In Slate magazine, Farhad Manjoo writes that “it’s hard to make an honest claim that [Web ad-blocking] programs are ethical,” though he doesn’t bother to rebut head-on the perfectly valid arguments he mentions (“it’s my browser and my computer, so I can choose what I want to download”).

Steven D. Schroeder at Sturgeon’s Law does an excellent job of taking apart Manjoo’s claim. I also tackled the argument back in 2005, here. By the way, if Manjoo thinks ad-blocking plug-ins are problematic, he’ll probably compare the folks behind Readability to Charles Manson.