Three to become first European network to block ads

Re:Three to become first European network to block ads by njharman on Friday February 19, 2016 @10:35AM (#11134020)

I'm all for ad blocking. But I'm even more for net neutrality. ISP blocking ads is tiny step away from "blocking all ads expect the ones ISP is paid to let through" and selectively blocking any other kind of content.

ISPs are utilities, not censors, nor cops.

Someone else mentioned "opt-in" which would not violate net-neutrality and I support.

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Re:Three to become first European network to block ads by s_dev on Friday February 19, 2016 @10:58AM (#11134221)

I'm shocked at some of the answers in this thread: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/denis-o-brien-...

People think this is some sort of fancy "Ad Block Plus" -- it's not.

Basically the ISPs want Google and Facebook to give them revenue because they "transport" their packets that are ads. This is an affront to net neutrality.

Three will block ads and then charge Google/FB to let them through.

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Re:Three to become first European network to block ads by Kurtz79 on Friday February 19, 2016 @11:17AM (#11134371)

"People think this is some sort of fancy "Ad Block Plus" -- it's not."

Uh...

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/over-300-businesses-...

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Re:Three to become first European network to block ads by s_dev on Friday February 19, 2016 @12:17PM (#11134794)

A browser plug-in modifying/controlling traffic. Acceptable.

An ISP modifying/controlling traffic. Dangerous precedent.

What makes it different in my view is that in one scenario the end user is in control in the other the ISP is in control.

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Re:Three to become first European network to block ads by qb45 on Friday February 19, 2016 @12:40PM (#11135003)

> An ISP modifying/controlling traffic. Dangerous precedent.

Some ISPs have already been adding ads. The only precedent here is that those guys are removing them instead.

Maybe we will live to see times when ads injected by ISP1 end up filtered by ISP2 and replaced with others by ISP3, all within a single TCP stream :)

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Re:Three to become first European network to block ads by Buge on Friday February 19, 2016 @12:58PM (#11135150)

This is why we need to switch to https.

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Re:Three to become first European network to block ads by camillomiller on Friday February 19, 2016 @12:09PM (#11134734)

Indeed. I have a much broader Press Release that is actually pretty clear in stating that Three believes it that ads publisher should pay for the data they use to bring the ad on the user's phone. This is a slippery slope, and certainly a threat to net neutrality.

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Re:Three to become first European network to block ads by makomk on Friday February 19, 2016 @01:22PM (#11135350)

Three also believes that users shouldn't have to pay for the data that advertisers use to bring ads to their phone, which seems reasonable enough - I think we've reached to the point where users are paying more in data costs to view ads than the advertisers are paying to advertise to them which is ridiculous.

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Re:Three to become first European network to block ads by camillomiller on Friday February 19, 2016 @01:35PM (#11135453)

This is also true, indeed, but I don't think it's a provider's role to decide what kind of ads should pass or be blocked, especially if such decision will be based on who's paying and who's not.

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