A "click" is a download. In order for the ad network to register your click, you are necessarily sending a request and receiving a response. Whether the browser ends up rendering that response, I don't know, but it's certainly possible, especially because ads generally involve redirects which may also be instrumented and may involve JS instrumentation, making spoofing clicks difficult without following redirects and rendering the resulting page.

This was not the case when I looked at the code years ago. I would not trust any statements to the contrary without reviewing it again for changes.

Also pretty easy to detect/block. Just add a redirect that redirects on page draw after the click. Only record clicks that successfully redirect.

Yeah, it might make for slightly weird flow when clicking ads, but you could totally do it.

So instead of doing that and being respectful and competitive Google decided to ban the extension.

"Respectful" is a really bizarre expectation since this plugin by its nature does not respect Google's or other ad networks. I don't know why Google would demonstrate respect to a plugin designed to damage their ad network.

Because other browser vendors would accept such a plugin as they're not ad networks. This seems to me very much like a case of Google being too big, having their hands in both the ad market and the browser market and abusing that position.

Respect may not have been the right word, but I was going for "not a blatant abuse of power".

I'm not very sympathetic to click fraud. Almost no one would think it acceptable if a site owner were using a click farm to artificially inflate the ad click through rate, but somehow a browser extension doing the same is okay? I have no problem with ad blocking but actively poisoning the network is a different thing entirely.

If Google decided to block users of AdNauseum and similar plugins from using Google web products, you'd probably say it's blatant abuse of power and I'd say it sounds reasonable, exactly as it's reasonable for sites to block users running ad blockers.

I'd say it's perfectly acceptable for site owners to perform "click fraud" too.

It's their computer after all, they can use it however they want. If click fraud is what they want to do, go for it. It's up to the ad networks to counter that on their end - on their own computers - in a fair and reasonable way.

Just as browser extension runners have every right to have their computer do what they want it to - if that's click ads, so be it.

Ultimately, I own my computer, it should do what I tell it to.

As others have pointed out, Google could have easily detected this extension and ignored its clicks, just as they do with regular click fraud in most cases. Instead they chose a path which makes Chrome violate user choice. That I have a problem with.

> Almost no one would think it acceptable if a site owner were using a click farm to artificially inflate the ad click through rate, but somehow a browser extension doing the same is okay?

Yes. Context and intent matter.

"Almost nobody would think it acceptable to drive recklessly on their commute home, but somehow ambulance drivers get to run red lights and exceed the speed limit?"

I know you're making an analogy but comparing AdNauseum to ambulance drivers is a bit of a stretch. One of these is saving lives. The other has no purpose except to inflict damage on ad networks. Aside from damaging ad networks, it also actively harms site owners by increasing the risk of them getting blocked from the ad networks that fund their work.

I don't see a lot of merit in AdNauseum. It feels to me like a petty "fuck you" response from people who don't like ads.

The purpose isn't to inflict damage on ad networks, it's to make you more difficult to track by burying your signal in a bunch of noise.

Let's take another, more similar analogy: some secure messaging programs are designed to resist network analysis, which invariably involves sending some kind of "noise" to clients whom you are not actively communicating with, to mask your actual communication. Depending on your point of view, you could frame that as an "attack on your ISP" - after all, aren't you sending unnecessary junk traffic? This is the same thing, except for the web instead of messaging.

In general though, not picking on you in particular: I really see a lot of nerdfolk who don't understand that intent and context do matter. I see it particularly often in legal contexts where people think they've figured out one weird trick to escape the law. Like, I don't know, people who think that they can claim they forgot the password to an encrypted system they use on a daily basis, and the judge is just a computer who will say "oh no I am defeated, beep boop", instead of a human being who will think about whether that's reasonable and throw them in jail for contempt.

It would be wildly unreasonable to think that AdNausium is a click-farming scheme, or a DDOS attempt, or anything of the like. Context does matter.

Also, if some of your clients actually using your primary "features" (clicking your ads after they load a page) is a problem for you, it's hardly their fault. By all means feel free to discontinue serving them ads if you don't like it.

Your ISP example doesn't work because it's not about the "junk traffic". Sending "junk" to your ISP wastes a little bit of bandwidth but doesn't meaningfully damage their business model (might make them money depending on the pricing model). The goal of this plugin is literally to destroy most of the value that ad networks provide (namely targeted advertising). This doesn't simply remove a user from advertising networks dataset (like an ad blocker) but poisons the dataset. This harms ad networks and everyone who relies on them to fund their work.

Blocking users who run AdNauseum does seem entirely appropriate to me. Blocking the plugin from Chrome also seems appropriate to me.