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IE8 Will Contain an Accidental Ad Blocker
JagsLive sends in a Washington Post blog post reflecting on one privacy-enhancing feature of the upcoming Internet Explorer 8, the so-called "InPrivate Blocking" that has privacy advocates quietly cheering, and advertisers seriously worrying. Here is Microsoft's description of the feature. From the Post: "The advertising industry is bracing for trouble from the next version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, details of which were announced today, because it will offer a feature that blocks some ads and other content from third-parties that shows up on Web pages. A Microsoft spokesman said that the feature, to be known as 'InPrivate Blocking,' was never designed to be an ad blocker, though 'there may be ads that get blocked.' Instead, it was designed to stop tracking 'pixels' or pieces of code that could allow third-party sites to track users as they move around the Web."
Get your own accidental ad blocker right now! We will block some of the ads (Google) but our own stay!
Actually no. I know plenty of non-computer people who I off hand mentioned ad blocking to. Generally the reaction is a stunned look followed by "you can do that?" and begging me to set it up for them. Most people don't even know it exists.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
back in the early days of the web, if a website was 500k in TOTAL is was large. now days chewing 10 megs on a single site is nothing, most of it is ads and very little content. all of this is paid for by us, without our permission. so what if a website is offering free content in exchange for banner hits, they don't ask me if i'd like to be tracked and bombarded with ads for the pleasure of it first do they, in fact i'm pretty sure if websites started placing a front page stating you had to unblock ads and allow 50 doubleclick cookies to be placed not many people would visit them. So cry me a fucking river if they go broke from all the ad blocking.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Doesn't it read a bit more like they're trying to block google analytics? Not that they're taking a direct shot at any particular company of course... maybe I'm just overly paranoid.
I don't think so. Google Analytics tracks many visitors to the same site, whereas this seems to be aimed at preventing tracking of the same visitor to many sites. In the MS blog it says it'll prevent the same cookie tracking you across more than 10 sites. I think the implication is that it's bad for Adsense, Doubleclick and the like as they can no longer track you through third-party cookies on dozens of sites and build up an advertising profile of you that way.
Good for privacy of course, but as so much of the web is ad-funded is this really going to be good for the web as a whole ? I guess we'll have to wait and see on that one.
I think it's interesting also that this is happening as Microsoft tries to become a bigger player in the internet ad business. They could use IE feature to their advantage here, as it'd be fairly easy for them to implement a scheme where all third-party cookies are limited, except for those of Microsoft and its "selected partners". Would we put it past them to do something along those lines ?
That's true. The trick is don't be talking about security, or start talking about security. Or simply recommend ad blocking out of the blue. Keep it off-handed. The classic geek "blah-blah-Lassie-blah-blah" just spooks them. They're happy to learn ads can be blocked. Say "heck yeah" and simply show them how, end of explanation. Continue to build trust like that and they /might/ be able to handle security advice from you after two years.
But you know, don't. I don't want ad blocking to be commonplace. That'll just cause ads that are harder to block for the rest of us, and it'll make it much less likely that the greater populace will become suprised and outraged enough about uncontrolled user-tracking to demand legislation. And finally start to wonder about the lack of relevant privacy legislation for the modern world in general.
The BT debacle is kinda the start of that. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7438578.stm
I think this is the first time I've seen someone mention privoxy among the dozens of adblock posts.
I run privoxy on a separate machine so that it's available to every computer on my network, thereby minimising the need for installing Firefox extras. And while I'd recommend it highly (definitely a plus for over-burdened laptops when it's running elsewhere), it doesn't seem to the same job as adblock when it comes to an ad-free webpage. The Slashdot site, for example, renders with the right column being pushed down quite a distance leaving a gaping whitespace. It can be a tough choice sometimes: soul-sucking advertising, or existential emptiness.
I can barely contain the mixed feelings I have over this issue and some of the juvenile responses. Right now I more annoyed with the Linux/Open Source/EFF advocates that can't give a simple acknowledgment to a step forward of the end-users' protection and privacy IE8 may.
One thing I can say before going back to replaying Halo 2 on my now decommissioned Beowulf cluster is, "Good job Microsoft for trying to protect 75+% of the worlds Internet users".
I am personally grateful that the users of our 1000+ Linux, Solaris, BSD server farm are better protected.
Let's remember there is no such thing as a free lunch. Some where, some how, the bill must be paid. Until socialism or communism govern the Internet some level of commercial advertising will need to be tolerated in order to pay the bill in order to keep the "lights and water" running.
--magus
(not to be confused with magu$)
Not everyone wishes to pointblank block adverts but few people want the shady and legally quesitonable tracking techniques some ads used gathering their details, especially those that get around strict cookie rules/settings.
However I find it amusing that people still find ways to bash Microsoft over this. It's a sensible privacy feature. If you want to block ads completely, fine, we all know that firefox can do that amazingly (at least until it's widespread enough for ad providers to start making their clients use an impossible to block local caching system) but this a smart feature for those who don't wish to block ads completely.
You don't even need AdBlock if you have NoScript, and using NoScript is much fairer on individual sites.
With scripts disabled totally for a domain, you don't see any ads. If you enable javscript for the domain of the site you're visiting, then you still don't get pop-over ads because they always come from an another domain. This way you get the functionality of the site to work and actually help them out by preventing a third party from messing up the user experience of their site (only for you, but it's a start).
Still, I've no idea why they don't just make static images and count the requests for specific referers, and also count the times that they've been linked through. I still saw ads when they did this kind of thing, though I would've used adblock to kill that damn monkey and anything that made a noise. Nowadays we should have things like per-tab muting and a visual indication of which tab is making sound.
Yes. Less advertisement means less people wanting to tell you how to do stuff. It also means less sites that are only there to advertise (like TV is there only to sell soap).
Instead of the product the sites sells to their customers, the advertisers, the public will become the customer again. It could mean the end of a gazillion sites that basically copy and paste each other information. Instead of quantity, it would mean quality.
I and all people using some sort of ad-blocking would love to have less advertisement. And I guess plenty of those who don't use them won't be upset if there were less advertisements.
Are people so much into corporate speech that they think they can not exist except if some company is sponsoring them? Yes, there are exceptions.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I'm almost certain I'll get called a Google fanboy (or maybe even a shill) for this comment, but here goes...
Google's style of advertising is the ONLY advertising I'm interested in seeing, precisely BECAUSE it tracks me and specifically targets me. They offer ads that are RELEVANT to me - things I actually MIGHT be interested in. If I don't want them to track me, I'll tweak the relevant settings in my browser's settings/plugins. I'm quite happy for Google to do so though (just recently, after I received an email about a new card I'm playing with some friends, I was given a nice text ad on the top of my gmail that linked me to an online version of the game - excellent advertising, because it's something I actually wanted!)
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You mean like those Dice ads that Slashdot was displaying forever even though I emailed them repeatedly and told them it was crashing my browser and slowing down my computer?