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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)

#571

Post by nec4b »

Y-bar wrote: post #389
ThalesX wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence in past few years. I wish people would stop attributing our attitude to nationalistic resurgences. I’m a globalist and think nationalism and regionalism should be relics of the past and I keep getting put in the same box as nationalists because I am Euro-realist. With this frame of mind I think the EU po…

> I wish people would stop attributing our attitude to nationalistic resurgences. Why should we stop? Where I live (NW Europe) this sentiment is almost exclusively echoed by members of the refreshed "neoconservative/nationalistic" right wing parties. Other parties also have their qualms about government institutions, of course, but for different reasons and expressed with different attitudes.

In Eastern Europe before joining the EU, the most anti EU parties were the "ex"- communist and neomarxist and the conservative parties couldn't wait to get in. There can be 2 explanations why this has changed today.

1. The "ex"-communist and neomarxist parties became enlightened democrats and the conservatives changed to nationalistic anti democrats.

2. Something changed within the EU, which made it a suitable environment for "ex"-communist and neomarxist to thrive in and reminded the conservatives what was it like to live under old communist regimes.

I think the number 2 is the right explanation. The news about undemocratic Poland, Hungary and occasional other eastern-southern countries is mostly spreading through leftist western media by activist reporters who take for granted what their leftist activist colleagues from eastern countries are feeding them. For a person who reads newspapers in both parts of Europe, that fact is painfully obvious. Throw in some leftist activist MPs (like Sophie in 't Veld) and good old geopolitical power struggles and the world quickly becomes black and white (us vs them).

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

#572

Post by zelphirkalt »

Ansil849 wrote: post #223
l33t2328 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I would like that law. However, they would have to pay wages and offer working conditions, that actually attract good developers and they would have to stop outsourcing everything. Outsourcing everything is also a problem with otherwise qualified engineers unfortunately. The big picture long term consequences are unpleasant.

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

#573

Post by peoplefromibiza »

darebak wrote: post #464
anhner wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair to put Poland and Hungary in that basket. It's not like they were like this when they joined the EU. They slowly drifted towards anti-EU sentiment over the years thanks to populist politicians. The same can happen to any country. The same happend to Britain.

Or they slowly drifted towards anti-EU sentiment due to the EU.

> Or they slowly drifted towards anti-EU sentiment due to the EU.

Poland, through 7 national and 17 regional programmes, benefitted from EU funding of EUR 91.3 billion under the 2014-2020 ESIF programmes (as of January 2022). This represented an average of 2 400 euro per person in the 2014 population

they didn't drift

they already had it in their belly, they simply hid it to take EU money and build their anti-democratic platforms.

Don't get fooled by appearances.

People of Hungary and Poland are not responsible for what's happening to them and to their countries and they do not deserve it.

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

#574

Post by jagrsw »

saiya-jin wrote: post #359
prox wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I understand people like to talk in this way to show their emotional connection to the topic, but it’s not very helpful and like you mention, too absolute. It’s a system in progress, and we need to be invested in its ideals (fair, just, democratic)

Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence in past few years. A prime example is Czech republic, a very euro-skeptical nation despite all the benefits it brought them. Hungary would be another one. That being said, as somebody coming from east too and seeing clearly all the direct and indirect benefits of EU, its far from ideal. The whole concept o…

> Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements

This is seriously an uncool statement. Such generalisations, are both unethical and unfounded.

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

#575

Post by peoplefromibiza »

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.

> One can argue that the EU itself is rather undemocratic

Of course one can.

It doesn't make it correct though.

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

#577

Post by jacquesm »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #541
jacquesm wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Was telling people about trains and cars creating a need where there wasn’t one?

People were telling each other about these.

> Marketing doesn’t have to be evil.

No, indeed it doesn't. But as a rule it definitely appears to be. It's a bit like arsenic: it doesn't have to be negative but usually it is.

> Saying all marketing is evil is sort of a cop out for the people who do it badly.

If 99% of the people engaging in an activity are doing it badly then I'm all for reigning them in, in spite of the 1% that are doing a swell job.

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

#578

Post by tpoacher »

> How can adblockers react?

They shouldn't. Perhaps it's time to stop treating a behavioural problem as a technological one.

Perhaps instead a movement needs to start where if a website uses these technologies there's a way to inform them they've just lost a customer. Technology can help by automatically detecting these evils, aborting loading the page, then informing the webmaster of their offence, and the community of the offending page.

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

#579

Post by hilbert42 »

mderazon wrote: post #478
hilbert42 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read my reply to paulryanrogers about whether one's a JavaScript or a non-JavaScript type person. The 3-5% of sites I'm referring to are ones where I have to enable JS to view them. In by far the vast majority of the sites that I frequent I do not have to enable JS to view them. Also note my reply to forgotmypw17, one doesn't need JS if one avoids low quality dross.

I will give it another shot. Unfortunately though, this does not solve the server-side GTM issue, right ? If the 3-5% of the website you use will start tracking via server-side GTM with the site's domain, you will not be able to simply use noscript to disable tracking ?

You're probably right, but then there are many factors involved - take Europe's GDPR, I'd reckon it'd be deemed unlawful under those regs but of course that doesn't help those of us outside Europe.

It remains to be seen how Google's Tag Manager actually works and I'd be surprised if data from your machine is ignored altogether. If your machine says nothing about you then Google won't know who you are - unless you have a fixed IP address and most ordinary users don't. Sure there's browser fingerprinting (but I never bother about this as I use multiple browsers on multiple machines which screws things up a bit).

When I used to worry about this more than I do now, I used to send my modem/router an automatic reboot signal during periods of inactivity, this ensured a regular change of IP address.

OK, so what info can be gotten from your machine if JavaScript is disabled? Some but it's nothing like what happens when JS is active - in fact the difference is quite staggering (ages ago I actually listed the differences on HN).

Presumably you could search for the post but there's an easier way. Use the EFF's test your browser site https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ and do the test with and without JS. Note specifically the parameters with the 'no JavaScript' message.

Also note the stuff a website can determine about you even when JS is disabled - with this info you can start tackling the problem such as randomizing your browser's user agent, etc.

My aim was never to kill evey bit of tracking, rather it was to render tracking ineffective and I've been very successful at doing that. The fact is I don't get ads let alone targeted ones just by turning off JS and having an ad blocker as backup. The only other precaution I take is to always nuke third-party cookies and to kill all standard cookies when the browser closes.

I'm not too worried about Google's Tag Manager, for even if Google tracks me it still has to deliver the ads and it cannot do so with JS disabled and an ad-blocker in place.

__

Edit: if you want to watch YouTube then Google insists you enable JavaScript. This is bit of a pain but it's easily solved with say the Android app NewPipe (available via F-Droid). NewPipe also has the added advantage of bypassing the ads and having the facility to download clips as well if that's your wont.

Of course, there are similar apps for desktops too.

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

#580

Post by [deleted] »

krageon wrote: post #402
ThalesX wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most often such comments come from eastern parts of Europe, where nationalistic movements have a nice resurgence in past few years. I wish people would stop attributing our attitude to nationalistic resurgences. I’m a globalist and think nationalism and regionalism should be relics of the past and I keep getting put in the same box as nationalists because I am Euro-realist. With this frame of mind I think the EU po…

> Euro-realist It's not realism to believe the EU can't exist within or facilitate your idealised frame of reference (assuming it makes sense and is something people should want), it's just negativity. > I wish people would stop attributing our attitude to nationalistic resurgences. Quite frankly nationalistic resurgence is the #1 indicator for "euro realism", so this is a very reasonable stance to take.

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