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I use an ad blocker for a much simpler reason. I do not consent to having my behavior analyzed. Calling these things `ads` is deliberately misleading. The prima

by saguro 9y ago

I use an ad blocker for a much simpler reason. I do not consent to having my behavior analyzed. Calling these things `ads` is deliberately misleading. The primary purpose of these things isn't to show you an ad, its to record everything you do on every site you visit, so then that data can be correlated to your credit history and other real world sources to profile you and optimally manipulate your behavior to sell you shit. Just wondering how many people here noticed that pornhub injects google analytics, and gives google unscrutinized access to your sexual preferences and habits? They don't even bother showing a google ad, they just let them inject their arbitrary js payload. I do not consent. They can fuck right off.

duncan-donuts 9y ago
I hate to be that guy, but I'm going to guess you probably _do_ consent just by accessing certain sites. I'm sure if you read the terms they disclose that. I'm not saying that's right, and I also have a similar stance of trying not to be profiled, but don't delude yourself thinking your ad blocker is stopping organizations from gathering your metadata.
- baddox 9y ago
  It is literally nonsensical to tell someone who is explicitly not consenting that they are in fact implicitly consenting.
  - ascorbic 9y ago
    If you are explicitly not consenting, then surely the correct way to do this is to not visit the site. If I go to a shop and want a product but don't like the price I am within my rights to refuse the contract and not buy the item. What I am not entitled to do is unilaterally change the contract, and walk out with the item without paying full price. I use an ad blocker because so many sites are barely usable without it, but I don't pretend it's a morally justifiable thing to do, and I try to disable it for sites that I use a lot, unless I pay for them.
    - aleksei 9y ago
      The actual analogy is walking into a store and being forced to buy something for walking in. I don't feel the store owner should be entitled to do that. As for moral justifiability, I find it unacceptable that a website operator can sell data about me without my consent just for following a link to their site.
      - Karunamon 9y ago
        Data about you is not necessarily owned by you.
        aleksei 9y ago
        I don't necessarily agree fully, but even then we can discuss the morality of selling the data to trackers without informing the user, let alone not giving them a choice to opt out before viewing the content.
        pacifika 9y ago
        It is in Europe
      - ascorbic 9y ago
        Do you read the content on the website? Because in that case yes it is fair for the "store owner" to force you to pay the price.
        aleksei 9y ago
        I would agree, if only I were given the choice. As it is, I have no way to know what the terms of a website are until I visit. The intent of the ads are also usually not made clear. If I don't view the ad am I allowed to read the content? I guess it boils down to what you think the Internet is. I feel I should be in control of my computer, and thus I get to decide which bits I allow onto my network and which of those bits are then rendered on my screen. If you've made content publicly available, it's mine to consume in the way I see fit. I don't see why I shouldn't, for example, be allowed to use a text based browser to view content or browse with JavaScript disabled. Payment for content is of course difficult for websites, but I just don't feel an ad based revenue is feasible on an open web, precisely because the web is open. The platform does not support the notion of content creators implicitly dictating terms.
- saguro 9y ago
  > I'm sure if you read the terms they disclose that. As an average person, if you spend 8 hours a day reading all the terms and conditions you 'agree' to, it would take you 76 days to just read them, nevermind understand them. http://techland.time.com/2012/03/06/youd-need-76-work-days-to-read-all-your-privacy-policies-each-year/ http://techland.time.com/2012/03/06/youd-need-76-work-days-t... I'm not actually sure how we ended up living in a world where those terms and conditions are legally meaningful. But I'll reiterate that they can fuck right off and there is absolutely no moral dilemma about blanket filtering of ads and trackers. As to how effective they are - effective enough to prompt anti adblocking measures such as TFA.
  - hugo0384729109 9y ago
    Would be nice to have a government standard Meta-TOS with things grouped in sections with plain language and the service specific TOS could be required to reference the sections from the standard that they want to apply, even with a simple standard system of logos.
  - distances 9y ago
    > I'm not actually sure how we ended up living in a world where those terms and conditions are legally meaningful IANAL, but as an European I'm pretty sure they aren't legally meaningful. To be honest, I don't consider any online T&C's to actually affect me, and only pay attention to explicitly mentioned licenses for content. I have no idea how far from actual reality this is.
    - hanbura 9y ago
      According to German law those T&C are meaningless for just browsing the website (they neither ask you to agree nor offer the possibility of reading the terms in advance). And as long as you aren't acting as a business, those "I agree" checkmarks don't bind you to any "surprising" terms (in other words: not even the law expects you to read them) (IANAL)
      - distances 9y ago
- pmlnr 9y ago
  Since when is visiting a specific domain falls under the "I'm allowing 3rd party as well"? If that is in fact the TOS that needs to be shown before any content OR 3rd party, tracker, ad, etc. is loaded.
- supergreg 9y ago
  I don't think they can enforce their TOC just by opening the page. I need to open it just to read the TOC in the first place. By reading this comment you consent to agreeing with it. It doesn't work that way.
BoorishBears 9y ago
If you don’t consent why view their content? And I’d like an answer for once other than the super literal “Because their server returned the status code 200” Because sure, it did, but if we’re turning this into an ideological discussion of how you feel you haven’t given permission, why even feed the system with your view. Even using an ad blocked you’re still adding views to the page, and the powers that be will simply view you as a customer, albeit one they’re being cheated out of with a pesky ad blocked. To me you are consenting the moment you decide to use services and websites that cost millions of dollars to maintain and expecting and paying little to nothing compared to the real cost of those services. If you used paid sites you’d see less ads (maybe not no ads because often times the cost you pay still isn’t the “real cost” of that service”) and my guess is this tracking would seem a lot less intrusive. Example: Sometimes I use sites to watch foreign films that show several tabs of ads for each click. You need to click on each hyperlink about 3 times, each time opening a new ad, some of which are the “Update flash” malicious type. I don’t ad block them (anymore, for a short while I used ad-block on sites like this and then thought better if it) because hosting 100s of HD movies costs money. Sometimes I run out of patience and instead of playing up my entitlement and just saying “I deserve this because reasons” I just... close the page. If no one views the videos, no money will be made, and either the hosting service will shape up, or it will close. There won’t be an arms race of anti-ad-blocker vs ad-blocked.
- themistocle 9y ago
  Individual choices are insignificant. The future of advertising is being planned by Facebook and Google. Blocking advertisments is a workaround for a broken web. Surfing the web has always been about discovery. Are we supposed to intuit whether or not to visit a site for the first time based on how we predict it will align to some kind of ad rubric? The fact that many websites have bad business models is noone’s fault but their own. In fact, tools like AdNauseum[0] show how broken this moralistic consumer thinking is: Block all ads? > That’s robbing sites of needed advertising click-dollars! Click all ads? > That’s robbing advertising companies of needed attention! This is totalitarian capitalism: it’s not good enough to accept being tracked everywhere, spied on, and burdened with processing advertising. Not good enough even to click every ad. You must love the ads in your heart. It’s your duty, citizen! 0. https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/
Buge 9y ago
>to profile you and optimally manipulate your behavior to sell you shit. ...by showing you ads.
- sattoshi 9y ago
  Not limited to showing ads
  - LoSboccacc 9y ago
    Yeah. They already used operating system and browser to change price on ecommerce sites according to the wealth those project, imagine let them having a clear correlation with your credit score
- saguro 9y ago
  How about by manipulating your facebook news feed and exposing you to a carefully selected series of images and headlines to sway your opinion on political topics without you even realizing. How about identifying which youtubers your children are impressionable to, and then approaching them to push unhealthy food products? How about using your porn browsing habits and location history to figure out when you start cheating on your significant other, how about offering you divorce lawyers before you even realize you need one. How about figuring out when you become isolated and lonely by looking at changes in the volume of texts and phone calls and IMs you exchange, and then selling that primarily to dating and sex chat websites. Ever wondered why these websites are silently deploying anti-adblock functionality rather than trying to bring the matter through the legal system? Because if it ever became a legal case and they were made to disclose how they use the data, there'd be a fucking uproar. This is exactly what happened in the EU and that's why advertisers had their balls cut off in that region. So now they've opted to support the destruction of net neutrality and bolster DRM laws so they can shoehorn advertisements and anti-adblock under DRM instead. People need to get 100% clear on something: there are very smart people getting paid very generous salaries whose job is to find ways to distort and manipulate laws and public perception to prevent consumers from asserting their rights against having their behavior manipulated. I don't think it's an understatement to say that these groups are a major threat to the wellbeing of the people, right up there with war and climate change. Ajit Pai is a textbook example of this pattern. He's not stupid, he's not an asshole. He's a smart person who has been tasked with a goal that goes against the public good. And he's done a good job at that task.

by saguro 9y ago

duncan-donuts 9y ago

I hate to be that guy, but I'm going to guess you probably _do_ consent just by accessing certain sites. I'm sure if you read the terms they disclose that. I'm not saying that's right, and I also have a similar stance of trying not to be profiled, but don't delude yourself thinking your ad blocker is stopping organizations from gathering your metadata.

baddox 9y ago
It is literally nonsensical to tell someone who is explicitly not consenting that they are in fact implicitly consenting.
- ascorbic 9y ago
  If you are explicitly not consenting, then surely the correct way to do this is to not visit the site. If I go to a shop and want a product but don't like the price I am within my rights to refuse the contract and not buy the item. What I am not entitled to do is unilaterally change the contract, and walk out with the item without paying full price. I use an ad blocker because so many sites are barely usable without it, but I don't pretend it's a morally justifiable thing to do, and I try to disable it for sites that I use a lot, unless I pay for them.
  - aleksei 9y ago
    The actual analogy is walking into a store and being forced to buy something for walking in. I don't feel the store owner should be entitled to do that. As for moral justifiability, I find it unacceptable that a website operator can sell data about me without my consent just for following a link to their site.
    - Karunamon 9y ago
      Data about you is not necessarily owned by you.
      - aleksei 9y ago
        I don't necessarily agree fully, but even then we can discuss the morality of selling the data to trackers without informing the user, let alone not giving them a choice to opt out before viewing the content.
      - pacifika 9y ago
        It is in Europe
    - ascorbic 9y ago
      Do you read the content on the website? Because in that case yes it is fair for the "store owner" to force you to pay the price.
      - aleksei 9y ago
        I would agree, if only I were given the choice. As it is, I have no way to know what the terms of a website are until I visit. The intent of the ads are also usually not made clear. If I don't view the ad am I allowed to read the content? I guess it boils down to what you think the Internet is. I feel I should be in control of my computer, and thus I get to decide which bits I allow onto my network and which of those bits are then rendered on my screen. If you've made content publicly available, it's mine to consume in the way I see fit. I don't see why I shouldn't, for example, be allowed to use a text based browser to view content or browse with JavaScript disabled. Payment for content is of course difficult for websites, but I just don't feel an ad based revenue is feasible on an open web, precisely because the web is open. The platform does not support the notion of content creators implicitly dictating terms.
saguro 9y ago
> I'm sure if you read the terms they disclose that. As an average person, if you spend 8 hours a day reading all the terms and conditions you 'agree' to, it would take you 76 days to just read them, nevermind understand them. http://techland.time.com/2012/03/06/youd-need-76-work-days-to-read-all-your-privacy-policies-each-year/ http://techland.time.com/2012/03/06/youd-need-76-work-days-t... I'm not actually sure how we ended up living in a world where those terms and conditions are legally meaningful. But I'll reiterate that they can fuck right off and there is absolutely no moral dilemma about blanket filtering of ads and trackers. As to how effective they are - effective enough to prompt anti adblocking measures such as TFA.
- hugo0384729109 9y ago
  Would be nice to have a government standard Meta-TOS with things grouped in sections with plain language and the service specific TOS could be required to reference the sections from the standard that they want to apply, even with a simple standard system of logos.
- distances 9y ago
  > I'm not actually sure how we ended up living in a world where those terms and conditions are legally meaningful IANAL, but as an European I'm pretty sure they aren't legally meaningful. To be honest, I don't consider any online T&C's to actually affect me, and only pay attention to explicitly mentioned licenses for content. I have no idea how far from actual reality this is.
  - hanbura 9y ago
    According to German law those T&C are meaningless for just browsing the website (they neither ask you to agree nor offer the possibility of reading the terms in advance). And as long as you aren't acting as a business, those "I agree" checkmarks don't bind you to any "surprising" terms (in other words: not even the law expects you to read them) (IANAL)
    - distances 9y ago
pmlnr 9y ago
Since when is visiting a specific domain falls under the "I'm allowing 3rd party as well"? If that is in fact the TOS that needs to be shown before any content OR 3rd party, tracker, ad, etc. is loaded.
supergreg 9y ago
I don't think they can enforce their TOC just by opening the page. I need to open it just to read the TOC in the first place. By reading this comment you consent to agreeing with it. It doesn't work that way.

BoorishBears 9y ago

If you don’t consent why view their content? And I’d like an answer for once other than the super literal “Because their server returned the status code 200” Because sure, it did, but if we’re turning this into an ideological discussion of how you feel you haven’t given permission, why even feed the system with your view. Even using an ad blocked you’re still adding views to the page, and the powers that be will simply view you as a customer, albeit one they’re being cheated out of with a pesky ad blocked. To me you are consenting the moment you decide to use services and websites that cost millions of dollars to maintain and expecting and paying little to nothing compared to the real cost of those services. If you used paid sites you’d see less ads (maybe not no ads because often times the cost you pay still isn’t the “real cost” of that service”) and my guess is this tracking would seem a lot less intrusive. Example: Sometimes I use sites to watch foreign films that show several tabs of ads for each click. You need to click on each hyperlink about 3 times, each time opening a new ad, some of which are the “Update flash” malicious type. I don’t ad block them (anymore, for a short while I used ad-block on sites like this and then thought better if it) because hosting 100s of HD movies costs money. Sometimes I run out of patience and instead of playing up my entitlement and just saying “I deserve this because reasons” I just... close the page. If no one views the videos, no money will be made, and either the hosting service will shape up, or it will close. There won’t be an arms race of anti-ad-blocker vs ad-blocked.

themistocle 9y ago
Individual choices are insignificant. The future of advertising is being planned by Facebook and Google. Blocking advertisments is a workaround for a broken web. Surfing the web has always been about discovery. Are we supposed to intuit whether or not to visit a site for the first time based on how we predict it will align to some kind of ad rubric? The fact that many websites have bad business models is noone’s fault but their own. In fact, tools like AdNauseum[0] show how broken this moralistic consumer thinking is: Block all ads? > That’s robbing sites of needed advertising click-dollars! Click all ads? > That’s robbing advertising companies of needed attention! This is totalitarian capitalism: it’s not good enough to accept being tracked everywhere, spied on, and burdened with processing advertising. Not good enough even to click every ad. You must love the ads in your heart. It’s your duty, citizen! 0. https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/

Buge 9y ago

>to profile you and optimally manipulate your behavior to sell you shit. ...by showing you ads.

sattoshi 9y ago
Not limited to showing ads
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  Yeah. They already used operating system and browser to change price on ecommerce sites according to the wealth those project, imagine let them having a clear correlation with your credit score
saguro 9y ago
How about by manipulating your facebook news feed and exposing you to a carefully selected series of images and headlines to sway your opinion on political topics without you even realizing. How about identifying which youtubers your children are impressionable to, and then approaching them to push unhealthy food products? How about using your porn browsing habits and location history to figure out when you start cheating on your significant other, how about offering you divorce lawyers before you even realize you need one. How about figuring out when you become isolated and lonely by looking at changes in the volume of texts and phone calls and IMs you exchange, and then selling that primarily to dating and sex chat websites. Ever wondered why these websites are silently deploying anti-adblock functionality rather than trying to bring the matter through the legal system? Because if it ever became a legal case and they were made to disclose how they use the data, there'd be a fucking uproar. This is exactly what happened in the EU and that's why advertisers had their balls cut off in that region. So now they've opted to support the destruction of net neutrality and bolster DRM laws so they can shoehorn advertisements and anti-adblock under DRM instead. People need to get 100% clear on something: there are very smart people getting paid very generous salaries whose job is to find ways to distort and manipulate laws and public perception to prevent consumers from asserting their rights against having their behavior manipulated. I don't think it's an understatement to say that these groups are a major threat to the wellbeing of the people, right up there with war and climate change. Ajit Pai is a textbook example of this pattern. He's not stupid, he's not an asshole. He's a smart person who has been tasked with a goal that goes against the public good. And he's done a good job at that task.