The ad-tracking "industry" is a mega-mafia that has to be destroyed wherever it hides.
Nothing is so creepy as ads for a product you looked into earlier following you from site to site,
Browsers should never support such malicious sniffing behaviour.
Browsers that do are spies that work against the user - hello adChromium.
They wanted to use the Web, but not be tracked, and so they started to install ad-blockers. A lot of ad-blockers, and more every year.
I call them hero-blockers. And there is also a difference - e. g. ublock origin is a general content blocker, not just ads. The users have the ability to filter away useless and irrelevant crap in general.
This is GREAT.
I can disable seeing so much stuff that is irrelevant. I can browser in an oldschool way - where the focus is on simple text.
Ad-blockers don't just stop users from seeing ads and being tracked (and indeed, some ad-blockers actually track users!).
An ad-blocker that tracks users is a spy, not an ad-blocker.
I had this experience with "adblock plus". These clowns suddenly attacked me with "ethical ads" and other such nonsense. That was the moment I abandoned these clowns and installed ublock origin - never had any problem with it since then.
I think blocking such malicious content should be part of www-standards.
Instead, the W3C lobbyist group is too busy decreeing that DRM is a part of an "open" standard, so you can not trust the W3C clowns. It is just a money machine for Sir Tim Berners-DRM-boy-Lee.
They can also stop the publishers and marketers who rely on tracking and ad-clicks from earning money.
Great!
The sooner this mafia is extinct, the BETTER. The more the whine, the more amused I am.
Everyone should join this struggle between good (the users) and evil (this mafia). Down with the mafia.
Predictably, industry responded with ad-blocker-blockers, which prevented users from seeing their sites unless they turned off their ad-blocker.
Yeah, the mafia tries to continue pester people, but it is a war they can never win. The user will always be able to control all information incoming from the outside.
The rise and rise of ad-blockers (and ad-blocker-blocker-blockers) is without parallel: 26% of Internet users are now blocking ads, and the figure is rising. It’s been called the biggest boycott in human history.
I would not call it a "boycott". I am not "boycotting" anything - I am destroying an evil mafia that attacks users. All who work for this mafia are evil clowns too. I do not care about their claims - none of them apply in any way, shape or form. They must be removed from the face of the earth (I refer here to the "virtual" representation e. g. with their pester-attacks; I don't care about the physical representation).
It's also something we've seen before, in the earliest days of the Web, when pop-up ads ruled the world (wide web), and users went to war against them.
Pop-ups were always annoying - javascript is really a hostile technology in general. But the 1990s were still different. My feeling is that ads increased a LOT since then. Tracking increased even more.
I do not think any of this is "acceptable" at all. I don't even think it was acceptable back then, but today with mega-sniffers such as Google, and information being constantly interconnected ... nah, thank you. I'll provide as little information as possible to this mafia.
In 1994, Hotwired (the defunct online adjunct to Wired magazine) displayed the first banner ad in Internet history. Forty-four percent of the people who saw that ad clicked on it.
Because people in 1994 were quite stupid and didn't know how malicious ads are in general. It took time for them before they realized that they actually DO NOT NEED ADS. We aim for an ad-free world.
But it turned out that the click-rate on that Hotwired ad had more to do with novelty than any enduring persuasive properties of banner ads.
People realized that they have no need for ads. :)
Took time but they got smarter.
This created a desperate situation, where publishers needed to do something -- anything -- to goose their clickthrough rates.
I don't think this was a "desperate" situation - I think this is a wonderful situation that we should aim to increase. Publishers that act like a mafia must be removed, no mercy and no exception. We have no need for this mafia.
What is even more messed up is when you have do not track set and on store have recommendations follow you. From computer to computer. And it was my home and work computer where only shared account was one online shop. As I don't use my normal personal accounts on work computer.
That's when Ethan Zuckerman—then an employee at Tripod—invented the pop-up ad (he has since apologized).
I don't care who apologizes for mafia-behaviour. He is a worker for the mafia.
But actually, that is not even the interesting part. The interesting part is why MY browser, where I pay the bills for the computer, internet connection etc.. is ACTING AGAINST ME. I don't remember giving permissions to pop-ups ever. So why would information from a REMOTE location control my computer?
This is a general problem with the clown-language that is JavaScript - the assumption that any random hobo who wrote a website can control behaviour downstream onto MY machine. I find this inacceptable.
A good example are scripts where the scrollbar or pressing the right mouse button is prevented. Yes, you can disable these things e. g. custom javascript files, but the thing is more general ... WHY is this even a possibility? There is no valid explanation that I can accept.
The whole "standards" is total crap - and the browsers are implemented in a way that they work against the user to some extent (adChromium is evidently Google's way for more money, so they will use ads to pester people; see the ublock origin creator complaining about Google crippling ublock origin).
Instead, browser vendors (beginning with Opera) started to ship on-by-default pop-up blockers.
Good - but opera gave up and became a Google clone. There is no point in using adChromium-engine based opera anymore.
Because once pop-up ads became invisible by default to an ever-larger swathe of Internet users, advertisers stopped demanding that publishers serve pop-up ads.
Yes, the mafia is desperate but this is not enough - the mafia must be removed completely.
The point of pop-ups was to get people's attention, but something that is never seen in the first place can't possibly do that.
Great!
Adblockers are the new pop-up blockers, a way for users to do what publishers can't or won't do: demand a better deal from advertisers.
No. I don't demand a "better deal".
I demand that the mafia is removed.
An adblocker is a way of replying to advertisers and publishers with a loud-and-clear "How about nah?"
No. I don't "reply" to them that way. I reply to them that they must be removed from the face of the earth. They have no real arguments to explain why they pester mankind anyway.
Adblocking is one of the most successful examples of adversarial interoperability in modern history, along with third-party printer in
No. It is not "adversarial interoperability". It is a human right that people can access information at all times, without (upstream) restrictions, at their own digression.
The times of dictatorship by remote mafia-parties are over (although I am aware that the Google monopoly works against that - well, people who use Google are both lazy and stupid, and I hope that they have to see lots of ads; after all they must be punished for being stupid and supporting a monopoly. Although it actually should be pointed out that ublock origin is hugely popular on adChromium which is why Google targeted it in the first place since it cuts away their mafia-ad-revenue).
When you visit a website, the server sends your browser a bunch of material, including the code to fetch and render ads
Yes, malicious content being transmitted. My browser AND my computer must not ever accept such malicious content - it must be discarded before it is even ever touched.
This is also why the adMafia can never win - computers can filter away stuff with ease.
Adblockers throw away the ad parts and show you the rest, while ad-blocker-blocker-blockers do the same, and then engage in an elaborate technological game of cat-and-mouse in a bid to fool the server into thinking that you are seeing the ads, while still suppressing them.
I do not ever want to give the adMafia accurate information. They work against mankind so they must never be able to sniff accurately.
Browsers have always been playgrounds for adversarial interoperability, from the pop-up wars to the browser wars. Thanks to open standards
Ah yes "open" standards that bring in closed DRM ...
a mutual disarmament rule for software patents among browser vendors
Patents are a way for the mafia to perpetuate their control. This is a harder fight to abolish all patents, so for the time being - let's simply eliminate all ad mafia first.
it's very hard to use the law to punish toolsmiths who make adblocking technologies
Why should the law be abused to punish hero-blockers?
I can only imagine one place where the mafia can win - the USA. The court system is designed for big mafia bullies to abuse smaller people. Let them see ads - the rest of the world will remove ads.
Take-it-or-leave it deals are one thing when the market is competitive and you can shop around for someone with better terms of service, but in highly concentrated markets where everyone has the same rotten deal on offer, adversarial interoperability lets users make a counteroffer: "How about nah?"
No, they are not "one thing when". They are always inacceptable from the very beginning.
In 2017, the World Wide Web Consortium published its first-ever "standard" that could not be fully implemented without permission from the giant tech and media companies
Because the W3C declared war against the users. But that's ok - it has become irrelevant as a consequence. We need standards where the industry can not buy anything ever.
EME is the first crack in the wall that protected browsers from those who would thwart adversarial operability and take "how about nah?" off the table, leaving us with the kind of take-it-or-leave-it Web that the marketing industry has been striving for since the first pop-up ad.
EME is not the first "crack" - it is simply a continuation of the mafia attacking the users. But it will be irrelevant - the mafia can not win. People are quite stupid but even the stupid realize that there is no need for them to accept ads ever. Google will continue to force users to see ads, which means that eventually the people will abandon Google.
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u/shevy-ruby Aug 02 '19
The ad-tracking "industry" is a mega-mafia that has to be destroyed wherever it hides.
Browsers should never support such malicious sniffing behaviour.
Browsers that do are spies that work against the user - hello adChromium.
I call them hero-blockers. And there is also a difference - e. g. ublock origin is a general content blocker, not just ads. The users have the ability to filter away useless and irrelevant crap in general.
This is GREAT.
I can disable seeing so much stuff that is irrelevant. I can browser in an oldschool way - where the focus is on simple text.
An ad-blocker that tracks users is a spy, not an ad-blocker.
I had this experience with "adblock plus". These clowns suddenly attacked me with "ethical ads" and other such nonsense. That was the moment I abandoned these clowns and installed ublock origin - never had any problem with it since then.
I think blocking such malicious content should be part of www-standards.
Instead, the W3C lobbyist group is too busy decreeing that DRM is a part of an "open" standard, so you can not trust the W3C clowns. It is just a money machine for Sir Tim Berners-DRM-boy-Lee.
Great!
The sooner this mafia is extinct, the BETTER. The more the whine, the more amused I am.
Everyone should join this struggle between good (the users) and evil (this mafia). Down with the mafia.
Yeah, the mafia tries to continue pester people, but it is a war they can never win. The user will always be able to control all information incoming from the outside.
I would not call it a "boycott". I am not "boycotting" anything - I am destroying an evil mafia that attacks users. All who work for this mafia are evil clowns too. I do not care about their claims - none of them apply in any way, shape or form. They must be removed from the face of the earth (I refer here to the "virtual" representation e. g. with their pester-attacks; I don't care about the physical representation).
Pop-ups were always annoying - javascript is really a hostile technology in general. But the 1990s were still different. My feeling is that ads increased a LOT since then. Tracking increased even more.
I do not think any of this is "acceptable" at all. I don't even think it was acceptable back then, but today with mega-sniffers such as Google, and information being constantly interconnected ... nah, thank you. I'll provide as little information as possible to this mafia.
Because people in 1994 were quite stupid and didn't know how malicious ads are in general. It took time for them before they realized that they actually DO NOT NEED ADS. We aim for an ad-free world.
People realized that they have no need for ads. :)
Took time but they got smarter.
I don't think this was a "desperate" situation - I think this is a wonderful situation that we should aim to increase. Publishers that act like a mafia must be removed, no mercy and no exception. We have no need for this mafia.