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Disqus, a dark commenting system

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Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#11

Post by Talanes »

unicornporn wrote: post #7
yborg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will do nothing. They will take the sub revenue and keep the current privacy monetization too. The only way to stop it is legislation.

Exactly. This blog clearly showed that tracking remained even after switching to a paid plan. These companies have tasted the forbidden fruit of surveillance capitalism and they won't roll back voluntarily.

The market-based approach wouldn't have these companies rolling back their surveillance, but consumers en masse moving over to paid, privacy-focused alternatives.

I don't actually consider this remotely likely, but the world is getting weirder, so I'm not writing off the highly improbable so easily.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#14

Post by input_sh »

andrewflnr wrote: post #12

What are good self-hosted alternatives? I remember looking at Commento ( https://github.com/adtac/commento ) before, but if people have had good experiences with others I'd like to hear them.

I've seen some examples in which people embed Discourse discussions.

There's also Coral (https://github.com/coralproject/talk) which used to be Mozilla + Vox project before Mozilla handed it over to Vox completely, but I have no experience with it.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#15

Post by SahAssar »

unicornporn wrote: post #8

How is this GDPR compliant? What tracking is used for EU citizens? I've seen no consent notices here in the EU.

It isn't, but I'm guessing their argument is that the website owner should get consent before loading their code. Of course in practice basically no one does that and they seem to be banking on that fact.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#16

Post by andreareina »

andrewflnr wrote: post #12

What are good self-hosted alternatives? I remember looking at Commento ( https://github.com/adtac/commento ) before, but if people have had good experiences with others I'd like to hear them.

I helped someone set up discourse[1] a long time ago, don't know how it stands up these days; it's got basically zero presence in the parts of the web I'm around.

[1] https://www.discourse.org/

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#17

Post by 3np »

SahAssar wrote: post #15
unicornporn wrote: post #8

How is this GDPR compliant? What tracking is used for EU citizens? I've seen no consent notices here in the EU.

It isn't, but I'm guessing their argument is that the website owner should get consent before loading their code. Of course in practice basically no one does that and they seem to be banking on that fact.

Disqus is not necessarily off the hook here. GDPR identifies several roles with different requirements (Data Processor, Data Controller)

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#18

Post by tal8d »

ivolimmen wrote: post #2

At some point, and I feel it is close, we need to subscribe to stuff and simply pay for the stuff we want and need to use. The internet always have been a place where most stuff is free and people got used to that. At some point after that the dark parts and ad parts of the web will reside; but I do not think it will completely disappear.

I've been around long enough to remember a time when the web was full of content that didn't originate from profit motive. Just a bunch of people talking about their interests and sharing their creations. Even the stuff that was commercially motivated was largely innocuous, because they were focused more on brand awareness - which doesn't need a surveillance system. All that personal interest stuff is still out there, despite all the insistence that the only alternative to the ad-supported-spy-machine paradigm is a subscription model. I really wouldn't mind seeing all the click seeking platforms get wrecked, because they incentivize the most useless and annoying noise.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#19

Post by strogonoff »

yborg wrote: post #3
ivolimmen wrote: post #2

At some point, and I feel it is close, we need to subscribe to stuff and simply pay for the stuff we want and need to use. The internet always have been a place where most stuff is free and people got used to that. At some point after that the dark parts and ad parts of the web will reside; but I do not think it will completely disappear.

That will do nothing. They will take the sub revenue and keep the current privacy monetization too. The only way to stop it is legislation.

If a service is paid while allowing itself to engage in data mining and monetisation, it will lose most of its paying users to a more ethical competitor as soon as someone bothers to read the ToS.

If a paid service engages in data mining in violation of its own ToS, it is liable to be punished by law as soon as that leaks, so that’s another counter-incentive.

The expectation of free service is what enables shady practices: new companies can hardly compete on price with a giant that doesn’t charge money and is incentivised to keep users locked in by making migration to another service difficult.

Re: Disqus, a dark commenting system

#20

Post by supz_k »

andrewflnr wrote: post #12

What are good self-hosted alternatives? I remember looking at Commento ( https://github.com/adtac/commento ) before, but if people have had good experiences with others I'd like to hear them.

Yep, commento is a great self-hosted alternative.

There's also Isso[1] and utterances[2] (Github issues based)

[1] - https://posativ.org/isso/ [2] - https://github.com/utterance/utterances

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