Forgive me if this is ignorant. Wouldn't an adblock simply need to inject an impersonation payload into the page, so the report would send incorrect attribution to the proxy server?
Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)
31–40 of 902 posts
Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)
#32God damn... this is it, this is the end-game. There's no way to fight this unless you customize and maintain blocking scripts for each individual website. Yes, websites could always have done this, but the REST (CDN-bypassing) requests' cost and the manual maintenance for the telemetry endpoints and storage was an impediment that Google just gives them a drop-in solution for :( I think Google is happy to eat some of…
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Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)
#33Server-side tracking has been around for a while (indeed this article is dated Nov 15, 2020; and of course, you could argue simply parsing your Apache/nginx logs to get visitor stats has existed forever). The article I think conflates several different pieces. There's probably a few actual use cases marketers may care about for tagging/tracking/analytics: 1. Simplest: I want to know how many people use my site/app, h…
> 3. Run your own JS that sends events to your server
If your platform is popular enough, those telemetry endpoints will end-up on ad-blockers lists.
Then it is up to you, if you want to do an arms race of obfuscation or just accept it.
Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)
#34Server-side tracking has been around for a while (indeed this article is dated Nov 15, 2020; and of course, you could argue simply parsing your Apache/nginx logs to get visitor stats has existed forever). The article I think conflates several different pieces. There's probably a few actual use cases marketers may care about for tagging/tracking/analytics: 1. Simplest: I want to know how many people use my site/app, h…
> 3. Run your own JS that sends events to your server If your platform is popular enough, those telemetry endpoints will end-up on ad-blockers lists. Then it is up to you, if you want to do an arms race of obfuscation or just accept it.
totally
Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)
#35So it’s finally come down to “turn off JavaScript, or be infinitely tracked”?
And all cookies, else pixel trackers and serverside analytics can still identify your device. Don't need JS to set a cookie.
They can identify a device. Without JavaScript, you don't have nasty client-side hints telling sites exactly what OS, CPUs, Graphics Cards, etc. With a VPN and changing your UA, no JavaScript does a pretty good job at preventing sites from tracking you.
Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)
#36God damn... this is it, this is the end-game. There's no way to fight this unless you customize and maintain blocking scripts for each individual website. Yes, websites could always have done this, but the REST (CDN-bypassing) requests' cost and the manual maintenance for the telemetry endpoints and storage was an impediment that Google just gives them a drop-in solution for :( I think Google is happy to eat some of…
Apple’s Private Relay blocks this type of cross site tracking.
Given this tracking is all server side, third party cookies across sites aren’t possible using this mechanism, and private relay cycles through your IP addresses frequently and uses common IPs across multiple users.
Regarding your other point, unless Google execs want to be thrown in jail / sued, they can’t use things like first party cookies for their benefit since that is against their terms of service.
Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)
#37So long as we're on the topic of fighting ad targeting... if you've never heard of uBlock Origin, you should get it. It's probably the reason YouTube still thinks I'm Hispanic. I love my poorly targeted ads. Easier to ignore.
Just use Brave and you won’t see any YouTube ads at all. It even works on mobile.
Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)
#38God damn... this is it, this is the end-game. There's no way to fight this unless you customize and maintain blocking scripts for each individual website. Yes, websites could always have done this, but the REST (CDN-bypassing) requests' cost and the manual maintenance for the telemetry endpoints and storage was an impediment that Google just gives them a drop-in solution for :( I think Google is happy to eat some of…
> Maybe using an archive.is-like service that renders the static page (as an image at the extreme)
A lot of companies are starting to use "browser isolation" which is essentially what you're saying. A proxy runs between the client and the server, but it does more than just direct TLS streams - it actually builds the DOM and executes the JS. The resulting web page is sent to the actual client browser, which might send back things like mouse and touch events to the proxy, which will then update the page.
I think most companies are using this as a malware protection thing, but it does hide the actual client IP address and fingerprint, and I imagine it would make tracking very difficult.
Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)
#39Wouldn't it be possible for a potential client-side blocker for this to intercept the gtag() method invoked on the client side ("Tag Manager web container"), even if that function is provided by a script hosted on the website owner's domain, as Google recommends[1]?
[1] https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/tag-manager/serve...
Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)
#40So long as we're on the topic of fighting ad targeting... if you've never heard of uBlock Origin, you should get it. It's probably the reason YouTube still thinks I'm Hispanic. I love my poorly targeted ads. Easier to ignore.
Just use Brave and you won’t see any YouTube ads at all. It even works on mobile.
Youtube via Brave on my iPad refuses to stream anything above 720p most of the time. As a result I just use it less.