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Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

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Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#241

Post by saguro »

Buge wrote: post #123
saguro wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use an ad blocker for a much simpler reason. I do not consent to having my behavior analyzed. Calling these things `ads` is deliberately misleading. The primary purpose of these things isn't to show you an ad, its to record everything you do on every site you visit, so then that data can be correlated to your credit history and other real world sources to profile you and optimally manipulate your behavior to sell y…

>to profile you and optimally manipulate your behavior to sell you shit. ...by showing you ads.

How about by manipulating your facebook news feed and exposing you to a carefully selected series of images and headlines to sway your opinion on political topics without you even realizing.

How about identifying which youtubers your children are impressionable to, and then approaching them to push unhealthy food products?

How about using your porn browsing habits and location history to figure out when you start cheating on your significant other, how about offering you divorce lawyers before you even realize you need one.

How about figuring out when you become isolated and lonely by looking at changes in the volume of texts and phone calls and IMs you exchange, and then selling that primarily to dating and sex chat websites.

Ever wondered why these websites are silently deploying anti-adblock functionality rather than trying to bring the matter through the legal system? Because if it ever became a legal case and they were made to disclose how they use the data, there'd be a fucking uproar. This is exactly what happened in the EU and that's why advertisers had their balls cut off in that region. So now they've opted to support the destruction of net neutrality and bolster DRM laws so they can shoehorn advertisements and anti-adblock under DRM instead.

People need to get 100% clear on something: there are very smart people getting paid very generous salaries whose job is to find ways to distort and manipulate laws and public perception to prevent consumers from asserting their rights against having their behavior manipulated. I don't think it's an understatement to say that these groups are a major threat to the wellbeing of the people, right up there with war and climate change. Ajit Pai is a textbook example of this pattern. He's not stupid, he's not an asshole. He's a smart person who has been tasked with a goal that goes against the public good. And he's done a good job at that task.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#242

Post by cbcoutinho »

snarfy wrote: post #237

I use uBlock. When I get a page that pops up "We see you are using an ad blocker...", I hit Q and edit the page until it works again.

How does this work? I'm not in webdev so I don't know the ins and outs of browser editing, is it really possible to only accept a portion of a website and get around those things? Wouldn't this also be useful for getting around pay-to-view sites as well?

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#243

Post by dao- »

zzleeper wrote: post #155
gorhill wrote: post #90

In the paper, this excerpt: > We choose Adblock as it is one of the most popular. It is also possible to use Adblock Plus or uBlock, as the way they operate is exactly the same — HTTP filters and HTML element hiding. AdBlock in the Chrome store uses Adblock Plus filtering engine[1], so to say the way these two "operate is exactly the same" makes sense. However uBlock Origin uses its own code base, and is far better e…

What would you recommend for mobile? Browsing on Android with Chrome is a nightmare, and the last time I tried FF it was a bit sluggish (although it did allowed me to install extensions!)

Firefox for Android has built-in tracking protection, which also boosts performance. You can enable it in the privacy preferences.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#244

Post by mikequinlan »

Ad blocking seems like a possible application for machine learning, to distinguish between ads and content.

Anti-ad blocking also seems like a possible application for machine learning, to distinguish clients that are blocking ads and those that are not.

In a battle between the two it seems like the anti-ad blocking side will win. They have resources (big companies with lots of money and server farms, versus small developers and browser-adons) and incentive (earning money versus improving my web experience).

I use an ad-blocker but I am not optimistic about the future of ad-blockers.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#245

Post by executesorder66 »

Thorncorona wrote: post #139
imgabe wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a hint: if nobody wants to pay for what you're selling, sell something else.

If anybody listened to your advice then search engines, stack overflow, web forums, news agencies, and Reddit would simply disappear.

Or be replaced by open source alternatives.

And if you are wondering why they haven't already, it's because google/stackoverflow/reddit etc. are already providing the service for 'free'. So as soon as they shut down, someone else will make an alternative.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#246

Post by luch »

mikequinlan wrote: post #244

Ad blocking seems like a possible application for machine learning, to distinguish between ads and content. Anti-ad blocking also seems like a possible application for machine learning, to distinguish clients that are blocking ads and those that are not. In a battle between the two it seems like the anti-ad blocking side will win. They have resources (big companies with lots of money and server farms, versus small de…

Using machine learning for ad blocking suffers from the same issue malware detection has : your "environment" will actively try to game your detection system, which can greatly hinders the learning phase.

I'm not entirely sure AI is currently fit to solve cat-and-mouse games such as ad blocking.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#247

Post by iaml »

cbcoutinho wrote: post #242
snarfy wrote: post #237

I use uBlock. When I get a page that pops up "We see you are using an ad blocker...", I hit Q and edit the page until it works again.

How does this work? I'm not in webdev so I don't know the ins and outs of browser editing, is it really possible to only accept a portion of a website and get around those things? Wouldn't this also be useful for getting around pay-to-view sites as well?

Those types of limitations can be implemented either client or server -side. When it's clientside, removing overlays from DOM can easily circumvent paywalls and such, but when it's server side, there's nothing you can do.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#248

Post by aleksei »

ascorbic wrote: post #217
baddox wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is literally nonsensical to tell someone who is explicitly not consenting that they are in fact implicitly consenting.

If you are explicitly not consenting, then surely the correct way to do this is to not visit the site. If I go to a shop and want a product but don't like the price I am within my rights to refuse the contract and not buy the item. What I am not entitled to do is unilaterally change the contract, and walk out with the item without paying full price. I use an ad blocker because so many sites are barely usable without…

The actual analogy is walking into a store and being forced to buy something for walking in. I don't feel the store owner should be entitled to do that.

As for moral justifiability, I find it unacceptable that a website operator can sell data about me without my consent just for following a link to their site.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#249

Post by pmlnr »

duncan-donuts wrote: post #116
saguro wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use an ad blocker for a much simpler reason. I do not consent to having my behavior analyzed. Calling these things `ads` is deliberately misleading. The primary purpose of these things isn't to show you an ad, its to record everything you do on every site you visit, so then that data can be correlated to your credit history and other real world sources to profile you and optimally manipulate your behavior to sell y…

I hate to be that guy, but I'm going to guess you probably _do_ consent just by accessing certain sites. I'm sure if you read the terms they disclose that. I'm not saying that's right, and I also have a similar stance of trying not to be profiled, but don't delude yourself thinking your ad blocker is stopping organizations from gathering your metadata.

Since when is visiting a specific domain falls under the "I'm allowing 3rd party as well"? If that is in fact the TOS that needs to be shown before any content OR 3rd party, tracker, ad, etc. is loaded.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#250

Post by QasimK »

thinkMOAR wrote: post #229
otp124 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be realistic to whitelist egress on a production server, but certainly not at my mother’s house.

The safety of your mothers' e.g. online banking, privacy, computer data(pictures, home videos etc) is less important then the company you work for (and probably has insurance)? update: Apparently for many here, protecting your family is less important. Sort of happy you are not my son or daughter giving me computer advice.

The point is that if you do what you suggest, either maintaining your mothers’ devices becomes practically a full-time job where you are on call at all times (and you end up fully monitoring what she is doing even if you don’t want to know), or, from her perspective, the internet is “broken”. Probably both.
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