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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)

#701

Post by danuker »

consumer451 wrote: post #667
jeroenhd wrote: post #646

This kind of data collection abuse is why I think we need more addons like AdNauseam [1]. Unlike uBlock Origin, it's not available from the Chrome web store anymore, which is a good sign that Google hates these types of addons more than they hate simple blockers. Blocking A/AAAA domains with custom URLs to prevent tracking is almost impossible, so instead let's flood the trackers with useless, incorrect data that's n…

I am very interested in this, thanks for sharing. Adding another party into my web browsing is always a tough pill for me to swallow. I am also a noob at reading trust signaling. What are some of the reasons that I should trust this dev and their processes?

You should not trust them. You can download the add-on and inspect it yourself, if you know some JS. Right-clicking yields this URL:

https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/user-media/addons/585454/adna...

But it seems to include a lot of code, including some uBlock Origin code.

Either way, this kind of sabotage might get you banned on Google. Be mindful of the risks, and have contingency plans.

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

#702

Post by peoplefromibiza »

blibble wrote: post #585
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One can argue that the EU itself is rather undemocratic Of course one can. It doesn't make it correct though.

it's the only parliament in the world that can't legislate

repetita iuvant #2

You can of course think it

It doesn't make it correct though

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

#703

Post by pfooti »

runarberg wrote: post #322
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…

How effective is tracking in increasing user experience over less invasive techniques, e.g. like asking users?

Most companies do both. If just asking users questions was strictly better than passive tracking, that's probably all they'd do - analytics have a real cost to use, that cost wouldn't be paid if the information gathered was useless.

But, people are pretty remarkably bad at asking for things. It's mostly the "better horse" problem. People ask for fixes to proximal issues (make this faster, cheaper, better) and not the big things.

In my own product, we use gtm to understand where in our sign up funnel people fall off. It is a complicated product and a complicated sign up flow. Since people who fall out of the funnel are unreachable, we can't just ask them why. But we can observe that (say) 40% of users bounce off of step X, so let's make that step easier.

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

#704

Post by danuker »

walterbell wrote: post #674
jeroenhd wrote: post #646

This kind of data collection abuse is why I think we need more addons like AdNauseam [1]. Unlike uBlock Origin, it's not available from the Chrome web store anymore, which is a good sign that Google hates these types of addons more than they hate simple blockers. Blocking A/AAAA domains with custom URLs to prevent tracking is almost impossible, so instead let's flood the trackers with useless, incorrect data that's n…

Since this extension actively clicks on ads which may trigger payments, how do ad-fraud services classify endpoints running this extension? Could they consider this malware and add the client IP to blacklists?

Sure, and perhaps also the accounts of users running this while logged-in. Have contingency plans if you run this and your, say, GMail account is blocked.

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

#705

Post by shakes_mcjunkie »

itsoktocry wrote: post #668
jonathanstrange wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to speak of a promised sense of freedom you could only ever possibly obtain by driving around in the right kind of car and smoking the right brand of cigarettes.

> a promised sense of freedom you could only ever possibly obtain by driving around in the right kind of car You do realize that having the ability to hop in your car and drive wherever you want to go without having to report to anyone provides an incredible amount of freedom, right?

Who are you "reporting" to when you catch a train? Also, in cars, you're using Google maps which is tracking you, you're license plate is fully visible which allows you to be tracked, there are ticketing cameras, aerial monitoring, tool booths, speed traps... Yea sure pretty free.

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

#706

Post by inlined »

Deukhoofd wrote: post #352
inlined wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the loops, if statements, and block scopes are similar then the graph can be fuzzily identified. They’ve had anti-plagiarism software for years.

Annoyingly that would still require downloading them, which I'd definitely prefer not to. It's bloat that serves me no purpose.

For popular sites a backlist could be formed after the first person downloads it.

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

#707

Post by jacquesm »

shadowgovt wrote: post #696
jacquesm wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people painting print ads and planning PR stunts aren’t hurting anyone. You must have missed the cosmetics industry.

And you might have missed how the cure for polio was rolled out so quickly. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/03/9887569... Marketing is a tool. It can be misused. It can also be used for good. In fact, now that I raise the point, I wonder why nobody's thought to use ad microtargeting for COVID-19 vaccine campaigns yet. They probably have and I just haven't noticed, because when good marketing's worki…

The polio vaccine serves an actual need, and if you're not selling something I would refrain from using the word marketing.

As for the marketing of 'good' products: even marketing a good product comes with the implied 'right to market', where possibly none exists. You could get people hooked on very high quality vehicles for short trips because of convenience when the alternative, a bike, or even walking are perfectly acceptable. But if all your neighbors have been sold on the car then the message is that you can't be seen to be left behind, and that is a problem. Harnessing peer pressure for gain is an important element of marketing, which rarely is positive in nature, but usually tries hard to push people to feel inferior based on not using/owning a particular product.

And that's for a high quality product. Marketing is all about changing perceptions, to turn the unpalatable into something desirable and to turn the things you don't need into the things that you must own to be happy or to feel complete.

I used the cosmetics industry as an example because they've turned this into a veritable industry: people are made to feel terribly unhappy, to the point of in some cases committing suicide on the strength of marketing aimed squarely at making them feel inferior. This is revolting.

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

#708

Post by danuker »

emsixteen wrote: post #434
danuker wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more of a workaround. A solution to a poliical problem is political, not technical.

How is it political?

The decision to force service providers collect consent from their own users is a political decision.

And a fundamentally bad one: providers' incentive is to make it easy to get consent and hard to refuse.

I don't know what policy is better than this, but right now, we only get more annoyance without any benefits in privacy. Pretty much every page I've visited issues 3rd party requests before I consent to data sharing.

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

#709

Post by airstrike »

franga2000 wrote: post #325
janpot wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want them to be able to see what doesn't work in terms of user experience. That's not what they're doing, at all. They want to be able to see what doesn't work in terms of maximising profits. That may correlate with good user experience sometimes, but more often it results in the opposite.

Exactly! A company's goal is profit and most of the time, that does not align with the customer's goals. Amazon's goal is to sell me the highest margin item, I want the best value or highest quality. I have very limited information about which items are a good value or high quality, so why should amazon have the tools to most effectively steer me towards high-margin items? They exist to provide us a service and we gr…

> I have very limited information about which items are a good value or high quality, so why should amazon have the tools to most effectively steer me towards high-margin items? They exist to provide us a service and we grant them the right to make a small % of profit while doing it. Not the other way around!

As a small aside, The capitalist's answer is that regulating companies to prevent them from steering to the most profitable items is both impossible to be adequately done and prohibitively costly. Even assuming cost isn't an issue, it's hard to imagine such regulation to be equally applied to all market participants (or to be equally effective). So we would be left with companies that cooperate and others that defect, and the defectors would be favored (more profitable) and outcompete the cooperators in the long run.

So instead we start from the assumption that companies are greedy and let them compete to offer customers the best value -- and if that value comes (at least in part) from not being tracked, companies that do not track will attract more customers. We probably just haven't made enough of a fuss about it with our dollar-votes.

For what it's worth, I block all ads without giving it a single thought. The way I think about it is that on the flip side of the prisoner's dilemma, I'm just defecting like some companies would. It's a race to the bottom in terms of the trust between customers and companies, but I didn't make the rules of the game...

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

#710

Post by jacquesm »

Mezzie wrote: post #695
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…

As a 'white-hat' marketer (I work for some place that's similar to Vote411/ The League of Women Voters and I initially started in library outreach; I don't think anybody would consider my work unethical), the issue is the need for constant growth and profits. You can do cool and interesting things in marketing and outreach and there are actual use cases for them. For example, libraries often carry unconventional item…

The implicit observation that there is such a thing as a white hat marketeer relegating the remainder to black hats is an astute one.

I would rephrase the one as raising consciousness about important issues, and leave the other one under the label marketing, which to me is limited to commercial enterprises and indirect money grabs, a lot of which is related to politics and creating artificial divisions in society (the 'haves' vs the 'have nots' and so on).

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