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Adblock Plus gives Facebook users a way to block its extended tracking efforts

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Re: Adblock Plus gives Facebook users a way to block its extended tracking efforts

#111

Post by Relys »

spindritf wrote: post #49
ben0x539 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also walk around town completely uncamouflaged, voluntarily displaying my uniquely identifiable face and whatnot, and yet somehow most businesses can still restrain themselves and do not follow me around, colluding to enable each other to videotape my every step for analytics purpose. Sure, there's some technical steps that can be taken but there's also a social or cultural dimension to what behavior is popularly a…

Do you wear an ID around your neck? Do you walk into an establishment, introduce yourself, tell the keeper where you came from, when was the last time you visited, check in with an inter-business tracking device, and then ask them to forget all that? This is what a browser with (or more appropriately, on) DNT is doing. Long way from camouflage. And offline, we should also employ techniques like randomizing MAC addres…

Check out Pry-Fi by Chainfire for Mobile MAC address randomization.

Re: Adblock Plus gives Facebook users a way to block its extended tracking efforts

#113

Post by zvrba »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #63
zvrba wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was seriously considering to make a browser plugin which would scrape pages for Google Analytics unique IDs, make a local database of them and randomly mix them up. Like this: 0. [page visited] 1. Does the page contain GA tracking ID? no: do nothing yes: add it to the database and replace it with another randomly chosen ID from the database

Wouldn't referral headers give this away? Unless you change those too of course.

You seem to have more clue about web development than I do (my only experience with web are Perl/CGI scripts of early 2000s).

Can you describe in more detail how google could detect that the GA identifier has been swapped and how to prevent detection?

Re: Adblock Plus gives Facebook users a way to block its extended tracking efforts

#114

Post by dspillett »

mitchty wrote: post #88
dspillett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower targeting potential reduces the value of the ad site as it is sold down the chain, so if the site owners are using the ads to fund themselves they are unlikely to as for this en-mass as it would reduce their income. Of course you could argue the moral and inconvenience cases as sites make these judgements when choosing advert networks already but "a bit of tracking" does not have the same moral weight to mo…

Then why don't the sites provide the same options that you get with some ios apps. Default is free with ads, otherwise pay a nominal fee to remove the ads. Without the latter the ads being compulsory is just enforcing advertising on your users without knowing if they even want it.

Probably because it is more work in that environment. To accept payments for an ad-free version you need to create and maintain some sort of payment processing, and of course user authentication & session management. With iOS apps a lot of this is baked in.

Also it is much easier (for a non-technical user at least) to just skip the ads on the web using browser plug-ins, than it is to get around them in an app, so to an extent this extra work may be wasted and the number of people who take up the "pay for no ads" option might not be enough to warrant the work that goes into maintaining it.

There are some sites that offer the "ads or pay" option so it presumably works out worthwhile for some sites, but I've not seen it often.

Re: Adblock Plus gives Facebook users a way to block its extended tracking efforts

#115

Post by tokenizerrr »

zvrba wrote: post #113
tokenizerrr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't referral headers give this away? Unless you change those too of course.

You seem to have more clue about web development than I do (my only experience with web are Perl/CGI scripts of early 2000s). Can you describe in more detail how google could detect that the GA identifier has been swapped and how to prevent detection?

I'm by no means an expert, but usually when a web browser makes a request for a resource it includes a referral header which tells the server where it came from. This header is probably sent both to the initial javascript request and to the tracking pixels it requests to send new info to Google. At a first glance I feel like if you change the tracking id, and the referrals, you may have some success messing with their system.

But again, not an expert and I could easily be missing something crucial.

Re: Adblock Plus gives Facebook users a way to block its extended tracking efforts

#116

Post by tokenizerrr »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #115
zvrba wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have more clue about web development than I do (my only experience with web are Perl/CGI scripts of early 2000s). Can you describe in more detail how google could detect that the GA identifier has been swapped and how to prevent detection?

I'm by no means an expert, but usually when a web browser makes a request for a resource it includes a referral header which tells the server where it came from. This header is probably sent both to the initial javascript request and to the tracking pixels it requests to send new info to Google. At a first glance I feel like if you change the tracking id, and the referrals, you may have some success messing with thei…

Too late to edit now, but also I would not be suprised if the javascript they use records the url that is visited and reports that back as well.
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