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

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

#221

Post by pmoriarty »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #133
ghoomketu wrote: post #23

Pretty sure a big ban hammer is coming for Google with all such shenanigans, especially in trigger happy places like Europe and India who don't like their citizens tracked and are happy to create legislative bans. So you may win the cat and mouse adblock game but what are you gonna do when countries start making it illegal to use GA? (1) (1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2022/02/10/frenc... ?

I can't wait for this to happen. Personally I think we just need to ban all targeted advertising based on viewer profiles, even session data such as IP and geo-location. This in turn should severely limit or destroy business models based on optimizing for engagement, as non-paying users are no longer profitable. It's going to cost a lot of people in ad-tech their jobs, but there is no shortage of demand for IT work,…

"I think we just need to ban all targeted advertising based on viewer profiles, even session data such as IP and geo-location"

I'd go further and ban all unsolicited advertising.

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

#223

Post by Ansil849 »

l33t2328 wrote: post #153
paulryanrogers wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can it be legal for a government to make increasingly core services depend on these amoral, for profit monsters?

I’m not sure if this is a serious question, but what would this imaginary law say? The government can only do business with companies who aren’t in it for the money?

How about that government services must be built by the government?

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

#224

Post by miere »

altairprime wrote: post #170
gigel82 wrote: post #25

God 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…

How much would you pay per month for custom-per-site tracking blocking as described here?

up to $6.9 - which would be (roughly) $10 local bucks on my country.

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

#225

Post by olliej »

Animats wrote: post #172
olliej wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This was modded down, but commented on favorably. Am I wrong about this giving Google a backdoor into every web site that uses it?

It’s just another mechanism to maintain their existing spyware systems. What google absolutely depends on is having as much of the web as possible including their code.

Essentially: if every website includes some amount of their code it becomes increasingly difficult to block every tentacle. Presumably the goal is that it doesn’t matter if 90% of their crap is blocked by browsers: as long as a single tentacle leaks enough info on any given page they can track you.

How true this is in the face of privacy preserving vpns like Apple’s private relay I don’t know.

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

#226

Post by sdoering »

viraptor wrote: post #168

Fortunately, as bad as this is, I don't believe many companies will implement the worst version of it. (Server side + subdomain + different name scripts) The reason is that we had server-side analytics available for years and virtually every big website still implements the clientside part. If they can't be bothered with that, I don't expect they'll move the whole tag manager any time soon.

I have to agree. Working as consultant/data analyst none of the clients I know (most of them on the paid 360 version) are anywhere near to switching.

Complexity as well as the price tag for the proxy is keeping (even is it would be just a fraction of the 360 bill) keep them from jumping. But mostly the complexity and effort for the migration.

If the were to start from scratch they would probably go for it.

Additionally most data privacy departments actually have some influence nowadays. They would not stand by if marketing were to implement this and not honoring consent.

But there will surely be black sheep.

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

#227

Post by teekert »

gigel82 wrote: post #25

God 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…

“ I honestly don't know if there's any solution to this at all.”

How about the law? Like GDPR? My data is mine.

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

#228

Post by zwaps »

Crazy how evil Google is. Just wow.

Since this runs entirely on the domain of the website, it can easily ignore your privacy rights, with Google more or less washing their hands clean of it.

Indeed, if we take blocking trackers as expression of consent, the only possible reason this exists at all is to illegally circumvent privacy preferences.

In other words, if you work for Google, you are literally working for a criminal organization. How times have changed.

It seems the only possible option to retain privacy rights given to us by law (eg in the EU) is to disable JavaScript and cycle IPs or other fingerprinting features. None of that is realistic.

As a EU citizen, i hope that our ineffectual administration at least tries to fight this somehow. Of course, there is little hope.

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

#229

Post by tgv »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #46
halayli wrote: post #6

I am not sure OP has the proper background to discuss blocking ad+tracking techniques. Such utilities do a lot more than blocking domains. Blocking domains is just first step as it's the simplest and cheapest win. Signatures/Content inspection being sent can go a long way and can accurately identify patterns.

Pihole.

Doesn’t help against server side tracking.

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

#230

Post by volderette »

x0x0 wrote: post #137
chrisseaton wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google tag manager in my experience is a script executed by the browser. Isn't the whole point of this new change that it runs server-side, using a proxy that you install on the website so it uses the same domain? > Regardless, I use a DNS based ad blocker But it's the same domain name isn't it?

Current GTM, configured (via the server UI) to inject tracker X: gtm javascript loads, pulls down the config, injects tracker X javascript into the browser new gtm: gtm javascript loads, pulls down config, streams events to google servers to fan out to tracker X as configured So blocking gtm.js off tagmanager.google.com / www.googletagmanager.com / the various other domains still blocks all gtm injected tags. The tl;…

This is not how GTM server side works. There is not a single call to Google domains from the client, when GTM server side is set up to its fullest. The config (gtm.js) will be loaded from my subdomain and not googletagmanager.com. Also gtm.js can be renamed.
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