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Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

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Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#471

Post by Tryk »

onion2k wrote: post #347
alexb_ wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

95% of users have no idea what any of this is.

Developer wages would crash through the floor and all the way down to the centre of the Earth if ad blockers really took off without users also accepting micropayments or subscriptions for web services at the same time. Maybe we should be a little bit glad that the main thing keeping massive amounts of money in tech is accepted by users. The key thing that most people in tech don't appear to grok very easily is that…

> The key thing that most people in tech don't appear to grok very easily is that the overwhelming majority of web services like search engines, social media, ad-driven news websites, etc are all things that users place practically zero value on. People accept ads because they're a way of paying for things without really thinking about it. If you start asking users for actual money they suddenly decide that all these services represent no value and they'll live without them.

Imagine a world where the only content that survives is the one that people value enough to pay for.

What a wonderful catastrophic disruptive event that would be. Imagine no more SEO spam which are essentially devoid of information. These which are already so plentiful and sophisticated that they are threatening the core value of online search. No more vacuous blogspam, low-quality trash "newspapers" that only survive because they trick people into giving them a few morsels of attention.

Imagine a human-curated web.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#472

Post by PeterisP »

IX-103 wrote: post #415
midasuni wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t spread the ad company’s lies. There is no need for pop ups under the gdpr. If you are handling personal information, giving cookies etc which aren’t required (E.g to sign in), then ask at the point of signing in/up. Otherwise you don’t need to set cookies, you might want to, to track and monetise your visitors, but that’s different.

How are you supposed to provide a consistent appearance for A/B testing changes without being able to store which group a user is assigned to? How are you supposed to count unique users that visit your site? How are you supposed to figure out why most users bounce? These are legitimate questions a publisher may want to know to improve their site, but are not allowed under GDPR without a specific notice and opt-out. T…

Many such usecases can be achieved by setting a non-personalized cookie, for which you need neither consent nor a popup. You can put a cookie like "has_visited=yes" or "ABtest=B".

If you want to track unique users, well, you're not supposed to unless the users opt in (not avoid opting out!), and you have to accept that at least a part won't - the society and law has decided such desires are not legitimate unless the data subjects themselves want that.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#473

Post by PeterisP »

cft wrote: post #187
matkoniecz wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a result, less and less of the independent web is getting traffic Tracking cookies are not mandatory. You are not obligated to present cookie banner: you can simply drop nonessential cookies.

Getting money for running websites is also non-mandatory? Are we going to fund them from the government 5-year plans yet? Our hosting expenses alone are 8k per month.

People have a right to privacy. Your business doesn't have a right to profit. It's that simple.

If following the requirements of society makes your business unprofitable, too bad, having a business is optional, following the requirements of society is not.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#474

Post by mbostleman »

a4isms wrote: post #449
onion2k wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developer wages would crash through the floor and all the way down to the centre of the Earth if ad blockers really took off without users also accepting micropayments or subscriptions for web services at the same time. Maybe we should be a little bit glad that the main thing keeping massive amounts of money in tech is accepted by users. The key thing that most people in tech don't appear to grok very easily is that…

"Developer wages would crash through the floor and all the way down to the centre of the Earth if ad blockers really took off without users also accepting micropayments or subscriptions for web services at the same time. Maybe we should be a little bit glad that the main thing keeping massive amounts of money in tech is accepted by users." Somewhere, somebody is saying, "Maybe we shouldn't sell drugs to children?" An…

Same argument for simplifying the tax code or even completely abolishing the IRS in favor of collection infrastructures already in place (like sales tax) - but what will happen to the multi-billion dollar tax prep industry?

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#475

Post by PeterisP »

orangecat wrote: post #380
denton-scratch wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not GDPR "cookie pop-ups". GDPR does not call for this plague. You don't need to get the users approval for cookies needed for the correct operation of the site. I believe they are a protest by largely US-owned companies against regulation, designed to annoy internet users and turn them against regulation.

I believe they are a protest by largely US-owned companies against regulation Even if this is true, it's something that should have been expected by EU legislators. Their beliefs seem to be that companies are acting in bad faith by secretly tracking users and misusing the information that they gather (basically true), and also that if they impose vague rules that companies need to get consent for tracking then they'l…

Much of this brouhaha is about the niche of online businesses, which is the thing that's most visible here on HN, but which really wasn't the primary focus of GDPR which applies to all the businesses in society, the vast majority of which aren't global websites.

If I look at the changes implemented by local telecommunications companies, local banks, local supermarket loyalty programs, local pizza delivery chains, local real estate brokers, etc - these types of businesses had all kinds of widespread shenanigans before GDPR, but now they overwhelmingly have acted in good faith, and have given users clear and convenient ways of opting out (because, really, they didn't have a choice). Like, we don't see EU phone carriers selling location data to advertisers the way they do in USA - now that is a significant thing compared to some blog putting on a cookie.

For most companies, the transition has happened reasonably well - it's just that a few (but large and highly visible) global companies are holding out because of political reasons preventing enforcement - mostly stemming the fact that Ireland's DPA is currently permitted to unilaterally shield them from the rest of EU and has motivation to do it because it's financially beneficial for Ireland to have Facebook/Google/etc have their EU domicile be in Ireland.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#476

Post by kahnclusions »

Terretta wrote: post #207
Larrikin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experience is so awful when I browse on my iPad, instead of my Android phone with Firefox+UBlock. I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads. The modern web is so much worse than the pop up ads of the old web.

> The experience is so awful when I browse on my iPad, instead of my Android phone with Firefox+UBlock. I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads. Most people don’t. Most people who use anything for iOS tend to use things like: - 1Blocker - super full featured, including custom script and css rules. business model is paid software, not ‘acceptable ads’ paying them for placement or…

> Most people don’t. Most people who use anything for iOS tend to use things like: …

“Most people” don’t have a clue what any of those things are.

The only non-tech people I know who have any of what you mentioned only have it because I installed it for them.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#478

Post by laurent123456 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #461
arkitaip wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has the builtin reader mode but there is also plugins that auto click or hide cookie banners.

Reader mode sometimes doesn't appear for some sites. I am guessing there is a way for sites to disable it with JS or indicate to the browser that they don't want it.

It's a feature of Reader actually. The library they use has a "isProbablyReaderable()" function to determine if a page can be simplified, and their extension uses that to decide if Reader mode should be available or not.

[0] https://github.com/mozilla/readability/#isprobablyreaderable...

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#479

Post by dantyti »

disintegore wrote: post #178

I categorically reject ads. I want them completely abolished. I will do everything that's in my power to get them out of my machines. If I had just a little bit more courage I would go out at night with cans of spray paint and deface billboards.

There are people hacking billboards and posting their own subvertisements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvertising). A while ago, I came across this 20 min mini-doc about the movement in London: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zunPa9rGndg I think you might enjoy it

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#480

Post by heavyset_go »

onion2k wrote: post #347
alexb_ wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

95% of users have no idea what any of this is.

Developer wages would crash through the floor and all the way down to the centre of the Earth if ad blockers really took off without users also accepting micropayments or subscriptions for web services at the same time. Maybe we should be a little bit glad that the main thing keeping massive amounts of money in tech is accepted by users. The key thing that most people in tech don't appear to grok very easily is that…

I'd still have 99.9% of my clients if online advertising went away. Turns out that there are entire sectors of the economy that are not dependent on intrusive ads at all in order to remain solvent.
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