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Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

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Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#81

Post by Amadou »

brownbat wrote: post #75
chewxy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a general rule of thumb that a person has to look at/interact with/be cognitively aware of an ad at least 7 times before any action can be taken. Showing ads across sites is just one more way to do that. In fact I would rather have relevant ads show up than irrelevant ads. I will admit that many companies out there do overdo their retargeting campaign though. That's what the company does that is mistaken, no…

> I would rather have relevant ads Me too, soo much. I was really counting on that until it never actually materialized. Looking over my last few months of purchases, advertising could have struck a real coup by helping me find the lowest priced dry cleaner in my area, or by letting me know I could buy a USB device that lets me use an xBox controller in Windows. Instead, all I hear is that when I drink a certain Vodk…

I'm sure what I am about to say is no great insight here on HN, but I like saying it so here it is:

There are two kinds of advertising: 1) Advertising that helps you find what you need 2) Advertising that convinces you to spend money you would not otherwise have spent

The lofty ideal has always been (1) but the reality seems to always turn out to be (2). We should stop giving lip-service to the lofty ideal.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#82

Post by Amadou »

18pfsmt wrote: post #72
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, retargeting ? I assume this is why I get ads for stuff I just bought on wildly different sites - the advertising network server asks for my cookie before serving the ad and so can identify me? Yeah that's annoying. I will install adblock one day, but in defence of chewxy I just tend to avoid sites with that crap on them anyway.

It seems to me that every site is adopting this technology, so what, exactly, are you waiting for? The writing is on the wall. Personally, I would suggest using a cookie management tool like cookie monster [1], and other tools like Request Policy [2] or Ghostery [3], depending on your browser of choice (i.e. RP doesn't have a Chromium/chrome extension, AFAIK). Adblock is great, but your reluctance up to this point su…

KISS Privacy is kinda sorta like RequestPolicy for chrome.

http://silentorbit.com/kiss/

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#83

Post by Amadou »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #5

I don't actually think this policy will have the desired effect of improving privacy and similar. While I do think advertisers and analytics abuse third-party cookies, they also have a dozen other things they can switch to that the browser provides fewer facilities to control: http://samy.pl/evercookie/ Meanwhile, any legitimate services that rely on third-party cookies would have little choice but to switch to whate…

I agree, I think it is just a small escalation in the arms race.

Personally, I'd rather have tools that pollute the data being collected rather than just blocking it. Imagine a firefox add-on that keeps entirely seperate "cookie jars" based on referrer. So if you visited 100 different websites you would have a 100 different cookies for any particular advertising network, each one unique to the specific website you were looking at.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#84

Post by statenjason »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #73
NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

I blocked third party cookies in Chrome for awhile and finally gave up. It broke a surprising number of things, particularly Disqus embeds. Also the Instapaper bookmarklet although I admit that's a nerdy special case. Hopefully Firefox will have a way to let the user enable the few places where third party cookies are desired. That's a hard user interaction to get right. (Disqus apparently now works without third par…

Disqus not working sounds like a feature to me. What extension were you using?

No extension necessary. Just open chrome://settings/content and check the "block third party cookies" option. Anytime you navigate to a page with blocked 3rd party cookies, a cookie with an X will show in the address bar. Clicking it will let you add an exception.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#85

Post by Amadou »

chewxy wrote: post #78
Ao7bei3s wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evercookies and analyzing TCP stack signatures are ok but banning third party cookies is like "using a cannon to shoot a mosquito"?! > Privacy is simple ... Don't submit ... No it's not: ad companies aren't asking, they are grabbing what they can get. When users say "no" (eg by using adblockers or disabling cookies), these companies ignore that and try to find ways around. Do you find that ethical?

No. In my experience it's not the ad companies that ask for them. It's usually the advertiser (i.e. the people advertising) that ask for them. Market forces (i.e. the demand) means that technologies will be made available to them if they're willing to pay high enough a sum. As for evercookies and TCP stack analysis, I'm pointing out that the technologies to do cookieless tracking is already being used. And I feel it'…

> No. In my experience it's not the ad companies that ask for them. It's usually the advertiser

That is a distinction without a difference.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#86

Post by mtgx »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

I blocked third party cookies in Chrome for awhile and finally gave up. It broke a surprising number of things, particularly Disqus embeds. Also the Instapaper bookmarklet although I admit that's a nerdy special case. Hopefully Firefox will have a way to let the user enable the few places where third party cookies are desired. That's a hard user interaction to get right. (Disqus apparently now works without third par…

You can use stuff like Ghostery or WidgetBlock, and they have options where you can specifically allow Disqus. I've still ran into some blocked pages early on, but after figuring out what was wrong, and allowing that stuff, now I rarely have any problems and I still block 90% of the rest.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#87

Post by fafner »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #73
NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

I blocked third party cookies in Chrome for awhile and finally gave up. It broke a surprising number of things, particularly Disqus embeds. Also the Instapaper bookmarklet although I admit that's a nerdy special case. Hopefully Firefox will have a way to let the user enable the few places where third party cookies are desired. That's a hard user interaction to get right. (Disqus apparently now works without third par…

Disqus not working sounds like a feature to me. What extension were you using?

Ghostery is quite efficient at blocking Disqus, Facebook, G+, and other stuff that people seem to include in their websites nowadays.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#88

Post by mindslight »

moxie wrote: post #45
chewxy wrote: post #6

I don't really like this. I work in the advertising industry and retargeting is honestly one of the most exciting things to come out. Sure there are ways of cookieless retargeting, but it is a hassle. I mean, everyone's heard of Samy's Evercookie right? Then there are TCP stack signatures, and other companies like a few European DSPs that use cookieless tracking to track a person (IMO it's quite easy to use a GET pix…

I'm interested in the culture implications of your willingness to comment on a story like this and openly admit that you work in this area of the advertising (surveillance?) industry. Certainly, I don't think anyone would feel comfortable commenting on a story about SPAM mitigation techniques (without using a throwaway account) with text like "This sucks, I'm a spammer, and I'm really excited about it. Don't like SPA…

Honestly yes you're out of touch, and it heartens me. It took me up until about 2007 to realize that all this talk of funding websites with ads referred to a working business model. Having continuously run adblock, I simply didn't know how much advertising had invaded everything.

I was getting ready for the top-voted HN comment to be something defending advertising, and was probably saved because this move by Mozilla isn't so bold. It seems most developers these days are happy to be on the take of advertising and DRM companies and will trot out all manner of justifications for why their code should run unhindered on your device.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#89

Post by TillE »

Amadou wrote: post #81
brownbat wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would rather have relevant ads Me too, soo much. I was really counting on that until it never actually materialized. Looking over my last few months of purchases, advertising could have struck a real coup by helping me find the lowest priced dry cleaner in my area, or by letting me know I could buy a USB device that lets me use an xBox controller in Windows. Instead, all I hear is that when I drink a certain Vodk…

I'm sure what I am about to say is no great insight here on HN, but I like saying it so here it is: There are two kinds of advertising: 1) Advertising that helps you find what you need 2) Advertising that convinces you to spend money you would not otherwise have spent The lofty ideal has always been (1) but the reality seems to always turn out to be (2). We should stop giving lip-service to the lofty ideal.

Mostly true, but #1 is still necessary. You just made a cool thing. You want people to know about it. How do you tell the world?

Ideally, it'd be nice to have a thriving community of independent journalists and reviewers covering just about every topic and using their experience to evaluate new things. Consumers would know where to go to get the information they need.

But reality is so much messier. It's February 2013 and I want to buy an X that does Y and Z. How do I truly make an informed decision to buy the absolute best product that meets my needs? Who the hell knows. The resources just aren't there, at least not in a convenient, comprehensive, and objective form. Consumer Reports does some of that, but they're limited in scope. Therefore, advertising and branding.

Re: Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

#90

Post by donniezazen »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #8

I blocked third party cookies in Chrome for awhile and finally gave up. It broke a surprising number of things, particularly Disqus embeds. Also the Instapaper bookmarklet although I admit that's a nerdy special case. Hopefully Firefox will have a way to let the user enable the few places where third party cookies are desired. That's a hard user interaction to get right. (Disqus apparently now works without third par…

[*.]disqus.com

Add this to exceptions.

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