be locked down into silo's that make the Facebook of today look like a charity.
Want to read that article, get ready for the "do you subscribe to one of our partner services? if not click here to pay only $20 a month for unlimited PaidContentOnDemand" messages
So here's the problem: average users hardly change default settings.
On a side note, I understand the economics of ads. But lately they have become increasingly annoying, and most of the time they're badly targeted. Fix that and I'll stop blocking them.
Yeah, I agree that if this spreads, then its a real problem for web sites, however, many sites have gone too far and annoyed users to the point where they will not care for the concerns of web sites.
I assume that this sort of thing is a for-runner to general opt-in censorship, like parental controls. Now, we in the UK avoided mandatory opt out porn filters. Meaning that if I didn't want it, I had to essentially declare my self an internet pervert to my ISP. Well, as a parent, I would welcome some controls. If I could have this function on my router, on a per machine basis, that should cover all concerns. Odd to me that the French started with ad blocking and not porn blocking.
I fear the response from advertisers, which will trigger a technology war that will eat endless computer cycles with complicated ad-content delivery networks.
An easy solution is to equate blocking AdSense with blocking Google.com. I am not sure why Google hasn't already taken this step.
It's not the ISP, it's the router doing the blocking. The ISP is still just being an ISP. This is, from a technical standpoint, no different to configuring a proxy/filtering server yourself. Going off what the articles have said, the ISP themselves are not doing any filtering or monitoring it's all happening on the router.
It is turned on by default on a router that the ISP is capable of upgrading (which is scary enough) and that the ISP forcefully upgrade without notifying the customers.
If the title was - French ISP upgrade routers to block porn it would have been an uproar. It is the same.
So the ISP is not being just and ISP it is assuming the role of a gatekeeper with a device on which they have root access.
This just made me realize that for the majority of people that use their ISP's router, there is effectively an easy backdoor (with a firmware update) into their private LAN. What would stop a government agency (w/ or w/o a subpoena) from requesting the ISP provide access to your local network w/o your permission, accessing resources you otherwise thought were secure? Or really, any malicious entity that can figure out how-to forge the certificate required to do this.
Is it that rare for it to be possible for ISPs to update their provided routers? My ISP (O2) has the ability to forcefully update firmware at any time.
It is fairly common for routers to be backdoored like this. Best get your own... or disable it if you feel like it (the O2 one has a telnet interface with available password that can control stuff not on the web interface).
Technical subtleties aside, I'm actually siding with Free here. I have a Freebox myself, and every computer in my household already uses some kind of ad block, but nonetheless I find the move to suit Free pretty well.
As said already, Free is trying to disturb industries, to break the status quo. €60 per month for 512Kbps vs €20 per month for 20Mbps... €60 per month for unlimited calls plus 1GB fair-use data plan vs €20 per month for unlimited calls plus 3GB fair-use data plan...
It's all about disrupting the big players. Lots of people try to access Google's services, I'd argue it's only fair if hugely-profitable Google help ISP's users better access their services.
Where do you live and how much do you pay for what connection? I've lived in China, Canada and France and France was by far the cheapest and the fastest (with Free) connection I had in my life.
Free.fr, and beyond the company its boss Xavier Niel, has a consistent track record of pissing of big players in established markets. Niel made his wealth with Minitel, including sex and dating sites, then consistently disrupted networking markets with Free.fr:
* they first sold dialup connection for the cost of a local communications, without ads;
* they established the price of unlimited ADSL around €30/month;
* they introduced TV over IP and free phone calls over IP through the freebox (the ADSL router that comes with a free.fr subscription)
* they started a bandwidth race, offering tens of MB/s when historic operators were stuck at 512KB/s.
* they slashed mobile phone prices: no subsidized phones, no contract, but unlimited calls and data (bandwitdth capped beyond 3GB/month) for less than 20€/month.
Their whole business model has always been about pissing off fat cats, big time. They're trying their luck against Google.