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I had to implement this kinda code when I worked for Demand Media and it certainly worked. Whats funny is you don't need any fancy new apis to make it work. We
by dawnerd 10y ago
I had to implement this kinda code when I worked for Demand Media and it certainly worked. Whats funny is you don't need any fancy new apis to make it work. We were doing some pretty basic tactics actually. Only real way to prevent it is disable javascript.
- mrfusion 10y agoYou should have refused
- akshatpradhan 10y agoYou shouldn't refuse. You should document the privacy impact and make sure everybody is aware of the privacy implications.
- dawnerd 10y agoBelieve me, there was lots of pushing back. It was right before Google dropped panda and basically killed ehow.
- cpach 10y agoMoralizing about dawnerd’s employment doesn’t really add to the discussion, IMHO.
- nitrogen 10y agoA new discussion of the ethics of software engineering might be valuable. Other professions have codes of ethics; maybe it's time for software, too.
- HerpDerpLerp 10y agoUncle bob agrees http://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2015/11/18/TheProgrammersOath.html http://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2015/11/18/TheProgramme...
- jlgaddis 10y agocf. ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct: https://www.acm.org/about-acm/acm-code-of-ethics-and-professional-conduct https://www.acm.org/about-acm/acm-code-of-ethics-and-profess...
- nitrogen 10y agoI like most of the ACM code. I think it could use an update with more direct prohibitions on modern forms of user harm, such as trading in private information and manipulating search results to promote low quality sites.
- mannykannot 10y agoAt least no underhanded techniques have been used to deliver it to you.
- sethammons 10y agoWhat do you mean by it worked? Did you have metrics supporting increased views that were tied to the paste highjacking?
- dawnerd 10y agoI don't personally have any supporting data but the business people were not ones to do things unless it worked. Just look how high in the rankings ehow was able to get before panda hit.
- woodman 10y agoDemand Media makes money by monitoring ad networks and then paying people to churn out worthless content that pollutes search results. They watch metrics very carefully.
- ashitlerferad 10y agoSounds like a pretty unethical way to make money.
- woodman 10y agoI'm sure that those involved have very interesting rationalizations, but I don't think that it should be viewed from an ethics perspective. Expecting people to behave against their own self interest in the short term, for the good of strangers in the long term, will always end in disappointment. This is actually a pretty simple case of poorly stated objectives being cleverly met by people who are completely self interested. LOC metrics, rat tail bounties, click-through rates. I know this sounds kind of "well what did you expect wearing something like that", but if advertisers establish metrics that are more closely aligned with their objectives then we'd all be better off. But yeah, Demand Media is terrible and their employees are not on my Christmas card list.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago> I know this sounds kind of "well what did you expect wearing something like that" Which is a perfectly rational question/argument. > Expecting people to behave against their own self interest in the short term, for the good of strangers in the long term, will always end in disappointment. I agree. This is a systemic problem, and appeals to ethics won't work (and the advertisers won't change their metrics because of them) - one needs to attack the economic incentives underlying their current strategies.
- wtbob 10y ago> Only real way to prevent it is disable javascript. Oh, darn … /s
- conradev 10y agoOr to block the loading of the offending javascript!
- losteric 10y agoWhat's stopping websites from minifying all their javascript into one file and preventing the site from functioning without JS?
- capitalsigma 10y agoThen refuse to use them. That's what I do.
- tehrei 10y agoThen you start writing GreaseMonkey scripts and patching the APIs they use.
- asddddd 10y agoToggling dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled in Firefox has fixed this on every implementation I've seen apart from the PoC here.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ggsp 10y agoOr inspect and copy from there?
- ccozan 10y agoBest solution. Also works for websites that block right click, and other similar tricks, to "protect" the content.
- lmm 10y agoWould you even need javascript to do it? You could just include that text at the start of each paragraph and hide it with CSS.