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Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

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Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#311

Post by brokenmachine »

bassman9000 wrote: post #278
minitoar wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the data in aggregate is worth more than people like you would pay for an ad-free service.

Very likely. I'd pay hundreds of dollars a year to G ogle if they guaranteed* me, with severe legal repercussions otherwise, that they wouldn't track me, or allow a single bit of my data, anonymized or not, leave their servers, or be used in any other way that wasn't for my own purpose. Re-selling digital personas as commodities must be far more lucrative.

> Gogle

Is that the evil twin?

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#312

Post by MzHN »

Nick-Craver wrote: post #68

I just wanted to chime in from Stack Overflow here and let people know: we are aware of the issue. And we're NOT okay with it. We're trying to sort out how to kill the audio behavior now. It's not very straightforward to find where it's coming from, but we are working on it. We've also reached out to Google for their assistance in tracking it down. If anyone can offer advice, we'll more than happily take it. - Nick C…

So, we have:

- Stack Overflow makes a blog post about not using dynamic ads.

- Dynamic ads found on Stack Overflow, with aggressive fingerprinting.

- Architecture Lead doesn't know how this happened and is getting serious.

I have so many questions. I hope this gets a post-mortem.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#313

Post by anbop »

craftinator wrote: post #160
keyle wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you know, we wouldn't stop serving ads until we work it out... no no imagine the loss in revenues.

Let's be adults here. This is SO, and I imagine you've used and enjoyed the use of their services just like the rest of us. Support them by letting passive ads sit on the edges of the page, and appreciate that they are actually trying to solve this issue.

Users gave StackOverflow its entire business by making it the #1 place for programming. Now it’s StackOverflow’s responsibility to treat those users fairly. Since companies in this position often renege on this social contract, users have to turn to Big Government to regulate those who refuse to self-regulate.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#314

Post by m_mueller »

haasted wrote: post #302
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could just not use Stack Overflow.

Right. And he could ditch his keyboard as well.

some money changed hands to acquire that keyboard though. paid model has failed for Q&A content, see experts exchange - they need to live somehow.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#315

Post by brokenmachine »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #186
wang_li wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why one of several things should happen. The first option is that there be legal requirements to adhere to public standards if you are a content distributor. And that any standards compliant client side software be allowed to use the service. In some areas we're in a world where your telephone carrier sells you your telephone, e.g. twitter, apple's imessage, etc. Other options would be that if you are a cont…

What kind of legal requirement can thwart a multinational corporation? The UN cannot enforce any laws, the only supra-national entity with this power is the EU (see GDPR). It's easier to just use Firefox with uBlock Origin, Cookie AutoDelete, etc etc.

Individual legal requirements in each jurisdiction.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#316

Post by ehnto »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #76

"It's not very straightforward to find where it's coming from, but we are working on it." This encapsulates the entire problem with the current state of digital advertising in 1 simple sentence.

It's amazing to me that an advert can run arbitrary javascript at all. It wasn't long ago that this would have been seen as a massive security risk by site owners and ad platforms alike. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that perhaps it's a structured service provided by the ad network, and the ad buyer just checks a box. But as a site owner even that would be too much for me.

I've been playing around with ideas about more ethical analytics and advertising, and I think they're pretty easily built platforms. But the question is are they marketable? Would GloboCorp and MarketingCo give up the ability to track consumers so closely in favor of a more ethical approach, or has it been too valuable for them to give up?

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#317

Post by baroffoos »

mikeash wrote: post #150
nerdponx wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wish I could upvote this 1,000 times. It's ridiculous. It's a text-based ad. At worst, it's a clickable image. At what point did it become okay in your minds to let advertisers run arbitrary code? I've left ads turned on specifically on StackOverflow because 1) I want to support StackOverflow, and 2) I trust them not to run malicious ads. I don't even care that they're running ads network-wide. But if they're going t…

It’s completely insane. Can you imagine a TV station receiving ads on tapes and playing them to their audience without looking at them first? Can you imagine TV stations occasionally showing ads containing porn, urging people to kill, showing extreme violence during cartoons, or containing specially crafted audio that blows out your speakers, and the TV station just shrugs and says they try their best to stop these t…

The state of web ads is closer to the public pinboard only instead of having ads for grandmas couch its Mr CEO trying every trick to drain your money and track you.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#318

Post by brokenmachine »

rocky1138 wrote: post #126
keithwinstein wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a passage of Carl Sagan's "Contact" that's on point and interesting to read 34 years later. The billionaire who helps to decode the Message (from outer space) and ends up building the working copy of the Machine made his fortune by selling tools to detect and block ads from television. There is some discussion of the technical cat-and-mouse game he has to play as advertisers try to make their content avoid de…

I feel that it may go the other way: that receiving communication from a source that is supported by ad revenue while knowingly and actively bypassing those same ads will be seen as theft. I fully expect lobbyists to push for this and see some success in the next 10 years.

Placing images I have not requested on a display that I own is vandalism.

I agree that the lobbyists will win. I wish we had politicians with some moral character though.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#319

Post by baroffoos »

rsj_hn wrote: post #132
ndiscussion wrote: post #111

How We Make Money at Stack Overflow: 2016 Edition: Quality ads. "...we don’t want to use an automated system that selects some ads for us. We looked at this. It didn’t allow us the control we required to maintain the level of quality we want to maintain." How We Make Money at Stack Overflow: 2019 Edition: Taking money from Microsoft and Google fingerprinting our users 100+ ways source: https://stackoverflow.blog/2016…

Your options, as I see them. 1. Text based ads only (no third party js) 2. HTML based ads but no js (run it through DOMPurify https://github.com/cure53/DOMPurify ) 3. Look for a js sandbox -- this _will_ break arbitrary js, will not be supported in all browsers, and will require dev work on your side: * Google Caja https://github.com/google/caja * MentalJS https://github.com/hackvertor/MentalJS other options are avai…

There are plenty of ad networks that do not allow advertisers to run JS. You have to run the ad networks script but that's the only one.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#320

Post by saagarjha »

enriquto wrote: post #304
saagarjha wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing the resolution sounds like it would break a lot of websites, though.

and these websites certainly deserve to be broken!

Uh, I’m not sure I agree. Any website that needs to do nontrivial layout will query the browser viewport size.
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