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Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

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Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#71

Post by michaelt »

moxie wrote: post #45
chewxy wrote: post #6

I don't really like this. I work in the advertising industry and retargeting is honestly one of the most exciting things to come out. Sure there are ways of cookieless retargeting, but it is a hassle. I mean, everyone's heard of Samy's Evercookie right? Then there are TCP stack signatures, and other companies like a few European DSPs that use cookieless tracking to track a person (IMO it's quite easy to use a GET pix…

I'm interested in the culture implications of your willingness to comment on a story like this and openly admit that you work in this area of the advertising (surveillance?) industry. Certainly, I don't think anyone would feel comfortable commenting on a story about SPAM mitigation techniques (without using a throwaway account) with text like "This sucks, I'm a spammer, and I'm really excited about it. Don't like SPA…

There's cultural acceptance of Google even though they use third party cookies and ads are their primary source of income.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#72

Post by 18pfsmt »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #59
chewxy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a general rule of thumb that a person has to look at/interact with/be cognitively aware of an ad at least 7 times before any action can be taken. Showing ads across sites is just one more way to do that. In fact I would rather have relevant ads show up than irrelevant ads. I will admit that many companies out there do overdo their retargeting campaign though. That's what the company does that is mistaken, no…

Sorry, retargeting ? I assume this is why I get ads for stuff I just bought on wildly different sites - the advertising network server asks for my cookie before serving the ad and so can identify me? Yeah that's annoying. I will install adblock one day, but in defence of chewxy I just tend to avoid sites with that crap on them anyway.

It seems to me that every site is adopting this technology, so what, exactly, are you waiting for? The writing is on the wall.

Personally, I would suggest using a cookie management tool like cookie monster [1], and other tools like Request Policy [2] or Ghostery [3], depending on your browser of choice (i.e. RP doesn't have a Chromium/chrome extension, AFAIK). Adblock is great, but your reluctance up to this point suggests you would like to support some sites via their advertising efforts.

[1]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/cookie-monste...

[2]https://www.requestpolicy.com/

[3]https://www.ghostery.com/

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#73

Post by MatthewPhillips »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

I blocked third party cookies in Chrome for awhile and finally gave up. It broke a surprising number of things, particularly Disqus embeds. Also the Instapaper bookmarklet although I admit that's a nerdy special case. Hopefully Firefox will have a way to let the user enable the few places where third party cookies are desired. That's a hard user interaction to get right. (Disqus apparently now works without third par…

Disqus not working sounds like a feature to me. What extension were you using?

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#74

Post by ajdecon »

melvinram wrote: post #46
alan_cx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short, yes. It never bothered me that TV didnt target me. Same on the web.

It may not bother you but it does bother most of America. They use DVRs and skips ads whenever possible.

The lack of relevance isn't what bothers them. It's the fact that the ads are not the show they intended to watch. And in fact interrupts it.

If you could make all the ads I saw on TV perfectly relevant, I would still fast forward. Because I would like to get back to the show, OK?

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#75

Post by brownbat »

chewxy wrote: post #18
jacquesm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I can't stand retargeting, if there is one turn-off I have when visiting websites it is being hounded from site to site by an ad. That signals to me to never ever buy that product. That it is 'exciting' to those in the advertising industry is a signal all by itself. Once a while ago I googled for a bit around the time I was buying a car. For weeks afterwards I got hounded by car ads for some brand. Needles…

There is a general rule of thumb that a person has to look at/interact with/be cognitively aware of an ad at least 7 times before any action can be taken. Showing ads across sites is just one more way to do that. In fact I would rather have relevant ads show up than irrelevant ads. I will admit that many companies out there do overdo their retargeting campaign though. That's what the company does that is mistaken, no…

> I would rather have relevant ads

Me too, soo much. I was really counting on that until it never actually materialized.

Looking over my last few months of purchases, advertising could have struck a real coup by helping me find the lowest priced dry cleaner in my area, or by letting me know I could buy a USB device that lets me use an xBox controller in Windows.

Instead, all I hear is that when I drink a certain Vodka I'm on top, and that Budweiser loves horses. Also, everyone wants me to start using credit cards.

Yeah, I don't drink, and rotating credit with abusive APRs sounds like a criminal enterprise.

Maybe everyone else is getting the perfect ads right now, things that really help them decide what to buy. I've been let down. I don't think I'm the only one though.

Because giant companies from a select few high-margin industries are the ones buying the power ads. Hulu can only choose between ad spots for things I will never buy, there's no amount of profiling that fixes that.

There's just no relation between the amount of information a company has that would help me make a purchase and its advertising budget.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#76

Post by chewxy »

moxie wrote: post #45
chewxy wrote: post #6

I don't really like this. I work in the advertising industry and retargeting is honestly one of the most exciting things to come out. Sure there are ways of cookieless retargeting, but it is a hassle. I mean, everyone's heard of Samy's Evercookie right? Then there are TCP stack signatures, and other companies like a few European DSPs that use cookieless tracking to track a person (IMO it's quite easy to use a GET pix…

I'm interested in the culture implications of your willingness to comment on a story like this and openly admit that you work in this area of the advertising (surveillance?) industry. Certainly, I don't think anyone would feel comfortable commenting on a story about SPAM mitigation techniques (without using a throwaway account) with text like "This sucks, I'm a spammer, and I'm really excited about it. Don't like SPA…

I did agonize for a bit when people say things like "the best minds of our century are working on people to click on ads", but I've made peace with myself. I chose advertising instead of finance because I deemed it to be less scumbaggy than finance (not really, online advertising is a shithole filled with mines and there are many many faces of online advertising ranging from the very clean to the very dodgy)

I thankfully work for a company that tries very hard not to work on the dodgy side of things, and we do actively work on tackling really dodgy stuff, so I don't think comparing online advertising to spamming is quite a valid point.

I don't think it's cultural acceptance. I'm just being open with my views. My views on online advertising is similar to my views on guns: advertising is not inherently bad neither is it inherently good.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#77

Post by amastilovic »

ryanhuff wrote: post #58
melvinram wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that statement, you're also saying "To hell with YouTube, Facebook, WordPress.com and every other site that wouldn't survive without money."

How does blocking third party Javascript prevent the sites that you mention from monetizing?

It lowers their income by forcing them to succumb to non-targeted advertising which is less effective and brings less money.

I'd love to see your ideas of a free and secure web without marketing money flowing into content provider websites.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#78

Post by chewxy »

Ao7bei3s wrote: post #29
chewxy wrote: post #6

I don't really like this. I work in the advertising industry and retargeting is honestly one of the most exciting things to come out. Sure there are ways of cookieless retargeting, but it is a hassle. I mean, everyone's heard of Samy's Evercookie right? Then there are TCP stack signatures, and other companies like a few European DSPs that use cookieless tracking to track a person (IMO it's quite easy to use a GET pix…

Evercookies and analyzing TCP stack signatures are ok but banning third party cookies is like "using a cannon to shoot a mosquito"?! > Privacy is simple ... Don't submit ... No it's not: ad companies aren't asking, they are grabbing what they can get. When users say "no" (eg by using adblockers or disabling cookies), these companies ignore that and try to find ways around. Do you find that ethical?

No. In my experience it's not the ad companies that ask for them. It's usually the advertiser (i.e. the people advertising) that ask for them. Market forces (i.e. the demand) means that technologies will be made available to them if they're willing to pay high enough a sum.

As for evercookies and TCP stack analysis, I'm pointing out that the technologies to do cookieless tracking is already being used. And I feel it's a bad move. I would rather have cookied tracking where it's easier to control things, than to have cookieless tracking where it is generally grey area'd and difficult to see what advertisers are doing.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#79

Post by mehrzad »

vosper wrote: post #61
moxie wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in the culture implications of your willingness to comment on a story like this and openly admit that you work in this area of the advertising (surveillance?) industry. Certainly, I don't think anyone would feel comfortable commenting on a story about SPAM mitigation techniques (without using a throwaway account) with text like "This sucks, I'm a spammer, and I'm really excited about it. Don't like SPA…

The company I work for allows targeting of advertisements based on the video content on a page. We do track users by dropping a cookie (so that we can calculate GRPs) but make no attempt to identify or behaviourally target users - we don't believe either are very effective for brand-building, which is our target market; it's about having your brand associated with certain content, not patterns of browsing. A lot of p…

>I've long found it a bit ironic...

I've always thought it as a Darwinian thing.

Some programmers probably believe "I use ads for money but I block all the other ones because I have the intelligence to do so and anyone who doesn't is a sucker and it doesn't matter that I'm exploiting them because they don't care enough."

My two cents.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#80

Post by mehrzad »

cft wrote: post #34

I cannot fully rationalize it, but I intuitively feel that this "holier than thee" Mozialla's approach will ultimately contribute to Firefox's demise.

But better for the web. Maybe some of their ideas aren't feasible but at least they get people to talk/think about this stuff.
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