Holy smoke, there’s a fire in the blogosphere and I had no idea it was burning because, well, because I just don’t give a shit I guess.

Apparently, Danny Carlton has decided to block all Firefox users from viewing his site because Mozilla supports the use of AdblockPlus and hosts the extension for download on their site. His complaint is that he has designed his site (with ads) the way he wants it displayed to visitors and plugins like AdBlockPlus are violating his right to have his page displayed the way he wants.

In a nutshell, because AdBlockPlus allows users to block his ads, but Firefox doesn’t allow him to block the users of AdBlockPlus, he feels Firefox users that use AdBlockPlus are in effect, “stealing his content”, so he has blocked all Firefox users from viewing his site.

Here is a clip of a conversation he has posted on his site:

Firefox Fanboy (8/20/2007 10:39:24 AM): So if I walk away from the TV during the commercials, am I a thief?
Danny (8/20/2007 10:39:45 AM): No, you made a dcision abotu an individual ad. Not the same thing ans blanket ad blocking.
Firefox Fanboy (8/20/2007 10:39:57 AM): No, I pretty much skip them all.
Firefox Fanboy (8/20/2007 10:40:05 AM): Thanks to the glory of the DVR
Danny (8/20/2007 10:40:33 AM): You are still make individual decisions about each ad. Companies that tried to sell devices that blocked television ads were shut down byu the court.

I know he has heard it a thousand times or more by now, but it is the same thing. I make an individual decision to skip all of the commercials on my dvr all the time, and I can make the individual decision to block all the ads on websites all the time. Same decision, different medium.

Firefox Fanboy (8/20/2007 10:43:12 AM): people aren’t going to switch to another browser just to see crappy ads on some site
Firefox Fanboy (8/20/2007 10:43:19 AM): they’ll just find another site, in which case you lose the ad revenue anyway
Danny (8/20/2007 10:43:40 AM): No, actually many FireFox users agree with me, and while they find it annoying, understand what I’m trying to d. Only the crackpots are making a stink.

I understand what he is trying to do, but I think he’s wrong. Why? Well, my bet is a majority of Firefox users don’t bother blocking the ads on all sites anyway, and those who do make up a very small portion of Firefox users. Personally, I don’t block ads unless the ads on a site are annoying, then I might, but in general I don’t make it a practice, it’s my decision.

Anyway, like I said, I really don’t care if he blocks Firefox users or not, that’s his choice, and his fight.

I suppose after tonight I will be exercising my choice by not visiting his site any longer, because I choose not to visit sites that require me to use Internet Explorer (or IETab). I did however use IE to visit his site tonight, to get his side of the story. The ads were blocked there as well, because that was my choice.

I guess I’m nothing more than a crackpot. No surprise there.

1. [...] Danny Carlton is blocking all Firefox users. [...]

   Pingback by Information Salad #55: : ISPN Media on Aug 25th, 2007 @ 10:24

   
   

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.