6 ms·

Sites need to consider going back to the pre-Double-Click world, where they self hosted and self managed ads. I'd accept that without issue. I don't mind ads,

by junto 11y ago

Sites need to consider going back to the pre-Double-Click world, where they self hosted and self managed ads. I'd accept that without issue. I don't mind ads, I just can't accept the intrusive tracking, including being retargeted.

cm2187 11y ago
Me too. And there is no point to access the last two years of someone's browsing history to know that someone visiting a video game website is interested in video games or technology.
- rewqfdsa 11y ago
  But what kinds of science and technology? Maybe our user has a bit of disposable income and wouldn't mind ads for high-end hardware he didn't happen to know about. Maybe she's interested in DLC for games she's passionate about, as measured for frequently of forum visits. Maybe our user runs a lab and would be very interested in high-end PCR machines. You can do much better than "interested in video games or technology" if you know a bit about your users. This tracking makes advertising much less annoying (occasionally veering into useful).
  - cm2187 11y ago
    Advertisers just have to accept that when a customer walk through their door, they will not have access to his/her bank statements, sexual preferences, list of acquaintances, medical records, gps locations for the last two years, etc. What information one can get from someone's browsing history is awfully invasive.
    - rewqfdsa 11y ago
      > Advertisers just have to accept Advertisers will adapt. What you have to accept is more annoying advertising coupled with increasingly error-prone code in both ad-blockers and ad-blocker-blockers. The only one that wins is Moloch; everyone else is worse off. > What information one can get from someone's browsing history is awfully invasive. Is it? Advertisers don't get some kind of toast on their phones saying "Joe, 34 from Topeka with a toaster fetish, has just visited your site!" along with pictures of Joe and said toasters. That's a strawman that the anti-tracking people love to hint at, but it doesn't actually work that way. What actually happens is that advertisers target broad categories. They say, "show this ad to midwesterners who've visited sites about toasters", and that's what happens. There's no secret dossier just waiting to be sold to the highest bidder for purposes always left unspecified. Yes, centralized trackers do end up learning a portion of your browsing history. But you don't have to accept third-party cookies. You can run with an ad blocker. And you can just reset your cookie[1] state every so often. You can do any of these things. You'll just pay for your paranoia with a shittier web. [1] Yes, I know about non-cookie trackers. Advertisers stashing information where it's hard to clear are scum. It's up to web browsers to make it easy to flush all server-visible state.
      - fauigerzigerk 11y ago
        >Advertisers don't get some kind of toast on their phones saying "Joe, 34 from Topeka with a toaster fetish, has just visited your site!" But the likes of Google and Facebook know exactly that. They have it stored somewhere and it's only a matter of time until it gets stolen by organised criminals, religious fanatics or oppressive governments.
        malka 11y ago
        This. Facebook and Google combined have probably enough data to blackmail most people in the first world.
DanielBMarkham 11y ago
Yes. If you're going to be responsible for your content, be responsible for your content. Don't write up great evergreen long-form content and then auction off key areas of your page to anybody with a credit-card and ad-network approval. Instead, curate products and services I might be interested in. Vouch for those the same way you vouch for the content. If you want to track everywhere I go, say so. (I doubt I'll patronize your site, but at least you'd be honest about it.) The problem isn't that all advertising is bad. The problem is that we visit websites expecting one entity to own and operate it. Instead we get hit by a thousand entities, each with its own privacy policies and agendas. That's unworkable from the consumer side.
greggman 11y ago
I don't think that's what will happen. Ad firms will come up with a server side API you plug into your website so ads can come through your site. You've just made the security problem worse not better as coming from the same site they are allowed to read everything that site does vs coming from iframes from different domains in which case they are allowed to read nothing.
- cm2187 11y ago
  No, the tracking becomes specific to the site visited (same origin policy), not cross-websites, and I don't have a problem with that. Now there is also the debate of whether all sites deserve to be able to run javascript. I say no. But some people here think that even rendering a blog article should require a lot of client side scripting.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    > No, the tracking becomes specific to the site visited (same origin policy), not cross-websites, and I don't have a problem with that. You're assuming the server-side scripts won't share data with a central server.
    - cm2187 11y ago
      They might but how would they correlate me on abc.com and me on xyz.com if they don't have some form of cookie? Browser fingerprinting is the only way I can think of, and between the phasing out of flash, java and silverlight, and having javascript disabled by default, browser fingerprinting is pretty much toothless.
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        If they're talking to a central ad server they can tell it what cookies they're seeing.
        cm2187 11y ago
sixdimensional 11y ago
Data sharing agreements would make self-hosting ads irrelevant. You would have to either not support organizations that would share your data with (or without) your consent, or better/stronger laws would have to be enacted to make it a regulatory issue.

by junto 11y ago

cm2187 11y ago

Me too. And there is no point to access the last two years of someone's browsing history to know that someone visiting a video game website is interested in video games or technology.

rewqfdsa 11y ago
But what kinds of science and technology? Maybe our user has a bit of disposable income and wouldn't mind ads for high-end hardware he didn't happen to know about. Maybe she's interested in DLC for games she's passionate about, as measured for frequently of forum visits. Maybe our user runs a lab and would be very interested in high-end PCR machines. You can do much better than "interested in video games or technology" if you know a bit about your users. This tracking makes advertising much less annoying (occasionally veering into useful).
- cm2187 11y ago
  Advertisers just have to accept that when a customer walk through their door, they will not have access to his/her bank statements, sexual preferences, list of acquaintances, medical records, gps locations for the last two years, etc. What information one can get from someone's browsing history is awfully invasive.
  - rewqfdsa 11y ago
    > Advertisers just have to accept Advertisers will adapt. What you have to accept is more annoying advertising coupled with increasingly error-prone code in both ad-blockers and ad-blocker-blockers. The only one that wins is Moloch; everyone else is worse off. > What information one can get from someone's browsing history is awfully invasive. Is it? Advertisers don't get some kind of toast on their phones saying "Joe, 34 from Topeka with a toaster fetish, has just visited your site!" along with pictures of Joe and said toasters. That's a strawman that the anti-tracking people love to hint at, but it doesn't actually work that way. What actually happens is that advertisers target broad categories. They say, "show this ad to midwesterners who've visited sites about toasters", and that's what happens. There's no secret dossier just waiting to be sold to the highest bidder for purposes always left unspecified. Yes, centralized trackers do end up learning a portion of your browsing history. But you don't have to accept third-party cookies. You can run with an ad blocker. And you can just reset your cookie[1] state every so often. You can do any of these things. You'll just pay for your paranoia with a shittier web. [1] Yes, I know about non-cookie trackers. Advertisers stashing information where it's hard to clear are scum. It's up to web browsers to make it easy to flush all server-visible state.
    - fauigerzigerk 11y ago
      >Advertisers don't get some kind of toast on their phones saying "Joe, 34 from Topeka with a toaster fetish, has just visited your site!" But the likes of Google and Facebook know exactly that. They have it stored somewhere and it's only a matter of time until it gets stolen by organised criminals, religious fanatics or oppressive governments.
      - malka 11y ago
        This. Facebook and Google combined have probably enough data to blackmail most people in the first world.

DanielBMarkham 11y ago

Yes. If you're going to be responsible for your content, be responsible for your content. Don't write up great evergreen long-form content and then auction off key areas of your page to anybody with a credit-card and ad-network approval. Instead, curate products and services I might be interested in. Vouch for those the same way you vouch for the content. If you want to track everywhere I go, say so. (I doubt I'll patronize your site, but at least you'd be honest about it.) The problem isn't that all advertising is bad. The problem is that we visit websites expecting one entity to own and operate it. Instead we get hit by a thousand entities, each with its own privacy policies and agendas. That's unworkable from the consumer side.

greggman 11y ago

I don't think that's what will happen. Ad firms will come up with a server side API you plug into your website so ads can come through your site. You've just made the security problem worse not better as coming from the same site they are allowed to read everything that site does vs coming from iframes from different domains in which case they are allowed to read nothing.

cm2187 11y ago
No, the tracking becomes specific to the site visited (same origin policy), not cross-websites, and I don't have a problem with that. Now there is also the debate of whether all sites deserve to be able to run javascript. I say no. But some people here think that even rendering a blog article should require a lot of client side scripting.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > No, the tracking becomes specific to the site visited (same origin policy), not cross-websites, and I don't have a problem with that. You're assuming the server-side scripts won't share data with a central server.
  - cm2187 11y ago
    They might but how would they correlate me on abc.com and me on xyz.com if they don't have some form of cookie? Browser fingerprinting is the only way I can think of, and between the phasing out of flash, java and silverlight, and having javascript disabled by default, browser fingerprinting is pretty much toothless.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      If they're talking to a central ad server they can tell it what cookies they're seeing.
      - cm2187 11y ago

sixdimensional 11y ago

Data sharing agreements would make self-hosting ads irrelevant. You would have to either not support organizations that would share your data with (or without) your consent, or better/stronger laws would have to be enacted to make it a regulatory issue.