I am really hoping that companies are measuring the bounce rate for these types of tactics.

When I see one of these I could become a subscriber and log in, I could whitelist the site's advertisements, or I could open Web Inspector and disable the popup layer manually, but I don't do anything of these things. I acknowledge its existence and hit the back button.

I just sent a LinkedIn email (yeah, spammy horrendous-ness all of its own, but I digress) to Malcolm CasSelle, the CTO of Tronc, the owner of the Chicago Tribune. This is the contents.

_________________

I'm [kefka], a systems engineer. I regularly read Hacker News, https://news.ycombinator.com . A user linked to a story on your property, ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13206294 ) which goes to ( http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-ghost-shar... ).

It's the response that your website gives me when I try to go to said link: " Advertising revenue helps support our journalism To read today's stories, please turn off your ad blocker or subscribe"

I get that your company needs to make money, which I greatly understand and get. However, asking me to quit my adblocker or otherwise disable it is unconscionable. Advertisement servers have been one of root ways drive-by attacks are dome on users, combined with Javascript attack ads that end up with millions hacked. Forbes themselves, with a day of implementing the same Adblock-shaming techniques ended up being the site that infected 3 million with DDOS clients.

I am not against subscriptions, or static advertisements. You have to make money as well. But there's ways to run effective advertisements without alienating users.

But, if a program demanded you to disable your antivirus, would you? (That's the kind of situation I'm at).

Sincerely, [Kefka]

> Advertisement servers have been one of root ways drive-by attacks are dome on users

I hope this isn't a copy-paste of what you actually wrote.

As if that guy had any clue what are "javascript" "drive by" or "DDoS".

Might as well have sent an email in chinese.

This one also sets the body to `overflow: hidden` and has a scroll event listener that tries to prevent scrolling the document. At which point I bounced.

Why would they care if you bounce if you aren't paying? My guess is that the possibility that you might share it with others is low enough that it is probably better for them if you don't get value from the site if they don't get value from you.

I agree, sites that enforce disabling add block should not be allowed to be posted here.

Sort of related: I have a Nexus 5x and run the latest Android. I will no longer install and use apps that are ad supported because I've twice gotten malware that opens misc apps (Google Authenticator was one, and that scared the shit out of me).

It's clear that ad networks cannot be trusted.

I'm seriously considering rooting again and installing Xposed so I can block ads, but maintain root is such a PITA I'll probably just never use ad-supported apps again.

As an example, look at the app reviews for QuizUp (a recently recommended app).[1]

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quizup.cor...

For those wishing to disable this particular "feature", the script which activates this functionality is:

http://www.tribdss.com/meter/ctcngux.min.js

Filtering that script in uBlock Origin allows the page to function as normal.

I think this is the source article: http://www.mbari.org/the-pointy-nosed-blue-chimaera-really-g...

Try uBlock Origin

yep, uBlock Origin works for me too in this site

Or program not letting you use it until you install valid, paid license?