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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)

#411

Post by teekert »

teekert wrote: post #227
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.

I mean, technically there is nothing stopping me from following anybody around, documenting their actions, taking pictures. It's easy... But we have laws that prevent this because we decided together that we do not like this.

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

#412

Post by c0balt »

probotect0r wrote: post #147
coffeefirst wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Everything in the article is wrong. GTM is still GTM and can be trivially blocked; the container itself isn't moving server-side. It's just gained the ability to proxy data to third parties instead of needing to load scripts for every tracker. This is better for performance, and should be explicitly in control of exactly what data is passed on to where. All you really lose is the ability to block a subset of a…

How are you going to block it "trivially" if you don't know which script to block? They recommend changing the name of the GTM script, and paired with changing the content slightly, you won't be able to tell which script is GTM and which is actually important to the functioning of the site.

+It's gonna be very hard to detect once they actually bundle up (which I suspect only a few will do) the tag manager and obfuscate

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

#414

Post by Cthulhu_ »

zwaps wrote: post #228

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 cr…

> Since this runs entirely on the domain of the website, it can easily ignore your privacy rights.

This is not exactly correct; unless the user consents, they still can't transmit this data to any 3rd party. I mean they can, but they're not allowed to. I mean they're not allowed to, but IF they investigate and IF they find evidence that data is shared with third parties and IF they can be arsed to proceed with legal action, the company using this technology MIGHT be in trouble.

It does work to circumvent ad- and tracking blockers though, if they can hide the endpoint and scripts well enough.

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

#415

Post by Cthulhu_ »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #338
zwaps wrote: post #228

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 cr…

Crazy how evil Google is. Just wow. Yeah, but there are a lot of employees there who check their bank accounts twice a month and say: "Just wow". Venial evil is easily bought. Edit: As a EU citizen I really hate to even say this, but "Crazy Vlad" nearby is what true evil is about.

That's the thing here, morals are flexible for most people if there's a decent paycheck on the other side. It's another reason why politics are so corrupt these days. There's plenty of ways to avoid direct corruption, via "campaign funds", board of director seats, and lucrative corporate positions after a political career - most recently there's Nick Clegg, a former UK politician who will now be paid $15 million a year and probably bonuses and stocks as well to represent Facebook.

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

#416

Post by fsflover »

zwaps wrote: post #228

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 cr…

If you want to support the fight for privacy in EU, consider supporting https://edri.org.

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

#417

Post by fsflover »

mlatu wrote: post #323
boudin wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't blame the lawmaker for the bad behaviour of people who are trying to bypass it... If you're on such website, you know that the website itself shouldn't be trusted.

the laws are teethless if they are not enforced, and playing hot potatoe with responsibilities like is the case with Max Schrems makes it all laughable. dont blame the lawmaker for participants bad behaviour? well, ok. allright. but i DO blame the responsible authorities for licking the misbehaving participants' boots

> the laws are teethless if they are not enforced

https://www.enforcementtracker.com/

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

#418

Post by Semaphor »

Arnavion wrote: post #320
Semaphor wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You just have to write them by hand instead of the convenient table UI. That’s a pretty big "just", though. Very few sites work without fiddling with rules, having to do manual text entry every time would push me towards not using it. The UI of uMatrix is generally far superior to the mobile-friendly, simplified one of uBo.

>That’s a pretty big "just", though. It is, but for me the pros outweigh the cons. In particular, even with uM I often ended up editing the rules by hand because it was easier to copy-paste and turn on and off rules for experimenting, but uM would forcibly resort the rules on save which made that annoying. >Very few sites work without fiddling with rules, The only sites I fiddle with the rules of are the ones I visit…

I have almost 7000 rules for a 260kb file ;)

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

#419

Post by FeepingCreature »

brnaftr361 wrote: post #276
FeepingCreature wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you asserting that it is your current opinion that slavery was morally OK in the US, because it was morally accepted at the time? (Warning: this is a trap question, do not answer yes, the only socially accepted answer is no)

Dru, I'm gonna take an adversarial point of view here. Wrong is wrong, and the magnitudes aren't really comparable at the resolution of the individual. At the maximum, according to Statista, there were about 4mn slaves. There are about 5bn people online, out of what is projected to be 8bn. While there are certainly cultural boundaries, that 5bn almost certainly interfaces with Google. So taking a step back and lookin…

Purely numerically comparing it, assuming slavery counts as a life spent in suffering, and there's a 1:1000 factor, given a forty year life expectancy, Google must cause the equivalent of 14 slavery-equivalent-suffering-days or more to be worse.

How many days of back-breaking labor and abuse would you put in to get freedom from Google tracking for the rest of your life? For me at three days, it'd be arguable; three weeks would be a stretch. (Of course, I have no actual experience to compare.)

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

#420

Post by M2Ys4U »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #332
CommanderData wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR has been a massive win for user/consumer rights. Its a piece of legislation law makers in the US are trying to mimic. Surprisingly the UK are trying to rid or weaken GDPR significantly after brexit. The only way to fix this problem now is through strong legislation.

Did it really make the world a better place? Most sites collect as much data as ever, but now we need many more clicks, and can't have nice things like photos from kindergarden parties anymore.

The GDPR applies to everything outside of purely personal/household activities - it's not limited to websites.
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