In the end, websites will just be server-side generated images. :D
And then Adblockers will convert it back to html and strip ads from it.
Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection)
51–60 of 75 posts
Re: Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection)
#52Before anyone thinks this is a Eureka anti-ad-blocking technology: Clearly you still need client-side javascript, distributed by the mediator, to ensure that the impression is actually delivered and the click is actually registered. Otherwise, obviously, the server could just maliciously record impressions/clicks. Then, logically, if uBlock Origin doesn't remove the ad, but does successfully remove the mediator's scr…
clearly we need an AI/ML that will actively scan any video footage and cut out anything that looks like an ad. then people might actually find out what is and isn't ad.
It will start cutting out actual origin footage at some point because non-obvious ads are already there from the beginning mixed with primary content in a way they can't be easily separated.
Re: Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection)
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
If someone puts content out there for free, it is by definition freely available, and I decide 100% which content I want my browser to accept and show, and which content to ignore. If you want to make sure you get paid for your content, put it behind a paywall. Yes, the number of users will drop, but you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Otherwise, ask nicely for donations or Patreon support or do old-fashioned s…
>implying there is no tracking when watching a video on a Google owned platform
Use a VPN, use a private window, never log in.
I posted an example of how advertising could be done in a more sensible way, not a ridiculous claim that Google doesn't track everything they possibly can.
Re: Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection)
#54I get the distinct impression, in the war of ads vs. consumer, that some people will not be satisfied until they've submarined advertising all the way down to sponsored content and we have to go way out of our way to notice that the Try Guys are always drinking Coca-Cola or something.
>that some people will not be satisfied until they've submarined advertising all the way down to sponsored content Ish. The key problem that made me give in and start blocking is the lack of accountability/responsibility and the fact that one bad player (or hacked player) can affect many sites at once. Too many times I saw drive-by install attempts, camera/mic access attempts, pop-ups/unders, and so forth, on large p…
>At least with server-side insertion on the site/apps own servers it gives them more control (and forces them to take responsibility). If they serve a malware ridden ad from their own resources then they are responsible, no one else, and had the control to not do it. They are no longer trusting a 3rd party to be safe without having any audit rights to make sure they are.
You're greatly overestimating how much publishers care about security. If they're already willing to embed arbitrary scripts from ad networks (which has full access to the page), why wouldn't they go one step further and proxy it from their servers? It's not like it's giving additional access. I also don't buy the "additional responsibility" aspect. At the end of the day, it's still an ad network, and unless they're manually approving each ad, the risk of malware/scams isn't going to change, and if they happen to display such an ad, they can still deflect blame to the ad network.
Re: Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection)
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
>that some people will not be satisfied until they've submarined advertising all the way down to sponsored content Ish. The key problem that made me give in and start blocking is the lack of accountability/responsibility and the fact that one bad player (or hacked player) can affect many sites at once. Too many times I saw drive-by install attempts, camera/mic access attempts, pop-ups/unders, and so forth, on large p…
>At least with server-side insertion on the site/apps own servers it gives them more control (and forces them to take responsibility). If they serve a malware ridden ad from their own resources then they are responsible, no one else, and had the control to not do it. They are no longer trusting a 3rd party to be safe without having any audit rights to make sure they are. You're greatly overestimating how much publish…
> they can still deflect blame to the ad network
Agreed. But it is at least far easier to definitively prove that they are the reason the malware was delivered to a given user. It is perhaps a naive hope, but maybe that and the threat of potential bad publicity (or just being more likely to be included in popular "bad host" block-lists) will encourage a little more due diligence.
> You're greatly overestimating how much publishers care about security.
Oh, my expectations are low. I think more that I'm looking for/at things that might force them to care more than they currently do.
Re: Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't need a malicious server. You can use Google to do this and you'll get a google/branded domain name for your object-hijacking javascript. The number of times I've seen something like document.visibilityState='visible' in peoples ads (or ad wrappers) is astounding.
Isn't document.visibilityState a read-only property? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document/vi...
No.
It is not.
Object.defineProperty(document, 'visibilityState', { value: "visible", writable: false })
Maybe it says it's "read-only" because Google wants bad guys to do this sort of thing, since it makes advertisers buy more ads from them.
Or maybe it's an honest mistake that neither Mozilla, nor Google (nor Microsoft or anyone else it seems) has any idea what "read-only" means.
Re: Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection)
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm hoping for a revival of dumb ads. That large sites such as major newspapers will have ads like they had in the 90:s - internal ad sales departments spending long hours making ad contracts with advertisers who will trust and/or audit the traffic.
Likewise. I've always been curious as to just how significant an impact all this behavioural ad-serving actually has on the impact of their marketing budget. We assume that things like AdSense must provide better ROI than simple dumb placement of ads, but I'd love to know if that is actually true over the long term, and if so just how much better it is. For example, it might work well in the short term for certain th…
I'd love to read some good experimental work on it as well. Off the top of my head, I can guess that there's some benefit to retargeting ads up to a point -- if you can show an ad sequence over time, there's probably an argument to be made that the spaced repetition is more effective than just showing the same ad over and over again, for certain kinds of ads. Then again, that gets back to ad design in and of itself -- a clever campaign could go viral and/or engage in a way an A/B optimized campaign with a poor concept probably never will. With something that's part art/game theory/design and part data, I'm really curious as to how you could even design a reasonably lossless experiment to accomplish this.
Re: Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection)
#58I get the distinct impression, in the war of ads vs. consumer, that some people will not be satisfied until they've submarined advertising all the way down to sponsored content and we have to go way out of our way to notice that the Try Guys are always drinking Coca-Cola or something.
Would that be so bad? What’s wrong with contextual advertising instead of invasive user tracking?
Re: Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
There will always be those fringe people who insist on content being valueless even though they consume hours of it. The greater problem is that the ad industry is too unregulated and greedy which has led to a tragedy of the commons with malware and poor UX everywhere, leading to adblockers installed by many who otherwise wouldn't mind.
If someone puts content out there for free, it is by definition freely available, and I decide 100% which content I want my browser to accept and show, and which content to ignore. If you want to make sure you get paid for your content, put it behind a paywall. Yes, the number of users will drop, but you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Otherwise, ask nicely for donations or Patreon support or do old-fashioned s…
> I decide 100% which content I want my browser to accept and show, and which content to ignore.
Devil's Advocate says the people who make your browser reduce 100% to maybe 60%. Browser extensions are the 10%.
Re: Websites using SSAI (server side ad injection)
#60Before anyone thinks this is a Eureka anti-ad-blocking technology: Clearly you still need client-side javascript, distributed by the mediator, to ensure that the impression is actually delivered and the click is actually registered. Otherwise, obviously, the server could just maliciously record impressions/clicks. Then, logically, if uBlock Origin doesn't remove the ad, but does successfully remove the mediator's scr…
> Clearly you still need client-side javascript, distributed by the mediator, to ensure that the impression is actually delivered and the click is actually registered. There's no point to client-side JavaScript: The baddies just write JavaScript that rewrites basic objects using Object.defineProperty so that document.visibilityState always says so (and so on), or that lie to the visibility sensor. Or they just make a…
> There's no point to client-side JavaScript: The baddies just write JavaScript that rewrites basic objects using Object.defineProperty so that document.visibilityState always says so (and so on), or that lie to the visibility sensor. Or they just make a whole fake web browser that runs on a Server. You are in an arms-race, and verification companies simply can't/don't do a very good job.
I agree it's an arms race, but why do you think it favors the attacker? Bot/spam detection is incredibly important, and the folks I've worked with in spam detection are really good at what they do.
(Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, though not in spam. Speaking only for myself.)