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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

#281
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point is, that you make assumptions how much work it actually is and i am not, as i do this with almost everybody that asks me for such 'help' (after fixing, cleaning etc their machines).

Stating it will be a full time job is such an overstatement, i'd almost call it a blatant lie. Your mom is on FB, YT, and maybe a handful of other sites daily (so no popups for those or decisions to take there). You could also monitor and log and then apply block/allow rules later for when you visit for coffee or dinner. (if you want to reply something here about unprotected in that period, think about all the new bad urls not on such url lists yet for apps like uBlock)

And i only get positive feedback how well it works and how much they learned about websites and other internet services, the information leaked to 3rd parties, cooperation between companies. Even scared some contacts i have from social media like FB, Instagram and alike. Makes them a lot more aware of what is going on instead of giving them a list of known crap urls, again, maintained by some samaritan in an attic. Nice effort, i just think its fair from sufficient nowadays on the internet. In the time it takes these people to update the list, 1000 new crap urls have been registered.

And doesn't take that much time, sure you have to put in some more time then, simply telling people to install uBlock (or similar) and tell them that they are safe and secure with this application. I prefer to educate properly instead of just throwing some half *ed solution their way and having them figure out it fails in the end anyway.

Another note, the internet is broken, broken in many ways. And _you_ know this else you would not suggest any protection, apps like uBlock.

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

#282

I wonder why the major websites are not going for the old way of "self-hosted" ads where the ad networks buy a space in the website and the website shows it at that space from their own domain and it is harmless.. That I'd consider allowing in my laptop. It's not the ads themselves that make me run to the blockers. It's their creepiness and tracking. If they're just images shown same to everybody, then I'm okay.

But the millions of people working at news websites and at ad companies need to feed themselves and their families. What do you have to say to them?

I think I was not clear. I meant to say that instead of hitting the users with creepy ads that the users block anyway or have developed a "mental ignore",

May be the ad companies can sell harmless image ads that content publishers can serve from the same domain as the content is. No tracking, no user customizations. The user knows what they click. Why would millions of people working at ad companies go out of business in the above scenario?

The ines that are writing creepy user tracking code will have to go. But, I don't sympathize with them. They will find some Tyler's meaningful to do with their skills.

Imho, just because millions are doing/depending on the creepy stuff doesn't justify their presence.

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

#283
I've been using uBlock since it came out and I just immediately leave those sites that don't function unless I disable it. Whatever content they have, someone else likely has a "good enough" alternative.

I also happen to run a blog (no where near a major website) but my thought process is, you should write because you want to spread what you've learned with others, not create a platform for the sole purpose of making money.

To me, having a visitor on your site is a privilege. Why would you go out of your way to interrupt and attempt to manipulate them, yet that's what so many large sites do. There's other ways to make money rather than tormenting your users.

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

#284
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I'm sure if you read the terms they disclose that. As an average person, if you spend 8 hours a day reading all the terms and conditions you 'agree' to, it would take you 76 days to just read them, nevermind understand them. http://techland.time.com/2012/03/06/youd-need-76-work-days-t... I'm not actually sure how we ended up living in a world where those terms and conditions are legally meaningful. But I'll reitera…

> I'm not actually sure how we ended up living in a world where those terms and conditions are legally meaningful

IANAL, but as an European I'm pretty sure they aren't legally meaningful. To be honest, I don't consider any online T&C's to actually affect me, and only pay attention to explicitly mentioned licenses for content. I have no idea how far from actual reality this is.

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

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Data about you is not necessarily owned by you.

I don't necessarily agree fully, but even then we can discuss the morality of selling the data to trackers without informing the user, let alone not giving them a choice to opt out before viewing the content.

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

#286
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.

I don't think they can enforce their TOC just by opening the page. I need to open it just to read the TOC in the first place. By reading this comment you consent to agreeing with it.

It doesn't work that way.

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

#287

I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. Maybe if (1) fewer ads pumped up CPU and memory usage for a page, and (2) companies didn't give their non-technical asshole free reign over placing scripts on the page, then maybe many of these sites wouldn't be so bad to visit without an ad blocker.

I don’t have any philosophical objection to advertising or even tracking, really, but ads have gotten so bad that they destroy user experience and make it impossible to read the sites I want to read.

If advertisers would agree to some behavior standards, I’d happily re-enable ads. Somebody has to pay for content.

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

#288

I've started noticing this from Google, among others. Tracking scripts are no longer explicitly named as such, or they're prefixed with some slug or GUID alongside the legitimate "functional" scripts. It's getting to a point where you need to actively monitor every network request the site makes. It's despicable and I have nothing but ill will for the data scientists, software engineers, and product managers who part…

Honestly, if you despise them so much, you should just stop using their services for free. I really don't understand this sense of entitlement.

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

#289

I've started noticing this from Google, among others. Tracking scripts are no longer explicitly named as such, or they're prefixed with some slug or GUID alongside the legitimate "functional" scripts. It's getting to a point where you need to actively monitor every network request the site makes. It's despicable and I have nothing but ill will for the data scientists, software engineers, and product managers who part…

Wait for webassembly.

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

#290

In the beginning, I tried to avoid ad-blockers in the beginning out of consideration for the sustainability of the content providers. It took one site for me to start using ad-blockers. Facebook: they persistently were showing me ads for online MBA programs when I already had completed a better brick-and-mortar one. I recall that I tried complaining and got no response. For some psychological reason, that did it. I i…

I've actually tried telling the company that purchased a useless ad that it's wasting its money- to no avail. I still see ads for something I won't re-purchase for five years or so.
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