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# System prepended metadata

title: Adblocking assignment

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# Adblocking assignment

New York Times without an adblocker

![ad](https://i.imgur.com/LUFZGEk.png)

New York Times with an adblocker

![without ad](https://i.imgur.com/tPR9yXD.png)

## Reading Responses

Alex Hern, of The Guardian, reported in 2016 that multiple news sites, such as the New York Times and BBC, were targeted in a ransomware attack. The ads on these websites were being hijacked and when they were clicked on they directed users to servers hosting malware. A popular malware, called Angler-exploit kit, was used, which attempts to install ransomware onto the users hard drive. The ransomware essentially locks the hard drive so the user can't access their files and to get them back they have to pay money. This is an example of where an adblocker would have been beneficial to the user so that this problem could have been avoided from the beginning. 

In 2016, Adblock Plus, a popular adblocking service, proposed adding ads to its service. Jacob Kastrenakes (2016), of The Verge, reports that their goal was to have some sort of screening tool in place so that only 'acceptable' ads would be placed on the site. Adblock Plus wanted to find some middle ground between showing all ads and no ads at all. The ad companies would not be able to track users across multiple sites and they would also have limited access to certain aspects of the page and its location.

Don Marti (2017) discusses signalling as a way of telling if a seller is being truthful about their product when advertising it to a consumer. Just by spending money on advertisements in the first place is a form of signalling because it shows that the company can afford to place ads. The more high production the ad, the more believable it is that this company is real and that the product they see is the product they'll get. Next comes the idea, of choosing specific people to show these ads to in the hopes of cutting down on the 'load that advertising carries.' This is called targeting.

Targeting is when a company picks certain users to show certain ads. Legitimate companies sometimes prefer to do this because it reduces the number of ads in the advertising space. However, targeting users can be dangerous because the consumer does not want the company to know information about them. When a consumer figures out that an ad has been targeted towards them the value of the ad drops.

A consequence that can occur as a result of targeted ads is adblockers. More and more users are installing adblockers and the value of online advertisements is decreasing even more.
