Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)

#91

Post by strogonoff » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:32 AM UTC

gernb wrote: post #81

Teever wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it so strange that if you or I were to do these kinds of things to an individual it would be considered creepy cyber stalking but when companies do it they are rewarded?

Do what? Record who came in and out of your house?

Imagine if Google offered a retail solution advertised as “record who came in and out of your house”. They would offer a CCTV for free and run centralized face recognition on everybody visiting. They’d give you a bit of stats, but truly they would aggregate data on where people go and build shadow profiles (supposedly to facilitate ad targeting). And imagine 90% of households were using it.

Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)

#92

Post by olliej » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:32 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #86

Wait, Google wants to proxy the entire internet through Google servers? Just so ad tracking will work? This lets Google spy on the entire session in both directions, right?

And also makes it harder for any alternative - you can’t use two different systems to proxy the same content at the same time, and you can’t expect one company to not “protect user privacy” by filtering competitors.

Honestly the only reason this is even an option for google is because a bunch of web admins said “I want to know who is browsing my site, and who cares if that lets google spy on every person who uses my site”, and now they’re just offering this “improvement” to spying.

Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)

#93

Post by seandoe » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:33 AM UTC

Saris wrote: post #80

chrisseaton wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you do that? Isn't it the server that talks to Google Tag Manager, not the browser?

Just block the GTM js from loading, it'll stop it easily.

The big change they are suggesting is that the gtm code is no longer accessed via a predictable Google domain, rather it is requested through a subdomain of the parent site.

Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)

#94

Post by gumby » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:34 AM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #63

gumby wrote: post #41

I am fascinated that the popular press has described this as Google adding privacy (which is how google describes it of course) where really it’s a massive escalation of their spying network.

I wouldn't be surprised if much of the popular reporting on it are just press releases.

Seems like it, even in the big papers/sites

Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)

#95

Post by meibo » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:34 AM UTC

gzer0 wrote: post #88

Increasingly, the only solution I see to this is Apple's Private Relay [1]. "When Private Relay is in use, the user’s device opens up a connection to the first internet relay (also known as the “ingress proxy”). As the user browses, their original IP address is visible to the first internet relay and to the network they are connected to. However, the website names requested by the user are encrypted and cannot be see…

To what is a VPN a solution? It prevents IP tracking, but that's it. The rest of what is described here still works.

Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)

#96

Post by arvindamirtaa » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:34 AM UTC

I use brave which has a "Brave shield" that disables GTM from loading altogether by default. Would that solve this issue?

Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)

#97

Post by rnotaro » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:34 AM UTC

gzer0 wrote: post #88

Increasingly, the only solution I see to this is Apple's Private Relay [1]. "When Private Relay is in use, the user’s device opens up a connection to the first internet relay (also known as the “ingress proxy”). As the user browses, their original IP address is visible to the first internet relay and to the network they are connected to. However, the website names requested by the user are encrypted and cannot be see…

I don't really have a great knowledge of the Tor Network but is that not really similar to a Tor Relay?

Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)

#98

Post by olliej » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:36 AM UTC

danhilltech wrote: post #27

Server-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…

1) can be done trivially with first party cookies.

2) you can already tell what device someone is using. If you mean “I want to know if the same person is on different devices” get them to login, don’t try in effectively spy while also providing google etc with the ability to actually spy

3)you cannot know how to target ads on a per user basis unless you are spying on your users. You have no justification that supports a claim to such information.

Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)

#99

Post by bskrobisz » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:37 AM UTC

gernb wrote: post #81

Teever wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it so strange that if you or I were to do these kinds of things to an individual it would be considered creepy cyber stalking but when companies do it they are rewarded?

Do what? Record who came in and out of your house?

And leave a webcam on the door of every single person I'm professionally engaged with, to record their visitors? Use it to understand where each of those persons spends all of their time, to the best of my capability? Learn who has what vices, and sell that information (or a service to employ it) to anyone who would take advantage?

Re: Google Tag Manager, the new anti-adblock weapon (2020)

#100

Post by newscracker » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:38 AM UTC

> How can adblockers react?
…
> Automatically detect these "1st party" calls to the "proxy" server via the URL parameters sent. Except that these URL parameters will change from one site to another, depending on the library used, the page viewed, etc

> Detect the javascript library responsible for calls to the "proxy" server to block its execution. Except that you should not simply detect the javascript library provided by Google, but potentially all the javascript tracking libraries, even home libraries.

Seems like this would be a great case for AI/ML. I say that in half jest.

> Block the IP addresses of these proxy servers.

This seems doable, even with the caveats included in it.

Even if these measures work on some sites and not others, they would be valuable.

Meanwhile, please get your non-tech circle to use ad blockers and/or browsers that support ad blockers on desktops, laptops and mobile. And instruct them that browsers that don’t support ad blockers are from a “be evil corporation”.