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The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

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Re: The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

#31

Post by lwansbrough »

Rjevski wrote: post #21
lwansbrough wrote: post #13

I co-run a network of websites that are ad supported. We'd consider our network to be quite optimized in terms of maximizing ad value. If you're unfamiliar with online advertising, 58 tracking services sounds like a lot. To me that just sounds like "optimized" header bidding -- ensuring you're (the publisher) getting the best value for the ads you're displaying. Google does a ton of work ensuring malicious content is…

> see many of the sites you use go out of business or have their ability to operate severely diminished. Or they could run quality ads in a non privacy-invasive manner (just like print ads) and be happy. > This is why GDPR is catastrophic for ad-based EU business. Running businesses based on shoving shit down people's throats isn't really a smart move to begin with so they should've seen it coming, and there were war…

> and be happy.

That certainly wouldn't make advertisers or publishers happy. "Quality ads" (from a consumer perspective, I understand what this means) don't make any money, because they aren't nearly as effective. So yeah, if a business carefully balances their spending with their ad earnings, switching to quality ads could destroy their business.

> Running businesses based on shoving shit down people's throats isn't really a smart move to begin with

My house, my rules. If there are strong market forces that are dictating that publishers change what kind of advertisements they show, so be it. Until then, you're choosing to visit my site, for free. In exchange, I serve you ads that I want you to see, and you get the content you came to see for free.

> there were warning signs already, first with people just ignoring the ads (because there are so many), then with ad blockers

Nothing about this is going to change unless people like you (and I) stop leeching off users who view ads with our ad blockers, or we start paying for our use. People don't ignore ads, by the way, they're quite effective. That's why there's a (massive) market for it.

Re: The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

#32

Post by beedogs »

flukus wrote: post #10
timbit42 wrote: post #8

According to my Ublock Origin, NoScript, Privacy Badger, and Cookie AutoDelete plugins, it's doing no such thing.

It's about time browsers started including UBlock Origin by default. Mozilla anyway, I can't see google doing it any time soon.

Their shareholders would sue in a nanosecond.

Re: The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

#33

Post by denkmoon »

lwansbrough wrote: post #13

I co-run a network of websites that are ad supported. We'd consider our network to be quite optimized in terms of maximizing ad value. If you're unfamiliar with online advertising, 58 tracking services sounds like a lot. To me that just sounds like "optimized" header bidding -- ensuring you're (the publisher) getting the best value for the ads you're displaying. Google does a ton of work ensuring malicious content is…

>be prepared to either: a.) pay your worth or b.) see many of the sites you use go out of business or have their ability to operate severely diminished.

Can't wait for this. The other day Facebook's COO said the same, if users want privacy they have to be willing to pay for it. Yet Facebook offer no such paid service.

Some (most?) people are happy to trade their personal data for free access. I am not. I prefer to pay for services I want. There are almost zero services where this is an option.

Re: The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

#34

Post by lwansbrough »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #24
kosei wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think it all plays out if everyone decides to block ads and not pay for content?

The best content - done by passionate individuals for no monetary reasons - will stay. The good content will be kept afloat by donations. The usual corporate content will be written off as "marketing expense". The ad-supported worthless crap will disappear. The Internet would become leaner, but I can't see how it would not also become better.

> The best content - done by passionate individuals for no monetary reasons - will stay.

That's assuming these people have other jobs (which will have to somehow be funded by something other than ads or selling data -- bye bye 90% of Silicon Valley.) Having other jobs means they won't be able to spend as much time on it and quality will suffer.

> The good content will be kept afloat by donations.

Donations often don't stretch beyond what's required to do the work that's been done before (people don't often donate once the donation goal has been reached.) This stifles growth.

> The usual corporate content will be written off as "marketing expense".

So companies that derive their value from the content they produce and sell ads on have to write off their entire business model as a "marketing expense". Good idea. Say goodbye to virtually all online publishing that isn't paywalled already.

> The ad-supported worthless crap will disappear. You mean like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, Twitter...?

Re: The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

#35

Post by lwansbrough »

beedogs wrote: post #30
kosei wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think it all plays out if everyone decides to block ads and not pay for content?

In that situation? Optimally. It plays out optimally. If everyone suddenly installed and ran an aggressive ad-blocker, we could strangle all of the tracking networks overnight and the Internet would become a noticeably nicer place. People who refuse to concede that allowing ads is functionally the same thing as inviting third parties to monitor your browsing patterns and invade your privacy are being disingenuous.

Explain to me how some of the world's most popular services would operate without advertising revenue?

Re: The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

#36

Post by lwansbrough »

denkmoon wrote: post #33
lwansbrough wrote: post #13

I co-run a network of websites that are ad supported. We'd consider our network to be quite optimized in terms of maximizing ad value. If you're unfamiliar with online advertising, 58 tracking services sounds like a lot. To me that just sounds like "optimized" header bidding -- ensuring you're (the publisher) getting the best value for the ads you're displaying. Google does a ton of work ensuring malicious content is…

>be prepared to either: a.) pay your worth or b.) see many of the sites you use go out of business or have their ability to operate severely diminished. Can't wait for this. The other day Facebook's COO said the same, if users want privacy they have to be willing to pay for it. Yet Facebook offer no such paid service. Some (most?) people are happy to trade their personal data for free access. I am not. I prefer to pa…

I think it would be a great feature, too. I'm all for privacy, but also understand the reality of importance that online advertising plays. It would be really interesting if something like GDPR would allow a company to claw back all of the data it provided to 3rd parties if a user decided to change their account from free to paid. Would be really messy technically, but I like it in theory.

Re: The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

#37

Post by fulafel »

lwansbrough wrote: post #35
beedogs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that situation? Optimally. It plays out optimally. If everyone suddenly installed and ran an aggressive ad-blocker, we could strangle all of the tracking networks overnight and the Internet would become a noticeably nicer place. People who refuse to concede that allowing ads is functionally the same thing as inviting third parties to monitor your browsing patterns and invade your privacy are being disingenuous.

Explain to me how some of the world's most popular services would operate without advertising revenue?

It's easy to see how "the Internet would become a noticeably nicer place" could be true while "some of the world's [previously] most popular services would operate" could be false at the same time.

Re: The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

#38

Post by fulafel »

gaius wrote: post #22
jlgaddis wrote: post #4

Yep... I understand that they aren't doing it for the primary purpose of "surveillance" or "tracking" -- the primary intention is advertising and analytics, of course -- but I do feel this sort of thing is hypocritical. Hell, my blog has Google Analytics and such on it and so I feel like I'm a hypocritic since I use uBlock Origin (with quite restrictive settings). I do intend to remove the analytics/trackers at some…

but I do feel this sort of thing is hypocritical Wait ‘til you find out where the Graun is based for tax purposes... Left-wing-ness is just a product that they sell. They don’t believe in it anymore than everyone in McDonald’s head office eats Big Macs every day...

They're centre-left, like the european social democractic mainstream, not against market economy. You should look elsewhere if you want a paper that doesn't bow to commercial interests.

Re: The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

#39

Post by nathanaldensr »

stblack wrote: post #16

I'm Steven Black and these are the hosts files some diligent friends and I continuously curate for you. Try the variant with the social media blocking if you really want to go cold turkey. https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Thanks to you and your friends! I've been using this HOSTS file for years on every device that allows me to edit it. Occasionally something otherwise missed by uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger will be caught by HOSTS and I'll see a nice "Can't connect to web server" message.

Re: The Guardian covertly sends your data to 58 tracking services

#40

Post by beagle3 »

lwansbrough wrote: post #28
downer63 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except, it's not optimized if I never wanted it in the first place. And by the way, I already pay over $150 for monthly internet, when I combine phone and cable/fiber, and I pay for about ten premium services including The New York Times, HBO, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, Youtube/Google and Netflix, and I still see ads, so what's going on here? What does an ad-free life actually cost? Tell me, I want to know. Or was that si…

Not sure where you get this sense of entitlement that nothing you use should cost money to use, when it costs money to build/maintain/run. "I already pay for gas, why should I have to pay the stores I drive to?" No, free (as in beer) has never been on the table. Free doesn't exist. I suppose an ad-free life costs what the market dictates, which it never has because of ads, thank goodness. I think if people had to pay…

People pay for everything they use, if they didn’t the economy would break.

They just pay indirectly - a cent of each sofa can distributes between the newspapers, product placement tv spots and internet sites that show ads for that soda producer.

If everyone paid directly for what they used the world would surely be a very different place but I see no reason for less innovation or less options.

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