I think I am talking about Adblock Plus and not Adblock. I think that’s where the misunderstanding is.
Adblock Plus doesn’t replace ads either to the best of my knowledge, simply allows whitelisted ads but doesn’t insert them itself, in other words it’s a selective blocking.
I assumed you were talking about ABP, as I seem to remember you mentioned it earlier, and I have used AdBlock (not Plus) without seeing any replacing of ads (all blocked).
I always assumed the acceptable ads were provided by ABP.
I don’t think so, it simply whitelists certain providers, like google etc. At least that’s how I understand it.
Edit:
[...] We have agreements with some websites and advertisers which stipulate that only advertising matching our criteria will be displayed when Adblock Plus users visit these particular sites. These ads will be unblocked, i.e. added to the Acceptable Ads exception list which is enabled per default.
Notice the usage of the word “unblocked” which to me suggests that other ads won’t be replaced with whitelisted ads but rather the whitelisted ads won’t be blocked in the first place but blacklisted ads are just blocked and not replaced.
I don’t see any great concerning differences for site visitors about whether advertising is white-listed or replaced, both methods keeps the wheels rolling all the while generating revenue for the products creator. 
Hi naren,
Either way op-in/opt-out doesn’t concern many IMO, most people installing any software have become vigilant during this process.
Kind regards.
Doesn’t really matter if inserting ads into a website is against Googles policy/agreement/whatever… Also, as far as I know, with PrivDog the site owner doesn’t get anything unless they manually sign up for it and lets be honest, what’s the likelihood of them even knowing of PrivDog? Also, would the PrivDog revenue be equal to that of their standard revenue? I mean, if showing one standard ad would hypothetically earn you 1 dollar, would showing one ad through PrivDog earn you the same amount or would it be much less? (the 1 dollar is not really realistic, just used it as an example)
Personally I think it should be allowed on the web store, but at the same time I think extensions like it should be under high scrutiny from Google to avoid abuse of the insertion of ads, I mean, one of the very reasons Google closed Chrome from installation of external extensions was probably because of malicious ones that inserted ads into websites… I don’t think Google would want to take the risk of allowing extensions onto their web store that does quite literally that but for different non-malicious reasons, it could be bad PR for them and honestly PrivDog is in my opinion already in a ‘gray area’ since AdTrustMedia is quite literally piggybacking off of sites ad revenue without their consent, to a lot of people that would seem wrong and I’m personally leaning a bit towards that opinion… Perhaps PrivDog should always block ads and only replace ads on sites that have signed up with AdTrustMedia? Perhaps it already does? I don’t know.
When it comes to money companies will want to know and try to find out. The rest is hypothetical and does not serve any useful discussion.
Issue is, how do you find out something you don’t know you’re supposed to find out?
I disagree that it wouldn’t serve for a useful discussion but apparently taking up ethical concerns regarding Comodo is not welcome so I’ll leave it alone.
I’ll just say that a hypothesis is worth testing to see whether it’s true or not, you seem to be of a different mind. Either way the issue was about Google web store and like it or not, the issue I brought up is likely to get attention from them as well if AdTrustMedia tries to upload PrivDog to the web store.
Adblock Plus gives an option to block acceptable ads i.e acceptable ads are enabled by default but after installation you get settings page with an option to disable. Later too you can disable through preferences.
Not unlike interested forum members like ourselves. We try to be on the up and running of what’s happening.
I disagree that it wouldn't serve for a useful discussion but apparently taking up ethical concerns regarding Comodo is not welcome so I'll leave it alone.The discussion about how much money PD hypothetically would yield is not seen by me as an ethical discussion. It seemed rethorical to me.
I'll just say that a hypothesis is worth testing to see whether it's true or not, you seem to be of a different mind. Either way the issue was about Google web store and like it or not, the issue I brought up is likely to get attention from them as well if AdTrustMedia tries to upload PrivDog to the web store.When I wrote "The rest is hypothetical" in my previous post I was referring to the discussion about how much ads from AdTrust Media would yield. I was referring to what I had quoted and not to the questions you asked about whether it should or should not be in the Google web store. Sorry for the misunderstanding that my post caused. My apologies.
I see, no that was not the ethical part I was talking about, when you said the rest I thought you specifically meant the part about piggybacking on other sites ad revenue, perhaps you did even, not sure anymore.
Will write it off as a misunderstanding in either case and will drop the issue unless other people would like to discuss it.
Edit: sorry for the full quote without specific part highlighted, on mobile and don’t feel like playing surgeon to fix it up properly… It’s also 1:36 AM so…
Very similar to the block all ad networks in PrivDog.
Note to ‘w33d3r’, apologies for running off topic.
Note to all (Myself included): Please note this topic was not created for the comparisons of other products, please let us get back on topic.
Thank you.
Sorry Sanya, I had a look but the option to change that is not available to me
Done now.
No problem, it was interesting anyway. Personally I know the methods PrivDog employs are ( I think unique currently ) different from the three blockers I mentioned, but I view them as either blocking, or replacing, still = Visitor does not get to see or click on the ads that were there, so effectively as far as the original advertisers were concerned they are all the same.
And they have varying capabilities too, Ghostery probably has a vested interest in watching everything you are looking at being owned by an advertising company ironically, but blocks a few types of hidden web page items among its repertoire of tricks on your behalf. Shame, it was getting good until it was sold to Better Advertising ( I think they are called something else now ).
Thank you