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Commentary: Why Apple’s Move Allowing Its Safari 5 Browser to Block Ads is Disingenuous

Jun 9, 2010  •  Post A Comment

In a commentary about Apple allowing its Safari 5 Browser to block ads by Wired’s Epicenter writer Eliot Van Buskirk, he explains what he thinks are Apple’s hidden motives.

As Van Buskirk himself writes, "It may seem like a subtle move for Apple to release a browser that removes ads from the web, and of course, nobody likes reading web pages that are drowning in ads. But when Apple owns a walled garden that offers publishers refuge from web perils like ad blockers, it also seems disingenuous of the company to make the world outside of that garden more perilous for publishers."

It’s very much worth clicking on the link, above, and reading Van Buskirk’s piece, and how he outlines Apple’s actions that lead him to his conclusion about its motives. 

5 Comments

  1. If I can block ads on TV and skip over ads in print, then why must I see ads online? What makes online so ‘special’?

  2. You can’t block ads on TV–you can fastforward through them. You can’t ‘remove’ ads from the paper, you move your eyes away from them.
    The ads support the cost to produce the TV show and publish the paper. Online ads support the cost to run the Web site, the company. It’s the cost of doing business. Why should Apple be allowed to “filter” them out when other browsers don’t? What makes them so special?
    If ALL browsers did this, many Internet companies would fail because users would opt to visit their sites in a non-ad mode, but then those ad companies would get no revenue and would go out of business, and then would buy no more ads on said site….which would eventually have to charge YOU to view their content or go out of business.

  3. I wonder what Steve is really thinking? Ads are the fact of life in our Western world. Its part of the machine that drives our economy. If Sony couldn’t advertise, do you think they would sell TVs? How many people in the US would be without a job if Ford couldn’t sponsor auto racing or buy commercials?
    I used to think that Steve Jobs was Joseph Geobbels…now I’m thinking he is Carl Marx.

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