“You may block our ads, as long as you promise not to block our ads”
Watching a website tie itself in knots
I noticed that Forbes.com has changed how it deals with users blocking ads. When I didn’t disable my ad blocker and reloaded the page, the site offered me the choice of “becoming a member” and continuing along to read the content in question. It gives you the option of linking a Google or Facebook account in order to sign up, and my tweet noting the odd “manage my contacts” permission Forbes asks for, seemed to generate a fair bit of interest and much disapproval from Twitter users. But I later learned something far stranger than this:
The odd thing is that I didn’t read the “membership” terms at the time, but when I later did after this started getting retweeted, I noticed this strange clause:
So, basically:
- Forbes detected I was using an ad blocker (I built a system to set aside a fair payment for each publisher whose ads I block at app.optimal.com, by the way, before I started blocking ads), and asked me to turn it off to enjoy a non-specific “ad light” experience.
- I did not disable my blocker, and reloaded the page whereupon I was presented with this “We noticed you still have your ad blocker on” option, whereby I agree to the Terms Of Membership (note however what appears to be a typo/outdated language, the page calls out a LinkedIn or Facebook sign-up, but I did so via Google instead):
3. I log in, give up the aforementioned Google permissions, and am able to now view the content I originally clicked on, but (not actually since I used Google, but presumably..) I’ve now also agreed to all their terms including this (emphasis mine):
Free access to the content made available to you on the Website is possible due to the paid advertising that appears on the Website. Without this advertising, we would not be able to provide you with this content for free. In exchange for your free access to this content, you agree that you will not, and will not permit any third party to, remove, obstruct, modify or otherwise interfere with the delivery or display of advertisements on the Website.
So I’ve basically agreed now to not block their ads, after signing up for the express purpose of being able to see their content while blocking their ads.
There is no other reason I would have signed up. Tied up in knots indeed:
