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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)

#541

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jacquesm wrote: post #269
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…

Marketing is almost by definition not going to act ethically: their whole goal is to create a need where there isn't an organic one, and the KPIs by which marketing departments are run are proof positive of that. Nobody starts off with 'what would be the natural limit of our product sales', instead they start off with 'what is the total addressable market and how do we maximize our fraction of that' implying that if…

> their whole goal is to create a need where there isn't an organic one

This is reductionist. Was telling people about trains and cars creating a need where there wasn’t one? In a sense. But in another sense, it was broadcasting a better way of being. Marketing doesn’t have to be evil. Saying all marketing is evil is sort of a cop out for the people who do it badly.

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

#542

Post by cascom »

shadowgovt wrote: post #508
eps wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's crazy is how openly anti-individual Google is. They explicitly and aggressively facilitate practices that virtually every single person is against.

... in the tech-commentary echo chamber, perhaps. The outside world is more apathetic than hostile to it.

It shouldn’t be on the todo list of the average user to be knowledgeable on this subject, just like the average consumer should not have to be an expert in airbags to expect the ones installed in their car to work.

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

#543

Post by avgcorrection »

jevgeni wrote: post #522
avgcorrection wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really fits the EU fan stereotype to immediately complain that someone expressing their subjective opinion “aids populists”. Maybe they are wrong that the EU is ineffectual. If so, just argue against that.

You're not exactly leading by example, arguing off a stereotype...

Are you charging me with hypocrisy? Ok here’s the difference:

- “Ineffectual EU”: this could be a well-informed or badly informed opinion. Or it could be a lazy stereotype. The OP did not elaborate so we have no way of knowing that at this point.

- “EU stereotypes → aids populists”: the reasoning or association being drawn is right there in the post—You said A (or rather my interpretation of A) and that causes B.

My own point was simply that one can make a counter-argument instead of complaining about how a certain assertion aids populists.

Could my point have been made without the EU fan stereotype charge? Sure. But taking the high road at all costs is not my personal policy and responding tit-for-tat is OK in my book.

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

#544

Post by hwers »

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…

"Blocking scripts for each individual website" probably isn't too bad of a burden though. There's enough people who are annoyed by this and few enough sites that you actually visit (how often do you actually visit a brand new website, or one that hasn't been visited by thousands already?) that maintained (donation supported) chrome extensions for this will pop up eventually.

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

#545

Post by smt88 »

runeks wrote: post #278
smt88 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does selling the data matter? It is somewhat galling for your private behavior to be monetized. But you're right that the selling itself is not the core issue. The core issue is that it's being shared . The monetization is an incentive to share, and that's where the problem lies. By contrast, think about your doctor: they can't legally sell your private data. If they share it with anyone, it is for the express…

> By contrast, think about your doctor: they can't legally sell your private data. This is not a reasonable comparison. You choose to tell the doctor private information because of patient-doctor confidentiality. The other type of “private information” is collected by observing you in public (e.g. in a Walmart).

> You choose to tell the doctor private information because of patient-doctor confidentiality. The other type of “private information” is collected by observing you in public (e.g. in a Walmart).

I think this distinction is irrelevant. The salient questions are:

- Is this information private and potentially damaging to me?

- Do I expect [third party] to have access to it?

This is especially important if [third party] can be a government. In the massive web of interconnected buyers/sellers of adtech data, there is no reason to expect that oppressive governments will be unable to get anything they want.

But to address your point:

I absolutely do not expect "observing in a public place" to include personal conversations and/or data about exactly what products my eyes land on.

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

#546

Post by WithinReason »

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…

> 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 last resort, using a VPN and automatically scrambling your fingerprint seems doable

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

#547

Post by MrYellowP »

ornornor wrote: post #235
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…

> privacy rights given to us by law (eg in the EU) > As a EU citizen, i hope that our ineffectual administration at least tries to fight this somehow. Of course, there is little hope. GDPR is thanks to the EU and I wouldn’t say it has no effect. It seems like you’re contradicting yourself with these two paragraphs.

You think the GDPR is a good idea? Wow, mate, that's quite the detachment from reality.

In reality, GDPR is pure nonsense. It's a serious burden for anyone putting up a site. Any site. They all have cookies. All of them. It is so bad, there are now services taking care of this, because it's so much of a bullshit that people need to rely on others to get it right.

You'll probably spin this as a net win, right? Because more businesses, right? Right??

The odds of 99% of the people not simply clicking "accept all" are slim to none and anyone insisting otherwise would make himself look like a moron. It's like you're assuming the masses out there are actually thinking about things.

They don't! It's not how people work! They just click it away and are done with it, because it's super fucking annoying to constantly click that bullshit away and it does literally nothing for us people, no matter how much anyone would want to insist that it does, theoretically, do benefit us.

The GDPR is pure nonsense. It is not made for the people. It in fact completely ignores how people operate.

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

#548

Post by MrYellowP »

boudin wrote: post #317
chickenimprint wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it safe to assume you've never had to deal with those downright malevolent dark patterns and button labyrinths, designed to make it extremely unlikely for anyone in the general population to actually reject tracking?

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.

Yes, absolutely blame the lawmaker for making laws which are completely detached from how people operate. Yes, absolutely, blame lawmakers for making laws that don't actually fit reality.

Yes.

Absolutely.

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

#549

Post by [deleted] »

pqs wrote: post #401
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It always saddens me to see EU citizens talk in absolutes like that. Unfortunate there are many European enemies of the EU. It doesn't even have anything to do with EU administration: EU can't prevent Google trying to trick users into leaking their privates data and habits. Not at least until Google reveals their plans on how they're gonna do it. On a final note: we accepted two non-democratic countries in EU, Pola…

One can argue that the EU itself is rather undemocratic, as the Parliament does not hold much power, and there isn't a clear separation between executive and legislative, as the Commission and the Council of Ministers both participate in the process.

[deleted]

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

#550

Post by shadowgovt »

formerly_proven wrote: post #521
shadowgovt wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is worded very clearly Hard disagree. I've been racking my brain as of late trying to decide if default apache access logs violate the GDPR, and stackexchange searches on the topic seem to confirm the confusion. If the legality of data collection hinges on what is considered necessary for service maintenance in the eye of a judge, the law is not clear.

You can keep such logs under article 6.1.f if the retention period is 30 days or less (causing self-fulfillment of article 17) or indefinitely if you remove/anonymize PII from them. Of course article 17.3 gives you an exemption for various purposes, e.g. if you had a breach you don't need to delete the logs from that period while investigating it.

I fail to see how a 30-day or fewer retention policy impinges on article 17 one way or the other, nor do I see how article 6.1 gives any protection on the topic of the default Apache HTTP access logs (which include IP addresses).
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