Should we be Blocking "Click To Donate" Charities

[pupil]

Here's a moral one for you? Technically we aren't breaking anything with the filter lists by blocking the ads on sites such as http://www.care2.com/click2donate/ , but by blocking the ads on these type of sites we are blocking the revenue that goes directly to charity.

What do you think, should these sites be whitelisted by default or not? I believe they should, thousands of people are using these scripts and blocking these ads, and since these scripts were created to make the web a better place, it would be great to support the organisations that are trying to make the whole world a better place too

[Wladimir Palant]

I have never seen their ads but I don't see how it should make a difference - ads are ads. As long as they are using the usual ad technology, they introduce hidden costs to the users regardless of whether this user does or doesn't want to donate (or maybe has already donated). If they care about it, they will offer some images and ask people to upload them to their server. Insert these images into you web pages, put a link on them - finished. No third-party downloads, no user tracking, no JavaScript code to run and absolutely cache-friendly. And if they do this there simply won't be a filter blocking their ads.

Whitelisting it by default is definitely not an option. It can't be overridden and this is bad - it takes choice away from the user.