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Effort have been made at keeping the impact of ads and tracking low: https://www.ctrl.blog/about/privacy-policy#privacy-policy-ads https://www.ctrl.blog/about/p

by d2wa 8y ago

Effort have been made at keeping the impact of ads and tracking low: https://www.ctrl.blog/about/privacy-policy#privacy-policy-ads https://www.ctrl.blog/about/privacy-policy#privacy-policy-ad... The ads help fund writing and research into technologies that restrict ads without blocking them outright. You choosing to block ads is your choice, but it takes away incentives for researching and writing about the topics you care to read about. You can sign-up for Flattr if you prefer not to see ads and still support writers. https://flattr.com/contributors https://flattr.com/contributors

Klover 8y ago
That’s genius! Using trackers to research not using trackers.. so why don’t you use more privacy oriented analytics instead of google analytics? Matomo (formerly known as Piwik) seems like a better choice, unless that option is exactly what you’re researching. I don’t mean to be so snarky. Your comment seems so hypocritical to me, though.
- d2wa 8y ago
  I’ve been contributing to the privacy-first design of Fathom. https://usefathom.com/ https://usefathom.com/ I don’t use if myself as its not all that useful at this time. There is actually a second tracking system in place that records things like the number of people who block ads and analytics. Google Analytics (GA) on the site is configured to delete data as early as possible and it’s configured to not store IPs or link activities. However, its the only way to get any page-level reporting (like which pages are profitable) out of AdSense.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    It’s cute that you think asking a hostile actor to be nice and delete data early and not store some of it would actually work when their bottom line directly depends on them doing so. They can very well pretend not to do it while secretly still tracking & storing everything.
- d2wa 8y ago
  Matomo has completely unacceptable impact on client-side page loading performance. The way it stores data also makes it difficult to do anything useful with the data.
  - dsr_ 8y ago
    ISTR that Matomo also has a log-analysis mode where you don't insert anything into your content, and therefore does not affect performance at all.
    - d2wa 8y ago
      Ah. Log analysis hasn’t been useful for years. Browsers pre-fetch and pre-render documents that are never viewed by anyone. You need client-side scripting to know whether a request is for a human or just browsers trying to preemptively load things in expectation of user interaction.
  - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
    I’m curious - could you explain that impact? I use Matomo and had not noticed it.
    - d2wa 8y ago
      Lets just say their best-practices was last updated sometime in the early 2000s. It’s 2018 and their client-side tracker is synchronously executed and holds up the entire page.
      - user3359 8y ago
        This seems to contradict Findus23 claim that it loads async. Regardless, asnyc="async" can be manually added to script tags.
      - cdubzzz 8y ago
        This is just plain wrong. Matomo is async by default[0]. I appreciate the difficulty of considering how to monetize content that you put a lot of effort in to, but spreading misinformation on the very same topics you are writing about is harmful and short-sighted. Your responses here moved me from “this seems like an interesting blog to follow” to “nope”. [0] https://developer.matomo.org/guides/tracking-javascript-guide https://developer.matomo.org/guides/tracking-javascript-guid...
Manishearth 8y ago
I don't use an adblocker -- I just use Firefox with tracking protection on. I'm okay with ads, just not track-y heavy ads, and Tracking Protection does the trick. You may want to look into why Tracking Protection doesn't like your ads.
- d2wa 8y ago
  It’s because tracking protection blocks ads based on domains. It doesn’t recognize that AdSense can serve non-personalized ads that don’t track you. Privacy Badger has the same design limitation. Firefox and Privacy Badger should want to promote the use of non-personalized non-tracking ads, but allowing well-behaved ads isn’t really a priority.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    Why do you believe that Google aren't tracking people? If they have the technological capability to do so they almost certainly do, even if they happen to serve non-personalised ads while doing it.
    - d2wa 8y ago
      Because technology alone can’t protect your privacy. You need to trust people. Google says they don’t track ads when configured to not-track. They provide technical details on what this means. It’s designed around the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). At some point there has to be trust. I trust that Google won’t risk millions of Euros in fines over lying about not tracking people.
      - jstanley 8y ago
        > Because technology alone can’t protect your privacy. Technology alone actually does allow us to choose between "send data to Google and trust that they won't do anything bad" vs. "don't send data to Google and know that they won't do anything bad". EDIT: I appreciate that you care about privacy. You care about it a lot more than most websites seem to, so it does seem unfair that you're getting more flak in this thread than most websites do even though they run more trackers than you do. I notice this pattern a lot, in myself and others. When there's a choice between a solution that solves no problems, and a solution that tries to solve the problems but only manages half of them, the latter solution tends to get criticised for the half of the problems it doesn't solve, and the first solution doesn't get criticised at all. Don't really know what I'm trying to say. Just that the criticism you're getting in this thread (some of it from me) isn't entirely justified, and I'm glad you care about privacy, even if you don't go about it the same way I do.
jasonkostempski 8y ago
Advertise natively, don't track. It's that simple, no need for research. Our ancestors did it for hundreds of years. There is no acceptable level of tracking.
- d2wa 8y ago
  Native advertising trying to pretend its journalism by association is a much bigger problem than display advertising. Websites informing you about “great deals” with the voice normally reserved for actual journalistic endeavors (or even opinion pieces) in between their normal articles isn’t in any way desirable. Even big publishers don’t come clean about when articles are ads or not. E.g. https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/pcmag-vpn-review https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/pcmag-vpn-review
  - jstanley 8y ago
    That's completely orthogonal to what is being suggested.
    - azernik 8y ago
      "Native advertising" has a very specific definition; GP assumed that standard usage. If GGP was intending to refer to advertising without tracking, that would be a non-standard definition. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jimmaswell 8y ago
  > There is no acceptable level of tracking. On what grounds do you make this sweeping absolute statement? I'm personally willing to accept lots of tracking by Google, Facebook, etc. in exchange for free or cheaper services.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
jlarocco 8y ago
>Effort have been made at keeping the impact of ads and tracking low: https://www.ctrl.blog/about/privacy-policy#privacy-policy-ad.. https://www.ctrl.blog/about/privacy-policy#privacy-policy-ad.... FWIW, that's what every website will say. I don't have any reason to trust your site any more than I trust any other site. I don't want to be tracked by anybody, regardless of their intentions. > The ads help fund writing and research into technologies that restrict ads without blocking them outright. You choosing to block ads is your choice, but it takes away incentives for researching and writing about the topics you care to read about. You can sign-up for Flattr if you prefer not to see ads and still support writers. I'm sorry, but merely putting something online doesn't entitle you to make money from it. Posting an article or tweet or picture or other content on the public internet is an inherently non-profit activity, and it always has been. It doesn't entitle you to follow me around the internet. If you want to make money posting online use a paywall.

by d2wa 8y ago

Klover 8y ago

That’s genius! Using trackers to research not using trackers.. so why don’t you use more privacy oriented analytics instead of google analytics? Matomo (formerly known as Piwik) seems like a better choice, unless that option is exactly what you’re researching. I don’t mean to be so snarky. Your comment seems so hypocritical to me, though.

d2wa 8y ago
I’ve been contributing to the privacy-first design of Fathom. https://usefathom.com/ https://usefathom.com/ I don’t use if myself as its not all that useful at this time. There is actually a second tracking system in place that records things like the number of people who block ads and analytics. Google Analytics (GA) on the site is configured to delete data as early as possible and it’s configured to not store IPs or link activities. However, its the only way to get any page-level reporting (like which pages are profitable) out of AdSense.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  It’s cute that you think asking a hostile actor to be nice and delete data early and not store some of it would actually work when their bottom line directly depends on them doing so. They can very well pretend not to do it while secretly still tracking & storing everything.
d2wa 8y ago
Matomo has completely unacceptable impact on client-side page loading performance. The way it stores data also makes it difficult to do anything useful with the data.
- dsr_ 8y ago
  ISTR that Matomo also has a log-analysis mode where you don't insert anything into your content, and therefore does not affect performance at all.
  - d2wa 8y ago
    Ah. Log analysis hasn’t been useful for years. Browsers pre-fetch and pre-render documents that are never viewed by anyone. You need client-side scripting to know whether a request is for a human or just browsers trying to preemptively load things in expectation of user interaction.
- Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
  I’m curious - could you explain that impact? I use Matomo and had not noticed it.
  - d2wa 8y ago
    Lets just say their best-practices was last updated sometime in the early 2000s. It’s 2018 and their client-side tracker is synchronously executed and holds up the entire page.
    - user3359 8y ago
      This seems to contradict Findus23 claim that it loads async. Regardless, asnyc="async" can be manually added to script tags.
    - cdubzzz 8y ago
      This is just plain wrong. Matomo is async by default[0]. I appreciate the difficulty of considering how to monetize content that you put a lot of effort in to, but spreading misinformation on the very same topics you are writing about is harmful and short-sighted. Your responses here moved me from “this seems like an interesting blog to follow” to “nope”. [0] https://developer.matomo.org/guides/tracking-javascript-guide https://developer.matomo.org/guides/tracking-javascript-guid...

Manishearth 8y ago

I don't use an adblocker -- I just use Firefox with tracking protection on. I'm okay with ads, just not track-y heavy ads, and Tracking Protection does the trick. You may want to look into why Tracking Protection doesn't like your ads.

d2wa 8y ago
It’s because tracking protection blocks ads based on domains. It doesn’t recognize that AdSense can serve non-personalized ads that don’t track you. Privacy Badger has the same design limitation. Firefox and Privacy Badger should want to promote the use of non-personalized non-tracking ads, but allowing well-behaved ads isn’t really a priority.
- jstanley 8y ago
  Why do you believe that Google aren't tracking people? If they have the technological capability to do so they almost certainly do, even if they happen to serve non-personalised ads while doing it.
  - d2wa 8y ago
    Because technology alone can’t protect your privacy. You need to trust people. Google says they don’t track ads when configured to not-track. They provide technical details on what this means. It’s designed around the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). At some point there has to be trust. I trust that Google won’t risk millions of Euros in fines over lying about not tracking people.
    - jstanley 8y ago
      > Because technology alone can’t protect your privacy. Technology alone actually does allow us to choose between "send data to Google and trust that they won't do anything bad" vs. "don't send data to Google and know that they won't do anything bad". EDIT: I appreciate that you care about privacy. You care about it a lot more than most websites seem to, so it does seem unfair that you're getting more flak in this thread than most websites do even though they run more trackers than you do. I notice this pattern a lot, in myself and others. When there's a choice between a solution that solves no problems, and a solution that tries to solve the problems but only manages half of them, the latter solution tends to get criticised for the half of the problems it doesn't solve, and the first solution doesn't get criticised at all. Don't really know what I'm trying to say. Just that the criticism you're getting in this thread (some of it from me) isn't entirely justified, and I'm glad you care about privacy, even if you don't go about it the same way I do.

jasonkostempski 8y ago

Advertise natively, don't track. It's that simple, no need for research. Our ancestors did it for hundreds of years. There is no acceptable level of tracking.

d2wa 8y ago
Native advertising trying to pretend its journalism by association is a much bigger problem than display advertising. Websites informing you about “great deals” with the voice normally reserved for actual journalistic endeavors (or even opinion pieces) in between their normal articles isn’t in any way desirable. Even big publishers don’t come clean about when articles are ads or not. E.g. https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/pcmag-vpn-review https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/pcmag-vpn-review
- jstanley 8y ago
  That's completely orthogonal to what is being suggested.
  - azernik 8y ago
    "Native advertising" has a very specific definition; GP assumed that standard usage. If GGP was intending to refer to advertising without tracking, that would be a non-standard definition. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jimmaswell 8y ago
> There is no acceptable level of tracking. On what grounds do you make this sweeping absolute statement? I'm personally willing to accept lots of tracking by Google, Facebook, etc. in exchange for free or cheaper services.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago

jlarocco 8y ago

>Effort have been made at keeping the impact of ads and tracking low: https://www.ctrl.blog/about/privacy-policy#privacy-policy-ad.. https://www.ctrl.blog/about/privacy-policy#privacy-policy-ad.... FWIW, that's what every website will say. I don't have any reason to trust your site any more than I trust any other site. I don't want to be tracked by anybody, regardless of their intentions. > The ads help fund writing and research into technologies that restrict ads without blocking them outright. You choosing to block ads is your choice, but it takes away incentives for researching and writing about the topics you care to read about. You can sign-up for Flattr if you prefer not to see ads and still support writers. I'm sorry, but merely putting something online doesn't entitle you to make money from it. Posting an article or tweet or picture or other content on the public internet is an inherently non-profit activity, and it always has been. It doesn't entitle you to follow me around the internet. If you want to make money posting online use a paywall.