Not all ads/cookies are bad (Score 1)

While Ads are annoying, they are also the main reason why we have free content. Seems to me the majority of the people wants something for no cost which would not work because of all the costs associated with running a business and/or a website. From web hosting costs to paying employees, the money have to come from some where! I wish that all those complaining about Ads think about what happens when/if the majority of sites goes to a purely subscription method because they cannot depend on Ad revenue any longer. Just like 'free' TV versus Premium Cable channels, if you want 'free' someone have to pay for the service. If you don't want Ads, then you need to step it up and pay for the content yourself. Just imagine Wikipedia having to go to a subscription method because they cannot raise enough money. They have to 'beg' for money as it is to keep running because they do not run ads on their pages.

While there are a minority of bad apples when it comes to advertisers. Believe it or not, the majority of the websites depending on ad revenue actually do NOT want to be associated with the shady networks. However, by you blocking ALL ads, you are essentially cutting the legs out from under the legitimate websites and advertisers who's main benefit is to provide you with easily accessible and FREE content. Additionally, cookies are already limited to be accessed by the domain (via cross domain restrictions already in place) and a cookie is still the ONLY way for a website to know definitely that you have opted out. Without an opt-out cookie, a website or advertiser would have no way of knowing your tracking options (at least not until the Do Not Track functionality is implemented universally).

To say 'suck it' to all advertisers seems a bit over reacting and would in the end only hurt all of us by limiting the amount of 'free' content available on the internet.