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What I think they're saying is that with Adblockers, they can phone home which ads they block, URLs they see, etc. Content blockers impose rules at the outset

What I think they're saying is that with Adblockers, they can phone home which ads they block, URLs they see, etc. Content blockers impose rules at the outset and the rule generator won't see what the URLs/content actually is. The way I would think of it would be like "let me see what you're seeing and I'll let you know what to let through" vs "here are a list of things you shouldn't let through but I don't need to know about what the hit rate actually is". Although I could be misunderstanding the implementation.

cptskippy 7y ago
In the later scenarios, what assurance does the Ablocker have that their requests are respected? I could easily see a scenario where an Adblocker says "Hey Chrome block all requests to ads.google.com" and Chrome saying "Sure thing buddy" then completely ignoring that request.
- zie 7y ago
  SHHH!!! That's for Chrome 100 ;P I agree it's totally possible they would do that, but one could figure it out pretty easily with a touch of detective work.
  - cptskippy 7y ago
    And then what? Google will say that it's protecting critical functions from breaking and to piss off. Suddenly Google is a monopoly in the ad space because they have the predominant browser and let through only their ads.
    - zie 7y ago
      they arguably are effectively a monopoly now. Them doing things like this isn't remotely new. They just got caught tracking everyone's smart TV usage. Nothing will happen to them until: 1) the Government decides to intervene. 2) Users give up and start using different services. I'm pushing for #2, but then I switched off like a decade ago, when I saw the writing on the wall.
      - ummonk 7y ago
        Were they tracking smart tv usage or were smart tv manufacturers using google apis to store their tracking data?
        zie 7y ago
        Both it seems: "The most prevalent tracker, Google's doubleclick.net, showed up in 975 of the top 1,000 Roku channels, with Google analytics trackers showing up in 360, the researchers found." - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/studies-google-netflix-and-others-are-watching-how-you-watch-your-tv/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/studies-google-n...
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- ryandrake 7y ago
  Adblocker apps/extensions don't require that assurance. The user requires this assurance, and if the browser ignores the user's wishes, the browser is the application that should be held accountable by users.
  - cptskippy 7y ago
    How is the user to know if it's the AdBlocker or the Browser though? It's a he-said-she-said kind of situation with the AdBlocker and the Browser potentially pointing the finger at each other. This setup gives the Browser/Maker plausible deniability when they act badly.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Browsers and extensions aren't black boxes; it's easy to inspect them for this kind of behavior.
- Angostura 7y ago
  The same assurance you have that the browser wouldn’t simply inject its own ads into all pages.
- TylerE 7y ago
  There's really nothing at all preventing Chrome from doing that today if they wished... they can manipulate the page before and after the Adblocker sees it.
skizm 7y ago
While true with some, I believe uBO is a list implemented client-side, right? Other ad-blockers can and do phone home and let through ads that have paid, but uBO just has the EasyList filter installed locally and blocks those URLs. That was my impression at least, I never personally went through the source code.
- squeaky-clean 7y ago
  > That was my impression at least, I never personally went through the source code. That's the rub though. There's nothing but trust preventing them from including some spyware in the next automatic update. Actually not even trust, whoever has account access to publish for uBlock could have their account hacked and someone malicious could inject spyware into a version of the extension.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - fouric 7y ago
    Trust is everywhere in computer security. You trust Google to not deliver a backdoored version of Chrome to your machine when you download a binary instead of building from source. You trust them to not break the law and leak your personal data to third parties or discriminate against you based on the content of your emails. I trust Raymond Hill more than I trust Google.
- pilif 7y ago
  This isn't as much about what existing extensions do today but all about what potential extension could be doing tomorrow. If an extension doesn't get full access to all the pages you are reading, it can't do bad things with that access when the extension's owner inevitably changes (see the fight between uBlock and uBlock Origin for example) and spyware features are added.
- jtbayly 7y ago
  Even if it is, it doesn’t matter. The problem Apple faces is how to prevent the other bad actors from abusing their API. The answer they’ve settled on is remove those capabilities from the API. Another answer would be to leave the capabilities but somehow only grant access to them to “trusted” parties. I’m sure that would have gone over really well, too. /s

cptskippy 7y ago

In the later scenarios, what assurance does the Ablocker have that their requests are respected? I could easily see a scenario where an Adblocker says "Hey Chrome block all requests to ads.google.com" and Chrome saying "Sure thing buddy" then completely ignoring that request.

zie 7y ago
SHHH!!! That's for Chrome 100 ;P I agree it's totally possible they would do that, but one could figure it out pretty easily with a touch of detective work.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  And then what? Google will say that it's protecting critical functions from breaking and to piss off. Suddenly Google is a monopoly in the ad space because they have the predominant browser and let through only their ads.
  - zie 7y ago
    they arguably are effectively a monopoly now. Them doing things like this isn't remotely new. They just got caught tracking everyone's smart TV usage. Nothing will happen to them until: 1) the Government decides to intervene. 2) Users give up and start using different services. I'm pushing for #2, but then I switched off like a decade ago, when I saw the writing on the wall.
    - ummonk 7y ago
      Were they tracking smart tv usage or were smart tv manufacturers using google apis to store their tracking data?
      - zie 7y ago
        Both it seems: "The most prevalent tracker, Google's doubleclick.net, showed up in 975 of the top 1,000 Roku channels, with Google analytics trackers showing up in 360, the researchers found." - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/studies-google-netflix-and-others-are-watching-how-you-watch-your-tv/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/studies-google-n...
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
ryandrake 7y ago
Adblocker apps/extensions don't require that assurance. The user requires this assurance, and if the browser ignores the user's wishes, the browser is the application that should be held accountable by users.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  How is the user to know if it's the AdBlocker or the Browser though? It's a he-said-she-said kind of situation with the AdBlocker and the Browser potentially pointing the finger at each other. This setup gives the Browser/Maker plausible deniability when they act badly.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Browsers and extensions aren't black boxes; it's easy to inspect them for this kind of behavior.
Angostura 7y ago
The same assurance you have that the browser wouldn’t simply inject its own ads into all pages.
TylerE 7y ago
There's really nothing at all preventing Chrome from doing that today if they wished... they can manipulate the page before and after the Adblocker sees it.

skizm 7y ago

While true with some, I believe uBO is a list implemented client-side, right? Other ad-blockers can and do phone home and let through ads that have paid, but uBO just has the EasyList filter installed locally and blocks those URLs. That was my impression at least, I never personally went through the source code.

squeaky-clean 7y ago
> That was my impression at least, I never personally went through the source code. That's the rub though. There's nothing but trust preventing them from including some spyware in the next automatic update. Actually not even trust, whoever has account access to publish for uBlock could have their account hacked and someone malicious could inject spyware into a version of the extension.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- fouric 7y ago
  Trust is everywhere in computer security. You trust Google to not deliver a backdoored version of Chrome to your machine when you download a binary instead of building from source. You trust them to not break the law and leak your personal data to third parties or discriminate against you based on the content of your emails. I trust Raymond Hill more than I trust Google.
pilif 7y ago
This isn't as much about what existing extensions do today but all about what potential extension could be doing tomorrow. If an extension doesn't get full access to all the pages you are reading, it can't do bad things with that access when the extension's owner inevitably changes (see the fight between uBlock and uBlock Origin for example) and spyware features are added.
jtbayly 7y ago
Even if it is, it doesn’t matter. The problem Apple faces is how to prevent the other bad actors from abusing their API. The answer they’ve settled on is remove those capabilities from the API. Another answer would be to leave the capabilities but somehow only grant access to them to “trusted” parties. I’m sure that would have gone over really well, too. /s