The New York Times could probably commission a Sambreel detector for less money than it's losing to these scumbags. You have a right to the screen real estate in your own browser, of course, but the NYT has the right not to serve you content if you're not going to abide by its terms.
Whatever you think about the ethics of ad blocking (not a quagmire I want to wade into), NYT ads fund one of the best regarded operations in all of journalism, while Sambreel ads fund... what, exactly? Let's not lose sight of what a scam this is.
If a user knowingly choses to install a plugin that includes Sambreel, it's not a scam. It's their browser to do with what they will. Having said that, I'm guessing that there are a lot of scummy plugins/extensions that don't alert the user to Sambreel being installed. That's what's the scam here.
Also, the target of the funding shouldn't enter into a discussion about legality/ethics of the method.
I agree it is a scam, but I disagree that NYT is good journalism. Good journalism is meassured in impact and NYT haven't gotten anybody kicked out of office in years.
Whatever you think about the ethics of ad blocking (not a quagmire I want to wade into), NYT ads fund one of the best regarded operations in all of journalism, while Sambreel ads fund... what, exactly? Let's not lose sight of what a scam this is.