The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
uk.businessinsider.com
The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
1–10 of 70 posts
Re: The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
#2Interesting, I had never made the relation between referer and advertising, which seems pretty obvious in retrospect.
This parts makes me a bit uneasy.
> The frustration here is that search, apps and HTTPS traffic all represent different types of readers arriving at The Guardian for different reasons — and not knowing that data hurts the Guardian's ability to serve those readers relevant content.
I am not sure I would be interested in a "tailored" news experienced. (Or "relevant content" is a weasel word for "relevant ads")
Re: The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
#3I built my personal extension which blocks all the traffic from Dan Pollock's list [1], then blocks all the traffic from major service providers (google analytics, etc) and social networks (fb, tw, google, etc) when not on their website. Referral and user agent headers removed, I haven't found the need to remove other headers.
Currently working on preventing (and manually allowing) all xhr/script/image requests 2 seconds after the main frame has loaded.
The internet is a lot faster for me, and the battery appears to last longer. So far, I've only had problems logging into instagram, but once the cookie is set, I can re-enable blocking ads and tracking.
I guess I am one of those 'dark traffickers' :P
Re: The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
#4"""The Atlantic first identified "dark social" traffic back in 2012 to describe traffic coming messaging apps that had been stripped of referrer data because messaging and email use the secure "HTTPS" system rather than the open "HTTP" system used by web pages.
Excuse me?! How does this trash get published?
Re: The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
#5"""The Atlantic first identified "dark social" traffic back in 2012 to describe traffic coming messaging apps that had been stripped of referrer data because messaging and email use the secure "HTTPS" system rather than the open "HTTP" system used by web pages. Excuse me?! How does this trash get published?
It is BSinsider, so it is BS as usual.
Re: The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
#6[deleted]
Re: The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
#7"""The Atlantic first identified "dark social" traffic back in 2012 to describe traffic coming messaging apps that had been stripped of referrer data because messaging and email use the secure "HTTPS" system rather than the open "HTTP" system used by web pages. Excuse me?! How does this trash get published?
Fun thing: I went on twitter to tell him his editor missed fact checking on that completely. Turns out the author of the piece is "Founding editor of Business Insider U.K.".
Update: He has replied and said he would look into it and correct it. Being that he's aware of the discussion here, i suspect other things might get corrected too. :)
Re: The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
#8Funny how the tone suggests that this is something malicious being done to the guardian.
Re: The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
#9I built my personal extension which blocks all the traffic from Dan Pollock's list [1], then blocks all the traffic from major service providers (google analytics, etc) and social networks (fb, tw, google, etc) when not on their website. Referral and user agent headers removed, I haven't found the need to remove other headers. Currently working on preventing (and manually allowing) all xhr/script/image requests 2 sec…
Sounds interesting - care to share?
Re: The Guardian Is Being Swamped with 'Dark Traffic'
#10Funny how the tone suggests that this is something malicious being done to the guardian.
It kind of is. The Guardian is funded by advertising and this limits their ad sales story. As the article points out, the main beneficiary of this is Google - who are essentially competing with the Guardian for ad sales. I don't always agree with the Graun, but I believe in plurality rather than a Google-dominated world.
Throwaway because of inevitable downvotes from the privacy crowd.