7 ms·

I have an idea that another way of preventing being tracked is just massively spamming trash in the data layer object, pushing thousands of dollars worth of pur

I have an idea that another way of preventing being tracked is just massively spamming trash in the data layer object, pushing thousands of dollars worth of purchase events and such, pushing randomly generated user details and other such events. Perhaps by doing this your real data will be hard to filter out. A side effect is also that data becomes unreliable overall, helping less privacy aware people in the process.

chamomeal 1y ago
Now there’s a fun idea!! I wonder how difficult it would be to spoof events. Edit: looks like this might exist already: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/
- genewitch 1y ago
  Since installing it on firefox on this computer (18 months ago or so) Ad Nauseam has clicked ~$38,000 worth of ads, that i never saw. Between this and "track me not" i've been fighting back against ads and connecting my "profile" with any habits since 2016 or so. I should also note i have pihole and my own DNS server upstream, so that's thiry-eight grand in ad clicks that got through blacklists. https://www.trackmenot.io/faq https://www.trackmenot.io/faq
  - cj 1y ago
    [Preface: I hate ads, I love uBlock origin, I use pihole, I'm a proponent of ad blockers] I manage a Google Ads account with a $500,000 budget. That budget is spent on a mix of display ads, google search, and youtube ads. If I knew that 10% of our budget was wasted on bot clicks, there's nothing I can do as an advertiser. We can't stop advertising... we want to grow our business and advertising is how you get your name out there. We also can't stop using Google Ads - where else would we go? $38,000 in clicks boosts Google's revenue by $38k (Google ain't complaining). The only entity you're hurting are the advertisers using Google. Advertisers might see their campaigns performing less well, but that's not going to stop them from advertising. If anything, they'll increase budgets to counteract the fake bot clicks. I really don't understand what Ad Nauseam is trying to achieve. It honestly seems like it benefits Google more than it hurts them. It directly hurts advertisers, but not enough that it would stop anyone from advertising. Google has a system for refunding advertisers for invalid clicks. The $500k account that I manage gets refunded about $50/month in invalid clicks. I'm guessing if bot clicks started making a real dent in advertiser performance, Google would counter that by improving their bot detection so they can refund advertisers in higher volumes. If there's ever an advertiser-led boycott of Google Ads, Google would almost certainly respond by refunding advertisers for bot clicks at much higher rates.
    - mystified5016 1y ago
      The point is to poison your ad tracking profile so that advertisers can't figure out who you are and what you'll buy. No matter how secure your browser setup is, Google is tracking you. By filling their trackers with garbage, there's less that can personally identify you as an individual
      - mediumsmart 1y ago
        Apple bought the patent to do just that 13 years ago … the .Mac observer article about it is now gone - here is the archive record https://web.archive.org/web/20200601034723/https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_granted_patent_to_create_identity_clones/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200601034723/https://www.macob... Carter invented it and got paid so they can bury it. Must be good tech.
    - freeone3000 1y ago
      Hopefully it puts my browsers on an bot blocklist, which then invalidates the tracking profile and eliminates targeted advertising entirely.
      - michaelt 1y ago
        The problem with being on google's bot blocklist is you'll suddenly discover that recaptcha is used in a heck of a lot of places.
      - thatguy0900 1y ago
        My assumption with something as hostile as ad nauseum is that you were running the risk of Google profile bans
        freeone3000 1y ago
        oh no! anyway.
    - malfist 1y ago
      You know, I'm not too worried that I'm making the lives of people who spy on me harder and wasting their money. You don't have to buy privacy violating ads. You don't have to buy targetted ads
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - Wowfunhappy 1y ago
    I would worry about being labeled a bot and denied access to websites at all.
  - wglb 1y ago
    What do you expect this to do, long term? I’m curious.
    - zelphirkalt 1y ago
      Even if it merely makes using Google shenanigans unattractive for advertisers, that would be a huge win against one of the biggest perpetrators, privacy and data protection violators out there.
      - wglb 1y ago
        How unattractive do you think it will make it for them?
        genewitch 1y ago
        about -$25,000 a year, give or take.
dylan604 1y ago
I’d imagine that by this point in time, they are able to filter this specific type of noise out of the dataset. They have been tracking everyone for so long that I doubt there’s anyone they don’t know about whether directly of shadow profiles. These randomly generated users would just not match up to anything and would be fine to just drop
culi 1y ago
You're talking about Adnauseum https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/ Chrome banned it from their add on store but it can still be installed manually
- mmsc 1y ago
  Would be nice to have something similar to this for Mixpanel and Amplitude
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  AdNaueam works against ads, but does it also work against Google Tag Manager? I've already got most ads blocked by simply Piholing them, but GTM tracking my every move using first-party content is a different kind of interaction to attack.
  - redeeman 1y ago
    just block GTM
3036e4 1y ago
I have a quite common name in my country and snatched firstname.lastname@gmail.com for that name many years ago. Many use it by accident somehow when registering for things. Possibly (hopefully!) half of all leaks containing my email address are for other people. Never thought of what it might do for ad profiling, but hopefully it is adding at least some noise to it. Maybe I could manually improve a bit on that by deliberately register myself for various random services and just clicking around a bit to pretend I am interested in things I have no interest in. On the other hand with 20 years of tracking I think Google has all my interests and habits nailed down anyway.

chamomeal 1y ago

Now there’s a fun idea!! I wonder how difficult it would be to spoof events. Edit: looks like this might exist already: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/

genewitch 1y ago
Since installing it on firefox on this computer (18 months ago or so) Ad Nauseam has clicked ~$38,000 worth of ads, that i never saw. Between this and "track me not" i've been fighting back against ads and connecting my "profile" with any habits since 2016 or so. I should also note i have pihole and my own DNS server upstream, so that's thiry-eight grand in ad clicks that got through blacklists. https://www.trackmenot.io/faq https://www.trackmenot.io/faq
- cj 1y ago
  [Preface: I hate ads, I love uBlock origin, I use pihole, I'm a proponent of ad blockers] I manage a Google Ads account with a $500,000 budget. That budget is spent on a mix of display ads, google search, and youtube ads. If I knew that 10% of our budget was wasted on bot clicks, there's nothing I can do as an advertiser. We can't stop advertising... we want to grow our business and advertising is how you get your name out there. We also can't stop using Google Ads - where else would we go? $38,000 in clicks boosts Google's revenue by $38k (Google ain't complaining). The only entity you're hurting are the advertisers using Google. Advertisers might see their campaigns performing less well, but that's not going to stop them from advertising. If anything, they'll increase budgets to counteract the fake bot clicks. I really don't understand what Ad Nauseam is trying to achieve. It honestly seems like it benefits Google more than it hurts them. It directly hurts advertisers, but not enough that it would stop anyone from advertising. Google has a system for refunding advertisers for invalid clicks. The $500k account that I manage gets refunded about $50/month in invalid clicks. I'm guessing if bot clicks started making a real dent in advertiser performance, Google would counter that by improving their bot detection so they can refund advertisers in higher volumes. If there's ever an advertiser-led boycott of Google Ads, Google would almost certainly respond by refunding advertisers for bot clicks at much higher rates.
  - mystified5016 1y ago
    The point is to poison your ad tracking profile so that advertisers can't figure out who you are and what you'll buy. No matter how secure your browser setup is, Google is tracking you. By filling their trackers with garbage, there's less that can personally identify you as an individual
    - mediumsmart 1y ago
      Apple bought the patent to do just that 13 years ago … the .Mac observer article about it is now gone - here is the archive record https://web.archive.org/web/20200601034723/https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_granted_patent_to_create_identity_clones/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200601034723/https://www.macob... Carter invented it and got paid so they can bury it. Must be good tech.
  - freeone3000 1y ago
    Hopefully it puts my browsers on an bot blocklist, which then invalidates the tracking profile and eliminates targeted advertising entirely.
    - michaelt 1y ago
      The problem with being on google's bot blocklist is you'll suddenly discover that recaptcha is used in a heck of a lot of places.
    - thatguy0900 1y ago
      My assumption with something as hostile as ad nauseum is that you were running the risk of Google profile bans
      - freeone3000 1y ago
        oh no! anyway.
  - malfist 1y ago
    You know, I'm not too worried that I'm making the lives of people who spy on me harder and wasting their money. You don't have to buy privacy violating ads. You don't have to buy targetted ads
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Wowfunhappy 1y ago
  I would worry about being labeled a bot and denied access to websites at all.
- wglb 1y ago
  What do you expect this to do, long term? I’m curious.
  - zelphirkalt 1y ago
    Even if it merely makes using Google shenanigans unattractive for advertisers, that would be a huge win against one of the biggest perpetrators, privacy and data protection violators out there.
    - wglb 1y ago
      How unattractive do you think it will make it for them?
      - genewitch 1y ago
        about -$25,000 a year, give or take.

dylan604 1y ago

I’d imagine that by this point in time, they are able to filter this specific type of noise out of the dataset. They have been tracking everyone for so long that I doubt there’s anyone they don’t know about whether directly of shadow profiles. These randomly generated users would just not match up to anything and would be fine to just drop

culi 1y ago

You're talking about Adnauseum https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/ Chrome banned it from their add on store but it can still be installed manually

mmsc 1y ago
Would be nice to have something similar to this for Mixpanel and Amplitude
jeroenhd 1y ago
AdNaueam works against ads, but does it also work against Google Tag Manager? I've already got most ads blocked by simply Piholing them, but GTM tracking my every move using first-party content is a different kind of interaction to attack.
- redeeman 1y ago
  just block GTM

3036e4 1y ago

I have a quite common name in my country and snatched firstname.lastname@gmail.com for that name many years ago. Many use it by accident somehow when registering for things. Possibly (hopefully!) half of all leaks containing my email address are for other people. Never thought of what it might do for ad profiling, but hopefully it is adding at least some noise to it. Maybe I could manually improve a bit on that by deliberately register myself for various random services and just clicking around a bit to pretend I am interested in things I have no interest in. On the other hand with 20 years of tracking I think Google has all my interests and habits nailed down anyway.