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Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

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Re: Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

#91

Post by tomflack »

ianlevesque wrote: post #83
bad_user wrote: post #45

I cannot verify the claims, but I'll state the reasons once again about why I'm not using ad blockers: 1) free websites and web services need revenue and as long as the ads are tasteful, I don't mind them 2) I actually want websites to annoy me with lots of stupid ads, as I want to stop using such websites, because I want to reward publishers that don't do that Ad blockers are trying to fix a symptom of the disease a…

There's a growing segment of users that just don't want advertising in their faces, period. Thankfully a not-insignificant portion of these are willing to pay for it through subscriptions on sites that offer this. Not enough sites offer this. I envision an "ad network" appearing eventually that doesn't display any ads, just distributes revenues from an aggregate subscription. Then sites can still be supported by spon…

I pay for Arstechnica premium for this reason. I have adblockers turned off on The Verge, and emailed them asking for a subscription option but received no reply.

I don't want advertising in my face, full stop.

Re: Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

#92

Post by engtech »

Sujan wrote: post #42

The allegations concerning changing referal links are based on a source file of the extension. Did anybody check that? Any real proof or is this just a leftover?

You have to enable the typo option and it happens.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194

Re: Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

#93

Post by gasull »

shaggy wrote: post #80
gasull wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox addons for privacy and security with usable settings: - AdBlock Edge. Filter subscriptions: EasyList, EasyPrivacy, Disable Malware, Fanboy's Annoyance List, Prebake - NoScript. Use "allow scripts globally" or otherwise most websites won't work. It will still protect against know attacks. - Cookie Monster. Then set global/default preference to saving cookies for session only. - FireGloves. Uncheck "disable plu…

Is there some mistake in your NoScript item? Installing the plug-in and then using "allow scripts globally" is the equivalent of never installing the plug-in. It provides almost no value at all when run that way.

No. It stills protects against known attacks, like XSS attacks. If you block scripts by default you'll have to configure what scripts to allow every time you visit a new site, or every time the site adds new assets.

Re: Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

#94

Post by betterunix »

bad_user wrote: post #45

I cannot verify the claims, but I'll state the reasons once again about why I'm not using ad blockers: 1) free websites and web services need revenue and as long as the ads are tasteful, I don't mind them 2) I actually want websites to annoy me with lots of stupid ads, as I want to stop using such websites, because I want to reward publishers that don't do that Ad blockers are trying to fix a symptom of the disease a…

"as long as the ads are tasteful"

This is the problem: the ads stopped being tasteful. Remember pop-ups? Remember how, when browsers started having pop-up blockers as a default, the response by the advertising industry was to try to circumvent the blockers, resulting in even more annoying ads? Remember how ad companies did not get the message when people stopped accepting their cookies, and now use dozens of techniques to track people? Remember how they said they thought Do Not Track meant "track but do not show targeted ads?"

Unfortunately, the annoying, intrusive, privacy-invading advertising is not limited to a handful of sites. It is all over the place. That's why ad blocking is important and necessary: we users should not have to suffer because of the advertising industry's greed.

Re: Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

#96

Post by mdip »

bad_user wrote: post #45

I cannot verify the claims, but I'll state the reasons once again about why I'm not using ad blockers: 1) free websites and web services need revenue and as long as the ads are tasteful, I don't mind them 2) I actually want websites to annoy me with lots of stupid ads, as I want to stop using such websites, because I want to reward publishers that don't do that Ad blockers are trying to fix a symptom of the disease a…

I agree with both of those principals, but I continue to run an ad filtering proxy on my home network.

I don't do this because ads annoy me (of course they do, but for the above reasons, it feels wrong). I do this because a few years ago, certain less technical members of my family received a nasty bit of malware/rootkit combo delivered -- as best I could discern -- via a song lyric look up site. Another laptop picked up malware around the same time, though its source was more difficult to discern. In addition, about this same time, Microsoft and Google's ad networks were found to have some Flash ads that were malicious.

After spending a few hours reloading laptops (with the offending individual being my first experiment with Ubuntu on a non-technical user's PC), I got fed up and installed a proxy.

My computers all have local firewalls and anti-virus, but I'm sure nobody's surprised that they were still infected.

I wonder, is the state of these ad networks improved at all? Are there advertisement blocking tools that just target ads that have the greatest probability of being exploits (flash, java, smaller ad networks)?

Re: Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

#97

Post by skue »

bad_user wrote: post #45

I cannot verify the claims, but I'll state the reasons once again about why I'm not using ad blockers: 1) free websites and web services need revenue and as long as the ads are tasteful, I don't mind them 2) I actually want websites to annoy me with lots of stupid ads, as I want to stop using such websites, because I want to reward publishers that don't do that Ad blockers are trying to fix a symptom of the disease a…

Not all of us block ads because they are annoying to look at. They are also a very real threat to privacy because ad companies track us across multiple websites (yes, I block Google Analytics and other trackers as well).

OTOH, I also feel tremendous sympathy towards websites trying to survive on ad revenue. I'm actually the type of person who still buys music to support artists.

I don't know what the solution is. We are forced to choose between being watched as we browse the web, staying completely offline, or blocking ads but not supporting the websites we visit.

Re: Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

#98

Post by gasull »

83a wrote: post #89
gasull wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox addons for privacy and security with usable settings: - AdBlock Edge. Filter subscriptions: EasyList, EasyPrivacy, Disable Malware, Fanboy's Annoyance List, Prebake - NoScript. Use "allow scripts globally" or otherwise most websites won't work. It will still protect against know attacks. - Cookie Monster. Then set global/default preference to saving cookies for session only. - FireGloves. Uncheck "disable plu…

requestpolicy <- simply blocks all traffic to external webserver

RequestPolicy suffers of the same problem as NoScript with default settings: it blocks everything and you have to waste time configuring what JS files are allowed in each site you visit. Your browsing becomes 10,000% more inefficient.

Re: Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

#99

Post by angry-hacker »

dbcooper wrote: post #58

Lets try an experiment with Amazon referrers. (a) Take a "randomly" sourced blog post for a book review: http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/14/the-unwinding-is-george-pa... (b) Check links to amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmaga... (c) Click through and check URL: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmaga... Looks OK. Anything I'm missing?

It has something to do with their feature called typo corrections, only available for Firefox right now (I have only ABP for Chrome/FireFox). It has to be enabled, if it is enabled by default for all user or not, I'm not sure.

typoRules.js downloads urlfixer.org/download/rules.json?version=2 where the redirect is made if you type for an example: amazon.comm, I get (FireFox only) redirected to their affiliate amazon.com link.

For an example, amazon.co.ukk gets redirected to http://www.amazon.co.uk/?tag=uf07d-21

Edit:

Some of the lines of that file:

"domainReferrals":{"amazon.co.uk":"tag=uf07d-21","amazon.com":"tag=uf024-20","amazon.de":"tag=uf0e6-21","amazon.es":"tag=uf07-21","amazon.fr":"tag=uf02b-21","amazon.it":"tag=uf08d-21","ozon.ru":"partner=urlfixer"},"

Re: Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

#100

Post by betterunix »

maxmcd wrote: post #77
criley2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if I need every single website hooked into Google Ads, all of them reminding me that I'm single, trying to sell me clothes, trying to sell me dating websites, trying to predict what I want in life. It's invasive, and quite frankly, it's disturbing and creepy that the same advertisements follow me regardless of website. I feel like the guy in Pachebel's Rant, finding Canon in D across modern music, except what I'm…

You can opt-out of retargeting. Seems that would solve your problem.

We should live in a world where people who want this need to opt-in.
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