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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)

#491

Post by kall »

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…

Well, it‘s not the only possible reason (but probably the core one).

It will theoretically also improve website performance. I‘ve personally seen some bad things injected by GTM. For now, this doesn‘t actually work for the thousands of trackers by flimsy adtech companies, so I guess that benefit won‘t materialise.

I don‘t think this is really different from what usually happens with Segment and pretty much exactly what happens with (Cloudflare aquired) Zaraz. I guess the problem is that google is doing it and why.

In terms of blocking, isn‘t it good for you when a website uses segment? One script and you‘re done. For now, this looks like the same thing.

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

#492

Post by foxfluff »

chillacy wrote: post #115
anxrn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it can surely be obfuscated, but ultimately there will be a client-side function with near-identical functionality prevalent all over the web. It's harder, but seems possible to build an extension to identify this function.

Taken to its logical conclusion, this process reminds me of anti-virus software: finding code signatures and flagging sketchy code.

Exactly. And the end result might be as bad as antivirus: horrendously slow software with a huge database of heuristics that cause false positives and at the same time let malware through. It's going to suck.

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

#493

Post by latexr »

silentsea90 wrote: post #266
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 get privacy concerns and hate for ads, but what about "free" internet? Paywalls are a massive annoyance to me personally, and if ads were legislatively blocked, would I have to pay for each website I visit that previously relied on ads for $? Perhaps we could be making micro-transactions for each website visited via crypto (?)

Solutions for sending micro transactions to websites you visit have existed for over a decade[1], no cryptocurrencies or blockchains required.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr

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

#494

Post by RamblingCTO »

Cederfjard wrote: post #357
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…

Not taking a moral stance here, just curious what laws you think have been broken in this instance?

Technically none. But google helps circumvent protections that would prevent illegal cases where website owners are breaking the law. Now we can't defend ourselves any more. Would be fun to see if any law makers would consider this abedment (?) or even go directly after google for this kind of thing.

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

#495

Post by friendzis »

KronisLV wrote: post #314
simongray wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are solutions to most of that, e.g. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/consent-o-matic/md...

Those are (nice) solutions to a problem that shouldn't be allowed to (legally) exist. The industry shouldn't be allowed to play clever with the ways to coerce their users into giving up their information just because they know that most of those users are not interested in navigating difficult dialogs.

This particular behavior is actually illegal. GDPR [Recital 32] clearly states that "Consent should be given by a clear affirmative act Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent."

[Recital 32]: https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/

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

#496

Post by latexr »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #331
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…

Maybe using an archive.is-like service No that has turned to shit (for me anyway). Used to be fine, now presents a captcha when JS off. Okay so I switch from Firefox to Safari (where I leave JS on) and it still presents a captcha. I'd rather use the original site with JS than solve captchas. That has been my consistent recent experience for a multitude of those. or a Tor-like service I've never used Tor, but aren't t…

> didn't Apple make claims that they would soon have an opt-in service that did something like this?

iCloud Private Relay[1]. It’s in beta.

[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212614

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

#497

Post by csunbird »

fxtentacle wrote: post #375
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…

I'd say when it comes to privacy laws, the EU is actually doing better than almost any other countries. Yes, they could be faster, but the GDPR is still a big win for users everywhere. And a pita for Facebook / Google, which is intentional.

Laws are meaningless if they are not enforced. It has been more than 3 years and all kind of illegal cookie banners, unauthorized processing of the data and data leaks without any discourse to the public are still there.

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

#498

Post by achairapart »

sdoering wrote: post #244

Disclaimer: I am a data analyst. I consult companies in regards to ethical data collection. But I also know of black sheep. I don't have a problem with websites measuring what I view, click, add to cart or buy. I want them to be able to see what doesn't work in terms of user experience. And if they do marketing I even want them to be able to see from which source of traffic (aka marketing effort) how many conversions…

While I agree with the ethical matter, from what I understand Google offered some form of server-side analytics APIs since ages[0]. I know, this is different from this new GTM server-side thing, but nonetheless it already offered technical ways of proxy-tracking data with whatever infrastructure available, also circumventing ad-blockers.

This to say that this server-side approach is nothing totally new. I'm sure some big business already implemented it, you can't just easily notice it everywhere like the client-side counterpart. The difference here is that now Google has tinkered some ready made solution, using its own infrastructure.

Maybe it's also a matter of convenience: It has always been mostly trivial to setup some JS to collect this data (often, as easy as just pasting a single script tag in your HTML). Once you need App Engine, DNS setup, etc not every business will likely jump into all this technical burden, and this could slow the adoption of the whole server-side tracking.

Or maybe not. Who knows.

[0]: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/...

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

#499

Post by thirdvect0r »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #490
suction wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

That's definitely not trolling, that's just correct. We have nice laws and stuff, but it's not widely enforced and almost all websites do not implement these laws correctly. So why is it trolling? You also need to enforce it and make it hurt.

Twitter has convinced everyone on the Internet that people who have even midly divergent views about their government of choice are "Russian bots".

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

#500

Post by kall »

sdoering wrote: post #244

Disclaimer: I am a data analyst. I consult companies in regards to ethical data collection. But I also know of black sheep. I don't have a problem with websites measuring what I view, click, add to cart or buy. I want them to be able to see what doesn't work in terms of user experience. And if they do marketing I even want them to be able to see from which source of traffic (aka marketing effort) how many conversions…

On the conversion tracking point, because I just wrote a privacy policy section on this: I just send the conversion event for the ad, but the advertiser almost certainly has all the user info tied to that already, right? I can say "not my department" but still.

Of course facebook would prefer you just send it all app events, in perpetuity, just in case.

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