10 ms·

Completely by-the-by, but I couldn't help but notice the small advertisement at the bottom for Smile PDFPen[0]. I'm using uBlock Origin, but this wasn't blocked

by barbs 11y ago

Completely by-the-by, but I couldn't help but notice the small advertisement at the bottom for Smile PDFPen[0]. I'm using uBlock Origin, but this wasn't blocked by it, presumably because it's unique to this site, and is indistinguishable from the rest of the content. However, it's very unobtrusive, doesn't track me at all and has no influence on the actual content of the article, so I have no problems with it being here. This makes me wonder if there could be a set of guidelines that could be formulated for acceptable advertising on websites...? [0]https://imgur.com/pQIFQFb https://imgur.com/pQIFQFb

shostack 11y ago
You're still being tracked. The URL itself is encoded, so there's tracking there, and when you visit the link I have 20+ tracking tags load from Google, Yahoo, MS, Rubicon, etc. Unless you blocked all of that, expect to see retargeting ads for PDFpen in the near future.
Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y ago
Adblock Plus has such guidelines for the "acceptable ads" it lets through by default.
adamengst 11y ago
Adam Engst, publisher of TidBITS here... Thanks for noticing that Smile is sponsoring TidBITS. As you note, the sponsorship is unique to our site, and uses entirely internal systems for display, so there are no trackers or the like. Smile chose to do their URL via a URL shortener, so I don't know what could be determined if you click it, but it's not loading any code merely by viewing it. The trackers the other commenter saw are due to the graphical ads and affiliate link generators we also have on the page. Two random facts to note. First, as far as I know, TidBITS did the first sponsorship program for Internet content back in 1992. If that was in any way responsible for what Internet advertising has become, I apologize. :-) Since we believe in archival content, you can read that article at http://tidbits.com/article/2995 http://tidbits.com/article/2995 Second, our primary source of revenue is voluntary memberships. We also make about $5K per year from graphical ads, and in last year's membership drive, I challenged the 90% of our readers who are not members to join, promising that we'd drop the graphical ads and affiliate link generators if we could raise another $5K. Alas, the challenge fell short. http://tidbits.com/article/16234 http://tidbits.com/article/16234

by barbs 11y ago

shostack 11y ago

You're still being tracked. The URL itself is encoded, so there's tracking there, and when you visit the link I have 20+ tracking tags load from Google, Yahoo, MS, Rubicon, etc. Unless you blocked all of that, expect to see retargeting ads for PDFpen in the near future.

Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y ago

Adblock Plus has such guidelines for the "acceptable ads" it lets through by default.

adamengst 11y ago

Adam Engst, publisher of TidBITS here... Thanks for noticing that Smile is sponsoring TidBITS. As you note, the sponsorship is unique to our site, and uses entirely internal systems for display, so there are no trackers or the like. Smile chose to do their URL via a URL shortener, so I don't know what could be determined if you click it, but it's not loading any code merely by viewing it. The trackers the other commenter saw are due to the graphical ads and affiliate link generators we also have on the page. Two random facts to note. First, as far as I know, TidBITS did the first sponsorship program for Internet content back in 1992. If that was in any way responsible for what Internet advertising has become, I apologize. :-) Since we believe in archival content, you can read that article at http://tidbits.com/article/2995 http://tidbits.com/article/2995 Second, our primary source of revenue is voluntary memberships. We also make about $5K per year from graphical ads, and in last year's membership drive, I challenged the 90% of our readers who are not members to join, promising that we'd drop the graphical ads and affiliate link generators if we could raise another $5K. Alas, the challenge fell short. http://tidbits.com/article/16234 http://tidbits.com/article/16234