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I develop software used by newspapers. This is a problem with the whole industry. It's amazing how much crap they load. These sites all use a third party "tag

I develop software used by newspapers. This is a problem with the whole industry. It's amazing how much crap they load. These sites all use a third party "tag manager" (Google Tag Manager, Tealium, Piwik etc.) to manage the scripts they load: ads, analytics, trackers etc. The people who use the tag manager typically aren't techies, so they don't understand that adding another tag will cause the page to slow down. Typically I've seen a single newspaper use 3-4 different vendors for the exact same thing, such as analytics. They don't actually use all of them; who knows why they have multiple overlapping ones. Scripts are often badly written, and it's common to see lots of nonsensical errors spewed to the console. It's very annoying to debug your own stuff when you have that crap loaded, which typically comes from a header/footer combo provided by the customer.

zkms 10y ago
The worst type of ad on newspaper sites are the disgusting "chumboxes" (by scumsuckers like "taboola" or "outbrain") that orbit at the bottom of pages and serve up images meant to be as simultaneously repulsive and fascinating as possible: https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b7a070a2d https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b... As long as these pages have ads that display utterly gross images (if you doubt me, click the above link) that make goatse look like pure mindbleach, i'll keep blocking JS and ads.
- eli 10y ago
  It made me sad when boingboing put one of those ad boxes on the site. I work in digital media. I get why publishers do it. But, sheesh, if you're resorting these ads that insult your audience in exchange for pennies, I think you need to reexamine your approach.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    It's less then pennies per view. All of those trackers also pay less than pennies per view. Basically, if you have a legit business with any ability whatsoever to make decent revenue, there's no reason to have chumboxes or paying trackers on your site.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Let's not beat around the bush: some publishers do that kind of thing because they are scumbags.
    - eli 10y ago
      I don't really agree. I don't think that's fair.
      - 3131s 10y ago
        It's presenting your audience with misinformation, false hope, and scams. It's incredibly scummy. Those type of ads prey on people's desperation and gullibility, and there are actually people who will fall for them and waste time and money in the process.
      - Neliquat 10y ago
        And I think people who condone that stuff are shitheads. Its not fair, but it is almost always true.
    - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
      Probably some exec is standing in the middle of the war room screaming at the top of his lungs that revenue is down and so people get desperate not to lose their jobs and start sticking this crap at the bottom of the page. Some money is better than no money they think.
- jamez1 10y ago
  And they wonder why people believe fake news when they link to it in their ads.
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  You must be in an NSFW ad bubble. I only see tame clickbait from the Taboola links.
  - zkms 10y ago
    > You must be in an NSFW ad bubble. No, i get the trypophobia-triggering (DON'T GOOGLE THAT WORD) chumbox images when browsing in incognito mode, without pre-existing cookies or anything else. This has nothing to do with my ad bubble, https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b7a070a2d https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b... has mentioned that the chumboxes very often carry those images. Also i'm not the only one, there's lots of other people who attest to the fact that chumboxes specifically use those kinds of images: http://ask.metafilter.com/247987/How-can-I-avoid-seeing-related-web-content-with-horrible-images http://ask.metafilter.com/247987/How-can-I-avoid-seeing-rela...
    - wernercd 10y ago
      It's sad that I know immediately which ads are "trypophobia" tiggerers... now that i know what that phobia means...
    - aptwebapps 10y ago
      Totally anecdotal, but I think I see worse stuff in incognito mode than otherwise. Perhaps the default is bad, but with tracking you can get into a less bad bubble?
    - emmelaich 10y ago
      That makes sense; you'll get the cheapest, crappiest ads, when the prospective revenue is lowest (i.e. no other related tracking data)
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  The thing that finally made me switch to scorched-earth adblocking was a Taboola ad for "Top 10 Most Gruesome Tortures in History", with illustration.
- vlunkr 10y ago
  I left that article more confused than when I went in. I guess that's the logical conclusion of tabloid content.
- artursapek 10y ago
  > Chumbox Had no idea there was a name for this shit! But of course there is. It's really sad that the most rotten apples have spoiled it for everybody. I was thinking recently about trying to set up a passive income website that makes money on Adsense, but got discouraged when I remembered that Adblockers are a thing.
  - kristianc 10y ago
    You're decrying the amount of crap on the internet and then saying that it impedes your ability to set up a 'passive income' site whose sole purpose is to make money through Adsense?
    - artursapek 10y ago
      Yeah, Adsense ads are generally very tolerable, but they are blocked by adblockers that are adopted by people to get rid of "Chumboxes". There's a big difference.
      - zkms 10y ago
        I frankly don't mind ads as long as they don't use up more CPU/network as the content i'm already viewing (battery isn't free) -- so no video ads if i'm reading text. Proper honest advertisements for actual products and services is something I have no issue with -- hell, I've actually managed to save money on car insurance because of a bloody online car insurance ad. I despise stuff that autoplays video/audio, or moves around on the page, or displays creepy, pseudo-anatomical images engineered to trigger revulsion/fascination (trypophobia stuff or shit like those weird toenail images in those "heart attack" ads or whatever else). My browser blocks JS by default because I don't enjoy seeing those kinds of shock images. Hell, goatse is less distressing for me to look at than the images in your average chumbox.
- jelly 10y ago
  I nearly got tricked into closing that article after the first paragraph; the chumbox subconsciously indicated to me the end of the article and I had to consciously think "wait, this is an article about these ad grids." In fact it happened for every example they showed.
- elzi 10y ago
  It's crazy to think I probably exercise way, way more restraint on clicking that kind of junk than most, and even I can recall a time in the past year I just couldn't help myself. They're so psychologically predatory.
prawn 10y ago
This might be worst in the news industry, but it is not uncommon on other sites too. And even without a tag manager, as a web developer, I still get requests to blindly add all sorts of scripts. Often they're requested by a marketing partner of the client, or because the client has seen something at a conference that they believe they must have. Wherever possible, I make it clear that this cruft comes at a cost, but I cannot recall a single client being swayed by those arguments. In the case of overlap between trackers (Analytics, Facebook, etc), from the perspective of the client, they solve their "problem" in a quick request. Either it appeases the marketing company or it gives them that little extra feature they think they need but will never use. Increasingly, it can be miserable developing for anything other than my own projects because of how much time is spent implementing bad ideas requested by other people.
- pdimitar 10y ago
  So true it hurts. All of your comment. That's why I am thinking actively about starting my own small business lately. Or simply refuse to do web development at all and go into data science / A.I. / pattern extraction areas. It seems like either of those would be excruciatingly hard to transition to (work inertia can be a blessing and a curse) but I want to do either -- or both -- because web development is in my eyes in its worst decline ever. I don't buy the optimistic BS from inexperienced JS devs or the promises of new tech. People still have to use user agent sniffing for their website to work best. Just lol.
donohoe 10y ago
+1 on this. I'm dealing with Ensighten right now. A wonderful tag-manager (sarcasm) that lets anyone add any random 3rd-party script to all the pages. Am finding services being loaded twice. From different URLs too so its not just a cache hit.
padseeker 10y ago
I work in IT for TRONC (parent company of LA Times), and can vouch for this. Some of the ad scripts are horrendously bad. Open firebug or chrome dev tools and load the page, watch all those errors pour in. We pay very close attention to our own code, but all those js bugs that are happening are related to external ad networks with terrible javascript. We have something in the neighborhood of 30+ ad partners. Some of those partners have decent code, others are really terrible. The IT team only adds the code to allow ad networks to inject their advertisements. Because of the performance issues and the disreputable nature of some of the ad networks we have discussed the possibility of building our own ad server. However this takes time and money, I don't know the ROI of such an endeavor. Ultimately sale's job is to generate revenue so we partner with nearly every single ad network that can generate money. It's not desirable to deal with all these different ad providers, but you don't need me to tell you about the challenges the newspaper industry is dealing with. We need to bring in money on the digital side to make up the downward trajectory of print ads.
- martinpw 10y ago
  The LA Times popup says: "To read today's stories, please turn off your ad blocker or subscribe". That "or" implies a subscription should allow you to browse ad-free. Is that intended to be true? I actually purchased a subscription because I do want to support the paper but not deal with the nightmarish ads that make the site basically unusable. However after logging in, the site immediately demands that I disable blocking third party cookies. I've been in touch with the subscription department without luck, so at this point I am looking to cancel my subscription. Pity - I really wanted to support the paper, but they make it basically impossible to do so.
  - jbclements 10y ago
    One data point to the contrary; I subscribed, and I can now view the site without ads. ObDetails: I use ghostery, and I don't block Google Analytics. All other trackers blocked, according to Ghostery. I do see Ad Council ads.. things like Smokey the Bear. I don't find those problematic.
- pdimitar 10y ago
jedberg 10y ago
> who knows why they have multiple overlapping ones. Different ad networks use different provider's numbers to determine how much to charge for ads based on which traffic tier you're in. If you don't use them all, then you can't sell on that network, or you get a really bad CPM. And none of them seem to trust Google's numbers except Google, even though those are far more accurate than any other provider.

zkms 10y ago

The worst type of ad on newspaper sites are the disgusting "chumboxes" (by scumsuckers like "taboola" or "outbrain") that orbit at the bottom of pages and serve up images meant to be as simultaneously repulsive and fascinating as possible: https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b7a070a2d https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b... As long as these pages have ads that display utterly gross images (if you doubt me, click the above link) that make goatse look like pure mindbleach, i'll keep blocking JS and ads.

eli 10y ago
It made me sad when boingboing put one of those ad boxes on the site. I work in digital media. I get why publishers do it. But, sheesh, if you're resorting these ads that insult your audience in exchange for pennies, I think you need to reexamine your approach.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  It's less then pennies per view. All of those trackers also pay less than pennies per view. Basically, if you have a legit business with any ability whatsoever to make decent revenue, there's no reason to have chumboxes or paying trackers on your site.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Let's not beat around the bush: some publishers do that kind of thing because they are scumbags.
  - eli 10y ago
    I don't really agree. I don't think that's fair.
    - 3131s 10y ago
      It's presenting your audience with misinformation, false hope, and scams. It's incredibly scummy. Those type of ads prey on people's desperation and gullibility, and there are actually people who will fall for them and waste time and money in the process.
    - Neliquat 10y ago
      And I think people who condone that stuff are shitheads. Its not fair, but it is almost always true.
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    Probably some exec is standing in the middle of the war room screaming at the top of his lungs that revenue is down and so people get desperate not to lose their jobs and start sticking this crap at the bottom of the page. Some money is better than no money they think.
jamez1 10y ago
And they wonder why people believe fake news when they link to it in their ads.
kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
You must be in an NSFW ad bubble. I only see tame clickbait from the Taboola links.
- zkms 10y ago
  > You must be in an NSFW ad bubble. No, i get the trypophobia-triggering (DON'T GOOGLE THAT WORD) chumbox images when browsing in incognito mode, without pre-existing cookies or anything else. This has nothing to do with my ad bubble, https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b7a070a2d https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b... has mentioned that the chumboxes very often carry those images. Also i'm not the only one, there's lots of other people who attest to the fact that chumboxes specifically use those kinds of images: http://ask.metafilter.com/247987/How-can-I-avoid-seeing-related-web-content-with-horrible-images http://ask.metafilter.com/247987/How-can-I-avoid-seeing-rela...
  - wernercd 10y ago
    It's sad that I know immediately which ads are "trypophobia" tiggerers... now that i know what that phobia means...
  - aptwebapps 10y ago
    Totally anecdotal, but I think I see worse stuff in incognito mode than otherwise. Perhaps the default is bad, but with tracking you can get into a less bad bubble?
  - emmelaich 10y ago
    That makes sense; you'll get the cheapest, crappiest ads, when the prospective revenue is lowest (i.e. no other related tracking data)
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
The thing that finally made me switch to scorched-earth adblocking was a Taboola ad for "Top 10 Most Gruesome Tortures in History", with illustration.
vlunkr 10y ago
I left that article more confused than when I went in. I guess that's the logical conclusion of tabloid content.
artursapek 10y ago
> Chumbox Had no idea there was a name for this shit! But of course there is. It's really sad that the most rotten apples have spoiled it for everybody. I was thinking recently about trying to set up a passive income website that makes money on Adsense, but got discouraged when I remembered that Adblockers are a thing.
- kristianc 10y ago
  You're decrying the amount of crap on the internet and then saying that it impedes your ability to set up a 'passive income' site whose sole purpose is to make money through Adsense?
  - artursapek 10y ago
    Yeah, Adsense ads are generally very tolerable, but they are blocked by adblockers that are adopted by people to get rid of "Chumboxes". There's a big difference.
    - zkms 10y ago
      I frankly don't mind ads as long as they don't use up more CPU/network as the content i'm already viewing (battery isn't free) -- so no video ads if i'm reading text. Proper honest advertisements for actual products and services is something I have no issue with -- hell, I've actually managed to save money on car insurance because of a bloody online car insurance ad. I despise stuff that autoplays video/audio, or moves around on the page, or displays creepy, pseudo-anatomical images engineered to trigger revulsion/fascination (trypophobia stuff or shit like those weird toenail images in those "heart attack" ads or whatever else). My browser blocks JS by default because I don't enjoy seeing those kinds of shock images. Hell, goatse is less distressing for me to look at than the images in your average chumbox.
jelly 10y ago
I nearly got tricked into closing that article after the first paragraph; the chumbox subconsciously indicated to me the end of the article and I had to consciously think "wait, this is an article about these ad grids." In fact it happened for every example they showed.
elzi 10y ago
It's crazy to think I probably exercise way, way more restraint on clicking that kind of junk than most, and even I can recall a time in the past year I just couldn't help myself. They're so psychologically predatory.

prawn 10y ago

This might be worst in the news industry, but it is not uncommon on other sites too. And even without a tag manager, as a web developer, I still get requests to blindly add all sorts of scripts. Often they're requested by a marketing partner of the client, or because the client has seen something at a conference that they believe they must have. Wherever possible, I make it clear that this cruft comes at a cost, but I cannot recall a single client being swayed by those arguments. In the case of overlap between trackers (Analytics, Facebook, etc), from the perspective of the client, they solve their "problem" in a quick request. Either it appeases the marketing company or it gives them that little extra feature they think they need but will never use. Increasingly, it can be miserable developing for anything other than my own projects because of how much time is spent implementing bad ideas requested by other people.

pdimitar 10y ago
So true it hurts. All of your comment. That's why I am thinking actively about starting my own small business lately. Or simply refuse to do web development at all and go into data science / A.I. / pattern extraction areas. It seems like either of those would be excruciatingly hard to transition to (work inertia can be a blessing and a curse) but I want to do either -- or both -- because web development is in my eyes in its worst decline ever. I don't buy the optimistic BS from inexperienced JS devs or the promises of new tech. People still have to use user agent sniffing for their website to work best. Just lol.

donohoe 10y ago

+1 on this. I'm dealing with Ensighten right now. A wonderful tag-manager (sarcasm) that lets anyone add any random 3rd-party script to all the pages. Am finding services being loaded twice. From different URLs too so its not just a cache hit.

padseeker 10y ago

I work in IT for TRONC (parent company of LA Times), and can vouch for this. Some of the ad scripts are horrendously bad. Open firebug or chrome dev tools and load the page, watch all those errors pour in. We pay very close attention to our own code, but all those js bugs that are happening are related to external ad networks with terrible javascript. We have something in the neighborhood of 30+ ad partners. Some of those partners have decent code, others are really terrible. The IT team only adds the code to allow ad networks to inject their advertisements. Because of the performance issues and the disreputable nature of some of the ad networks we have discussed the possibility of building our own ad server. However this takes time and money, I don't know the ROI of such an endeavor. Ultimately sale's job is to generate revenue so we partner with nearly every single ad network that can generate money. It's not desirable to deal with all these different ad providers, but you don't need me to tell you about the challenges the newspaper industry is dealing with. We need to bring in money on the digital side to make up the downward trajectory of print ads.

martinpw 10y ago
The LA Times popup says: "To read today's stories, please turn off your ad blocker or subscribe". That "or" implies a subscription should allow you to browse ad-free. Is that intended to be true? I actually purchased a subscription because I do want to support the paper but not deal with the nightmarish ads that make the site basically unusable. However after logging in, the site immediately demands that I disable blocking third party cookies. I've been in touch with the subscription department without luck, so at this point I am looking to cancel my subscription. Pity - I really wanted to support the paper, but they make it basically impossible to do so.
- jbclements 10y ago
  One data point to the contrary; I subscribed, and I can now view the site without ads. ObDetails: I use ghostery, and I don't block Google Analytics. All other trackers blocked, according to Ghostery. I do see Ad Council ads.. things like Smokey the Bear. I don't find those problematic.
pdimitar 10y ago

jedberg 10y ago

> who knows why they have multiple overlapping ones. Different ad networks use different provider's numbers to determine how much to charge for ads based on which traffic tier you're in. If you don't use them all, then you can't sell on that network, or you get a really bad CPM. And none of them seem to trust Google's numbers except Google, even though those are far more accurate than any other provider.