Two websites have been discovered to be using their users’ computers and phones to mine cryptocurrency without their consent in a bid to compensate for the continuing collapse in online advertising revenues.
The two sites, BitTorrent search engine, The Pirate Bay, and US video streaming service, Showtime, have now both removed the mining code from their sites after users noticed its existence. The Pirate Bay admitted the practice in mid-September posting that the code was “just a test” and that it was carried out with a view to removing all adverts from the site. Showtime has yet to answer questions about why it was using the code.
The practice is controversial, and has been compared to running malware on user’s computers, as it slows down user’s machines and can also drain their batteries or greatly increase their electricity bills. Meanwhile, the user receives no benefit as all the revenue generated by the mining is collected by the website. The question is whether users will see this as an acceptable trade-off if sites begin to use it as an alternative solution to online ads.