Looks like cookie stuffing.
Insane state of today's advertising part 3
31–40 of 435 posts
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#32I'm actually rather surprised that companies like Google aren't offering solutions to integrate ads into the delivery of the page content itself rather than JavaScript at this point, as it's pretty easy to block the specific domains serving ads. It seems relatively straightforward; the ads would be pre-rendered on the server providing the response and could send the same info a script would for the most part, especia…
I never quite understood why domain-blocking works so well for ad-blockers. I'm surprised why sites don't just use a reverse proxy or something to serve from those ad domains. What am I missing?
If the ads were static (e.g. advertiser A bought a specific place on one of publisher B's pages, for a month), and advertiser A didn't want independent verification that the ads were seen, then your proposal could be simply implemented.
"What am I missing?"
Many ads are served after real-time auction: whilst your browser is loading and rendering the page, an auction is going between advertisers for the ad spot(s) on the page. The auction happens quickly, but it adds latency. Adding a reverse proxy would add further latency, and would remove the ability for ad networks to properly target ads (e.g. using cookies) and account for impressions.
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#33A bit off topic, but something I'm interested in: would it be possible for a website to generate revenue by using client machines to mine crypto currencies? I would rather go to a website that uses up my CPU and network resources doing that than use up my CPU and network resources AND spam me with intrusive ads. Edit: solid answers to my question. Thanks everyone.
A team where I worked looked into that as a hack day project - the idea was that you'd mine coins for charity while using our product.
They built it, and was it was feasible, but so underpowered that it wouldn't generate a useful amount of money even across our entire userbase.
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never quite understood why domain-blocking works so well for ad-blockers. I'm surprised why sites don't just use a reverse proxy or something to serve from those ad domains. What am I missing?
That's exactly what the adtech industry is starting to do. They've even got WordPress and Cloudflare plugins that can dynamically reinsert blocked ads via their proxy.
Maybe not with the techniques they're using now, but if humans can tell it's an ad, then an ad blocker with say an image recognition model can too.
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#35I'm actually rather surprised that companies like Google aren't offering solutions to integrate ads into the delivery of the page content itself rather than JavaScript at this point, as it's pretty easy to block the specific domains serving ads. It seems relatively straightforward; the ads would be pre-rendered on the server providing the response and could send the same info a script would for the most part, especia…
I never quite understood why domain-blocking works so well for ad-blockers. I'm surprised why sites don't just use a reverse proxy or something to serve from those ad domains. What am I missing?
It's the easiest way to serve an dynamic ad, it will require further configuration to get it to go through your own domain, and ad blockers block by element selectors and ad placement, so even those served through your domain will eventually get blocked.
To avoid adblocker one would have to actually blend the ad with page moving it in the page to avoid getting detected, which might not be acceptable UX/UI.
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
More efficient to separate the mining aspect and just send a micropayment in a web request. Brave (the browser) implements of version of this.
While true, using a browser for mining doesn't require the user to have any cryptocurrency, or even know what cryptocurrency is. It also has a similarly opaque cost to them (in the form of electricity).
Brave is getting around that with built-in support for their "Basic Attention Token" which will be rewarded to users just for using their browser.
It will be interesting to see how it works out.
Personally I am just sad that it takes so much energy to maintain the current cryptocurrency networks and they are already too slow for really interesting stuff -- which is why I wouldn't want to add more waste by mining in a browser :).
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#37Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#38If we can't fix this problem, no one is going to be able to do it.
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#39I would love to be able to block JS files individually based on energy usage.
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly what the adtech industry is starting to do. They've even got WordPress and Cloudflare plugins that can dynamically reinsert blocked ads via their proxy.
Maybe not with the techniques they're using now, but if humans can tell it's an ad, then an ad blocker with say an image recognition model can too.
Easy- just make ads that humans can't tell are ads. Also helps if you make ads that the FCC can't tell are ads! As they've been doing.... sigh.