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Forbes asking ad blocker users to log in rather than turning them away?

3 points by narsil ↗ HN
Navigated to a Forbes article recently and was about to exit since their Ad-wall detects uBlock when I noticed that the usual message had changed: https://i.imgur.com/fHawyXE.png

Logging in with a Google account did permit me to access the page [1]. Logging out and navigating back to the page brought up the "Sign in" prompt most of the time.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2015/09/02/father-and-son-become-billionaires-with-tanium-the-worlds-hottest-cybersecurity-startup/

3 comments

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minimaxir
It changed because they get your data when you connect via Google account, which is an alternative revenue compromise.
vonklaus
I actually consider this acceptable. I may begin using forbes again. I would briefly turn off adblock and then reload it if the data/article wasn't obviously available elsewhere, but I would let them have my basic google data to read an article.

It doesn't make a ton of sense for them though, right? I mean that would just verify through google analytics that a real user is reading their article and maybe some basic demographic information which could be pitched to advertisers...oh wait, they also verified these users won't run malware on their systems.

The only way they could seemingly benefit is if someone clicks the around the web links at the bottom, which again I consider fair play.

ungzd
Maybe they rage about adblockers block scripts that collect data, not because of they lose ad displays/clicks.