7 ms·

As someone who has spent a lot of time on both sides of this, I think this is a great outcome, personally. The most annoying part of ad-tech for me, as a user,

As someone who has spent a lot of time on both sides of this, I think this is a great outcome, personally. The most annoying part of ad-tech for me, as a user, was the fact that I was running all sorts of random javascript, any bit of which could blow up performance on my browser. As someone who used to lead an e-commerce operation, I hated running all of this crap in my users' browsers because I knew it would get blocked randomly or cause hard-to-diagnose errors. I eventually moved us to basically this approach using a home-grown solution and everyone was happier. It was even more robust because it just used session/cookie data and didn't require running any javascript execution to work.

btdmaster 5y ago
¿Por que no los dos? (Server-side and client-side spying synergise. Which computer is spending resources transferring telemetry?)
Raed667 5y ago
Been there, until you're instructed to inject ads in your website, and then you're back to GTM again.
croes 5y ago
The most annoying part for me is getting tracked against my will. So now it's worse.
- nine_k 5y ago
  Blocking of feigning responses to particular remote APIs is still better than having to run a bunch of random tracking JS snippets, because without one of them a page just errors out.
- Teever 5y ago
  Isn't it so strange that if you or I were to do these kinds of things to an individual it would be considered creepy cyber stalking but when companies do it they are rewarded?
  - gernb 5y ago
    Do what? Record who came in and out of your house?
    - strogonoff 5y ago
      Imagine if Google offered a retail solution advertised as “record who came in and out of your house”. They would offer a CCTV for free and run centralized face recognition on everybody visiting. They’d give you a bit of stats, but truly they would aggregate data on where people go and build shadow profiles (supposedly to facilitate ad targeting). And imagine 90% of households were using it.
      - judge2020 5y ago
        So this is only a problem if the person thinking of visiting their neighbors' or friends' house has an issue with it. Why can't I install such a system if I want to? Why does it matter that 90% of households use this system? In fact, because 90% of households use this system, doesn't that mean society at large agrees that this is an OK thing to have? We all opt for wearing clothes only because society at large has agreed that wearing clothes is a requirement; there is no law of nature mandating this, and select small groups of people congregate in nudist colonies to escape from this societal requirement. Even on the non-private side, if I don't like clothes, why should I be forced to enter government buildings (for official government business such as court appearances) with them on? Surely society shouldn't be forced to make accomodations for me, just because I have a different opinion on these topics. If 90% of households did in fact use such a system, it would be the new normal because it's a nearly universal collective opinion on the technology. A society almost never caters to those that are the ultra-minority if it inconveniences the 90% or directly challenges the 90%'s own freedoms and choices when it comes to their lives, especially when that's in regards to something as low-impact as what sort of privacy visitors to a residence have while on that property.
        Teever 5y ago
        > because 90% of households use this system, doesn't that mean society at large agrees that this is an OK thing to have? And if 90% of households have slaves doesn't that mean that society at large agrees that this is an OK thing to have?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
brundolf 5y ago
I have mixed feelings about it, even just as a user. There are two reasons people block tracking scripts: 1) privacy, and 2) to stem the deluge of crap that marketing departments dump onto the page, harming performance (both load-time and otherwise) [1]. This basically gives everyone the benefit of #2, even if they don't or can't use an ad blocker. That's pretty cool, in isolation. But of course it also makes it much harder to accomplish #1. [1] I've seen React-based websites with literally 10x as much JavaScript (by weight) coming in from GTM and other third-party marketing vendors, as the amount powering the actual app functionality. This happens (partly) because every single ad provider has you load their own arbitrary JS bundle onto the page, just so they can measure conversions. This is obscenely inefficient (and frankly, even though it makes things easier to block, in some ways it's potentially a lot more insecure/privacy-invading). People on here complain about frameworks ruining web performance, but in reality GTM is far more responsible (or has been, so far).
- ghostpepper 5y ago
  Don't forget about ad-served malware
  - brundolf 5y ago
    GTM doesn't serve ads though, so my understanding is the OP doesn't apply to ads, only trackers
onion2k 5y ago
All that random crap will still run in your browser though. The important thing here is that Google are asking users to proxy scripts from a Google server via a subdomain of their site. That's relatively trivial to do as far as the code and config goes, and not costly for the user or for Google. The advantage to the site and Google is that those scripts now look like first party files; Google are using a first part subdomain to subvert the Same Origin Policy via a proxy. Every other tracking and ad service will set up the same thing. The reason it hasn't happened in the past is because it was hard to configure. Google are giving every other service the gift of explaining how to do it to users. Going to a website that had 50 tracking bugs from 50 domains will now have 50 tracking bugs from 50 Same Origin Policy allowed subdomains, all unique to that site, and all different so blockers will have a much harder time working out what to block. The code that runs in the browser doesn't change. The only difference is where it appears to originate from.
- GrifMD 5y ago
  That’s inaccurate. You do still need to run a client side GTM script that adds event listeners for specific actions (like “clicks purchase button”). This is then sent to a server side container with whatever first party identifier the site may have (3rd party IDs aren’t supported as there’s no 3rd party cookies from Facebook and the like). From there a server to server network request is made to whatever tracking platforms (GA, Google Campaign Manager, etc). Most of the tracking script these days is well written, at least the Google and Facebook libraries, so they generally don’t affect page performance, but some of the smaller players have script that can slow down performance. With server side GTM, only it’s client side component needs to run, everything else will be server side.

btdmaster 5y ago

¿Por que no los dos? (Server-side and client-side spying synergise. Which computer is spending resources transferring telemetry?)

Raed667 5y ago

Been there, until you're instructed to inject ads in your website, and then you're back to GTM again.

croes 5y ago

The most annoying part for me is getting tracked against my will. So now it's worse.

nine_k 5y ago
Blocking of feigning responses to particular remote APIs is still better than having to run a bunch of random tracking JS snippets, because without one of them a page just errors out.
Teever 5y ago
Isn't it so strange that if you or I were to do these kinds of things to an individual it would be considered creepy cyber stalking but when companies do it they are rewarded?
- gernb 5y ago
  Do what? Record who came in and out of your house?
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    Imagine if Google offered a retail solution advertised as “record who came in and out of your house”. They would offer a CCTV for free and run centralized face recognition on everybody visiting. They’d give you a bit of stats, but truly they would aggregate data on where people go and build shadow profiles (supposedly to facilitate ad targeting). And imagine 90% of households were using it.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      So this is only a problem if the person thinking of visiting their neighbors' or friends' house has an issue with it. Why can't I install such a system if I want to? Why does it matter that 90% of households use this system? In fact, because 90% of households use this system, doesn't that mean society at large agrees that this is an OK thing to have? We all opt for wearing clothes only because society at large has agreed that wearing clothes is a requirement; there is no law of nature mandating this, and select small groups of people congregate in nudist colonies to escape from this societal requirement. Even on the non-private side, if I don't like clothes, why should I be forced to enter government buildings (for official government business such as court appearances) with them on? Surely society shouldn't be forced to make accomodations for me, just because I have a different opinion on these topics. If 90% of households did in fact use such a system, it would be the new normal because it's a nearly universal collective opinion on the technology. A society almost never caters to those that are the ultra-minority if it inconveniences the 90% or directly challenges the 90%'s own freedoms and choices when it comes to their lives, especially when that's in regards to something as low-impact as what sort of privacy visitors to a residence have while on that property.
      - Teever 5y ago
        > because 90% of households use this system, doesn't that mean society at large agrees that this is an OK thing to have? And if 90% of households have slaves doesn't that mean that society at large agrees that this is an OK thing to have?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

brundolf 5y ago

I have mixed feelings about it, even just as a user. There are two reasons people block tracking scripts: 1) privacy, and 2) to stem the deluge of crap that marketing departments dump onto the page, harming performance (both load-time and otherwise) [1]. This basically gives everyone the benefit of #2, even if they don't or can't use an ad blocker. That's pretty cool, in isolation. But of course it also makes it much harder to accomplish #1. [1] I've seen React-based websites with literally 10x as much JavaScript (by weight) coming in from GTM and other third-party marketing vendors, as the amount powering the actual app functionality. This happens (partly) because every single ad provider has you load their own arbitrary JS bundle onto the page, just so they can measure conversions. This is obscenely inefficient (and frankly, even though it makes things easier to block, in some ways it's potentially a lot more insecure/privacy-invading). People on here complain about frameworks ruining web performance, but in reality GTM is far more responsible (or has been, so far).

ghostpepper 5y ago
Don't forget about ad-served malware
- brundolf 5y ago
  GTM doesn't serve ads though, so my understanding is the OP doesn't apply to ads, only trackers

onion2k 5y ago

All that random crap will still run in your browser though. The important thing here is that Google are asking users to proxy scripts from a Google server via a subdomain of their site. That's relatively trivial to do as far as the code and config goes, and not costly for the user or for Google. The advantage to the site and Google is that those scripts now look like first party files; Google are using a first part subdomain to subvert the Same Origin Policy via a proxy. Every other tracking and ad service will set up the same thing. The reason it hasn't happened in the past is because it was hard to configure. Google are giving every other service the gift of explaining how to do it to users. Going to a website that had 50 tracking bugs from 50 domains will now have 50 tracking bugs from 50 Same Origin Policy allowed subdomains, all unique to that site, and all different so blockers will have a much harder time working out what to block. The code that runs in the browser doesn't change. The only difference is where it appears to originate from.

GrifMD 5y ago
That’s inaccurate. You do still need to run a client side GTM script that adds event listeners for specific actions (like “clicks purchase button”). This is then sent to a server side container with whatever first party identifier the site may have (3rd party IDs aren’t supported as there’s no 3rd party cookies from Facebook and the like). From there a server to server network request is made to whatever tracking platforms (GA, Google Campaign Manager, etc). Most of the tracking script these days is well written, at least the Google and Facebook libraries, so they generally don’t affect page performance, but some of the smaller players have script that can slow down performance. With server side GTM, only it’s client side component needs to run, everything else will be server side.