this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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it doesn't actually click on stuff. it "clicks" so that the advertisers' and your digital footprint's statistics get messed up, but you never see the results of the clicking, nothing pops up, nothing gets downloaded
It also adds noise to the site metrics and recommendation algorithm making them less valuable overall.
It's like the application that will watermark images with digital noise designed to throw off AI training that uses that image.
You're no longer a user who is able to be profiled (because you 'like' things completely at random). If everyone was using a plugin like this then advertisers wouldn't be able to serve targeted content because they wouldn't know what content types work best for each user because every user clicks ads randomly and so there is no detectable signal, just noise.
You get the same effect, but reduced, if less people are using it.
In addition, if half of the users on a website are using adblockers and suddenly those users start clicking ads, then it costs twice as much to advertise while not providing any additional customers which makes spending money on web advertisement less attractive.