Massacre Gmail Ads with These Two Sentences (and Some Tragic Words)

The ads help pay for the service. If they are that intrusive choose something else.

I just don't understand this. I hardly ever see the ads and when I do, they don't bother me. Why take such extreme measures? If the ads bother someone that much, why not use a different service or pay for one? Seems to me the cure is worse than the disease.

I was asked a related question during an interview at Google. As an example, the interviewer told me of a time their ads drew an especially vile reaction: they had placed luggage ads on a news story about a serial killer who chopped up his victims bodies and stuffed them into suitcases.<p>The interviewer said they'd be happy to just not show any ads on such pages and asked me how I'd go about detecting them. Apparently they've (mostly) figured that out by now!

Embrace the ads people. They pay for all of Google's free services, which these ad-hating people obviously are using. Also, I find that whenever I glance at the GMail ads there's always something interesting or amusing there (more of the latter).

Uhm....ever heard of Adblock Plus?

On a related topic: what do people think about ad blocking technology from an ethical viewpoint?<p>For me, I think I use the same screwy morality that I use when I'm downloading music...I don't mind stealing from wildly successful artists/businesses, but I'll gladly pay full price for a CD or click on an ad for someone who's just trying to pay the bills.

Seems like a waste of time. Enough people do this, and Google will adjust. It's just cat and mouse from there.

Good for lifehacker readers. I use Gmail for it's simplicity (even with ads). I won't ever block those non-intrusive text as an honor to the good service.<p>When I 'm satisfied of your service I won't to give back something. Maybe I don't have money, but <i>something</i> I can contribute.

First we find out we've been living in a world where most people will give away their privacy freely because they don't think it's worth anything. Then a few large companies finding a way to capitalize on it are not just tolerated but admired. Now one guy treats one of them with the contempt it deserves and is criticized as unethical or ungenerous. WTF?

I think most of us are missing the point. The author is not implying that he discovered a "hack" or "secret code", it's that Google consciously chooses to not match advertisements to text such as this. You can rephrase the sentences all you'd like, and Google will still not render ads.

i agree, i don't find the sidebar ads to be obtrusive. i don't even notice them. i do notice the ad above the email contents on occasion and they've been pretty useful to me.

A better hack might be to do the tragic words in a different language, like chinese.

I upvoted this so I'd remember to take a look later. Now I kinda wish I hadn't.

Google allows you to turn the ads off.. so why the need for this 'hack'?<p>Go to <i>Settings -&#62; Web Clips</i> and untick 'Show my web clips above the Inbox'.

I ignore them, but the links to interesting stories from sites of my interest I click on them frequently.<p>Ads to a blog post I guess those are what you'd call them?!?