Will "Do Not Track" Kill the Free Internet?

jfruh writes "Dan Tynan is a privacy blogger and longtime proponent of the use of browser plug-ins and other technologies that block advertisers from tracking your web browsing habits. He's also a professional tech writer who makes his living writing articles for free, ad-supported sites. But he doesn't feel those two facts are in conflict, and points out that users pay good money to ISPs for those 'free' sites."

Comments

Did AdBlock kill the free internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, and this won't either. Some users will use it, but most probably won't, either because they don't care or they don't know.

Re:Did AdBlock kill the free internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't RTFA, but the point alluded to in TFS is a very important one I think people lose sight of.
Everybody pays for their own Internet access. There's no reason I should pay for yours.
If your reasons for having me read your webpage don't justify your costs, you're doing it wrong.
Adding some advertising on top of the reason I want to be there isn't going to work.

Re:Did AdBlock kill the free internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I block ads not because I want to deny webpages money.

I block them because ad rotator "services" are the primary infection vector out there. Even "top tier" sites like CNN have been bitten by ad services that either are too leniant on who they let advertise, or even "wink wink, nudge, nudge" condone blackhat activity, because in all likelihood, they won't get caught.

Want to know how I know? There were good /. articles about this, and I personally have run clean VMs on a popular site (not a pr0n site), and the VM got stung by adware.

So, until the advertisers stop allowing blackhats to send their crap, I will use Adblock and Flash blocking technologies.

Another datum, although anecdotal: I use a VM to browse, and have been for a couple years now, using AdBlock and NoScript. It has no AV protection. Just yesterday, I decided to power the VM off and mount its VHD onto another VM to run 2-3 antivirus scanners on it. All came up clean.

So, until the advertisers start cleaning up their game, I refuse them entry, just like I refuse entry to people in my house who might try to set it on fire, or pour plaster of Paris down the toilet.

Re:Did AdBlock kill the free internet?

[omnichad]

Think about your IQ for a moment. Then realize that half the people in the world have an IQ below 100. They make plenty of money on those ads.

Re:Did AdBlock kill the free internet?

[icebike]

I suspect that if 'do not track' became so common that it actually effected ad dollars to any measurable degree (which I doubt unless FF/Chrome/IE all bundle it by default), we would probably see a rise of people providing content for other reasons, reasons that do not require ad-type dollars

Wait, weren't ads present and effective in the past, prior to tracking?

I mean, if you went to a site about computers, they carried ads from computer manufacturers, etc.
The audience was already "targeted" by the mere fact that they arrived on that particular site. They selected themselves, and the ads were timely and focused.

Now with tracking, if search for bicycles, and for the next few days you get bicycle ads on sites dealing with Smartphones, Baseball, Rose Bushes. ?!??
This detracts from every web site's focus. I'm looking for a Catcher's mitt and they want to sell me a bike?

And all it does is rub it in your face that you are being tracked. It sure doesn't endear me to that particular bicycle company.

"Do not track" might even prove to earn more money for the advertisers, because the various web sites will (probably) fall back on focused advertising.

Re:Did AdBlock kill the free internet?

[Ihmhi]

Yeah, and one of the features they touted when cable TV first came out was that it was completely commercial free. How did that work out for us again?

Re:Did AdBlock kill the free internet?

[AK Marc]

SO, people publishing things on the internet should do it out of charity and the good of their hearts?

People selling magazines have long since learned that some people watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. Magazine articles are fluff to justify the ads. People buy the magazines, in some cases, just for the ads. For some, Vogue, Cosmo, Motor Trend, the ads and the content are indistinguishable.

If they are wanting an audience, they need to make sure they keep the audience. Some have figured it out. Others, like you, seem to insinuate that there is some "duty" to look at adds as an exchange for the service provided. The same arguments used when trying to ban commercial skippers for TV recorders.

Re:Did AdBlock kill the free internet?

[cas2000]

No, and this won't either. Some users will use it, but most probably won't, either because they don't care or they don't know.

Sentence much?

at least the OP actually posted a reasonably well-formed sentence that conveyed some meaning.

you just posted a fuckwitted meme.

WTF does adding " much?" to a word mean anyway? AFAICT, it's invariably an attempt to make some un-specified criticism or counterpoint without actually making any effort to, you know, make a criticism or counterpoint.

is it a method for those with Irony Deficit Disorder or Sarcasm Deficit Disorder (AKA "Americans") to make some lame substitute attempt at irony or sarcasm?

Re:Did AdBlock kill the free internet?

[Culture20]

Wait, weren't ads present and effective in the past, prior to tracking?

I mean, if you went to a site about computers, they carried ads from computer manufacturers, etc. The audience was already "targeted" by the mere fact that they arrived on that particular site. They selected themselves, and the ads were timely and focused.

Now with tracking, if search for bicycles, and for the next few days you get bicycle ads on sites dealing with Smartphones, Baseball, Rose Bushes. ?!?? This detracts from every web site's focus. I'm looking for a Catcher's mitt and they want to sell me a bike?

And all it does is rub it in your face that you are being tracked. It sure doesn't endear me to that particular bicycle company.

As with a lot of things, let's take this into meat-space to see if it's okay:

Chain store salesman: "Hello! I recognize you from this morning's sales briefing! Jim, right? I heard you bought a tub of salsa yesterday. Here for some antacids?"
Jim: "Go away and leave me alone."
"Sure thing pal!" *over walkie talkie* "Attention Sales staff. Jim is not looking for antacids. Must be anti-diarrheal. Someone bring some to the front STAT."
"&#$ you. I'm leaving."
"Your prerogative! Have a great day!" *dials a phone number* "Hi, Quik-e-mart? We just had an unsatisfied customer leave. Name's Jim. He's wearing blue jeans and a red shirt. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Yeah, that Jim. Well, I bet he's headed your way. He probably wants anti-diarrheal medicine, although the camera eye-focus heat-map suggests he was looking a lot at Cindy's cleavage. Maybe he wants milk. Got anyone you've pissed off?"

Doesn't Block Ads

[Aladrin]

This doesn't block ads, it just protects people's privacy from being abused by them. The companies will still be able to show ads. For targetted ads, they'll have to use the same techniques they use for TV and print media, and those things haven't died yet.

Re:Doesn't Block Ads

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it *tells* the company to please don't track me. Next i'm writing a plugin that tell's the IRS to please don't tax me.

Re:Doesn't Block Ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure where you've been the last decade or so but print media is dying. As for TV, there's a few major differences. First off, even with the current, greatly expanded channel lineups on cable, a given TV channel has a much larger audience than most websites. 250 channels is nothing compared to a few billion websites. Second, cable TV channels get paid by the cable providers that carry them. Obviously, nobody wants this concept getting carried over to the Internet, where your choice of ISPs determines what websites you can view. And finally, there's a big difference in the ratio of content to advertisements on TV versus the internet. As much as we complain about obnoxious flash ads and the like, it's pretty rare to see a website where made up of more than 25% advertisements. And if you saw one, you probably wouldn't be very inclined to go back. Yet the typical TV show has about 8 minutes worth of advertisements for 22 minutes of content. And then they shove more ads on top of the content (those stupid banners for other shows that run in the corner of the screen) and even more ads into the content (product placement).

I would disagree with the statement that Do Not Track would kill the Free Internet, but it's foolish to think it wouldn't dramatically alter the landscape. The simple fact is, non targeted advertising is worth less money, so websites will have to make that up somewhere. Some sites might go pay, others might just put in more ads, others might cut content or go bankrupt. And maybe, if we're lucky, some will come up with alternative business plans that people hate less, but everyone does need to remember what was once common sense, prior to the arrival of the internet: there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Re:Doesn't Block Ads

[Pope]

Don't tax me, bro!

Ads can still be relavent

[similar_name]

Just because a site can't track you doesn't mean they can't advertise to you. The content of the page you are viewing should provide enough context to provide an appropriate ad. Will it be less relevant to you? Possibly, but TV stations don't need to know everybody's individual viewing habits to know that Comedy Central should have ads aimed at young males while Lifetime shows ads for women.

Re:Ads can still be relavent

[Penguinisto]

True, and it's not like they can't get a rough geographical location from your IP address to add to the relevance. They can also add server-side data for regular/frequent visitors if the site has multiple topics, so as to fine-tune which topic is the most relevant.

Re:Ads can still be relavent

[drinkypoo]

If a site wants to track me all they need to do is offer me a compelling feature that requires that I sign in. Many sites are allowed to track me while I use their site, including Amazon, DealExtreme, Microsoft (hey, I still use Windows, I need their site) and so on. I have google analytics blocked because I don't want to be tracked across unrelated sites, though.

On the other hand, nobody who can not offer me a compelling reason to form an actual business relationship with me should be tracking me, and if their business model can't sustain that, then the world will be a better place if they go out of business.

Re:Ads can still be relavent

[brainzach]

What percentage of ads on TV are relevant to you?

On TV, shows can get away with multiple commercials back to back, so there is a greater chance of an advertisement being relevant. With online video, viewers will tolerate much fewer commercials so it is more critical to make sure that they are relevant.

Re:Ads can still be relavent

[ceoyoyo]

Yes, but then we'll lose the delicious irony of things like Slashdot ads for Go Daddy above stories about how Wikipedia is going to dump them because they supported SOPA.

A "privacy blogger" and ... car wash attendant?

[ScentCone]

and points out that users pay good money to ISPs for those 'free' sites

Could he possibly have pointed out anything less informed, causality-related, and meaningful in the context of the topic at hand? Unless he's suggesting the introduction of some insanely complex madness that involves your local ISP somehow distributing part of their operational revenue to the owners of web sites that their clients visit, what the hell is he talking about? I thought the "I pay for internet access, so anything I can find a way to grab online for free is really paid for" meme was limited to 12 year olds using Napster for the first time back in the days when people could almost play that dumb and pretend to mean it.

scare tactics

[RichMan]

Some people make a lot of money from ads. The net was here and functioning perfectly with lots of people. Then the advertisers showed up to make money. The people making money want to scare people into thinking it will all go away if they lose the money making machine. It will work just fine.

The net was meant to be a collaborative medium. It was not meant to fuel profit into someones pocket as a distribution system. The net will function just fine if it is not leveraged into a money making distribution system.

Re:scare tactics

[drinkypoo]

Lovely thought, but all these magical screens that come up when you type in URLs cost real money.

As someone who was creating those magical screens before there were ad networks on the internet, I say unto thee: *snore*

Servers cost money. Hardware, software, maintenance, and electricity just off the top of my head to say nothing of the MUCH higher costs to them of commercial bandwidth. And the big sites? Multiply that by about 100x for re-hosting providers. And that's just the physical capability to put a "hello world" on your screen when you type in catlolzmemes.com.

I'm paying something like $24 a year for hosting now, and that includes me using up a whole bunch of memory because I run Drupal, and "unlimited" disk space and bandwidth use until you actually use a lot on a regular basis. That includes my domain registration and fees. So that "hello world" costs jack diddly shit when served through a "re-hosting provider" (no "re-" is necessary) because of volume.

Then there's the people who design professional sites, who think up and write content like the article you may have read that led you to "collaborate" with us.

Most of those sites suck hairy donkey balls through a glass pipette while singing "O Come all ye Faithful". And the content is mostly written by people trolling the blogosphere for information these days, although there are actual humans on the street now and then too. The photography, anyway, is real.

Just because you don't pay the bills personally doesn't mean they don't get paid by someone. And that someone makes their money back off ads.

And if they can't find meaningful ways to monetize their content then they deserve to cease to exist. I produce very little content, but I produce it free and I don't even have ads. Hell, I don't even have referral bonuses right now unless you count my hosting provider, and I don't exactly stress that, I just made another cute little banner to go at the bottom of the page along with the ones that say I use linux and php and so on. (whoops, fixed the firefox affiliate link there, heh heh.) If lots of people produce a little content there will be a lot of content out there. Meanwhile, I don't know about you, but I pay actual money to have content delivered via the internet, indeed, via the WWW. Not only do I pay my service provider, but I also pay Netflix a recurring subscription. Many such services exist and they do not depend on advertising, aside from attracting visitors. This proves that if you have compelling content, the world really will pay for it.

The days of the internet being only "a collaborative medium" are long past.

It was never only a collaborative medium and nobody said it was. On the other hand, it was designed to be peer to peer. If it were designed to be centralized, it would look very different down to the underlying protocol.

Now it is how we all communicate globally. And one of the most basic reasons to foster communication in any civilizations is trade. Hence, advertising.

Uh no. Advertising is not necessary for trade. There are other means of dissemination of that information. Besides sneakiness, there are also trade catalogs, that people acquire intentionally as a directory of those who might serve their requests.

Time to grow up a bit and realize that just because YOU didn't pay for it directly, doesn't mean that it's all just free.

I *am* paying for it directly, both with dollars and by producing content that people want to consume. What are you doing besides spouting a group of falsehoods?

Doesn't mater

[na1led]

The ISP will track your every move. The private browsing option is just in case your Wife finds out where you've been on the Internet.

let it die

[AntEater]

If tracking is the only way the "free" internet can survive then it deserves to die. I think you'd find the creativity of people will work around such a limitation.

It will CLEAN the Internet

[erroneus]

The parties who get on the internet to conduct legitimate business and to share information and to collaborate will continue doing so JUST FINE.

To parallel a little... badly... did the "Do Not Call" registry kill collections and telemarketing activities? Nope.

In a word?

[eternaldoctorwho]

No. Whenever a headline on Slashdot asks a question, the answer is No.

Re:In a word?

[godrik]

No. Whenever a headline on Slashdot asks a question, the answer is No.

Tomorrow on slashdot: Won't "Do Not Track" Kill the Free Internet?

Standard Advertiser FUD

[JeanCroix]

Just like VCRs and DVRs were supposed to have killed 'free' television programming...

Just as AdBlock was supposed to have already killed 'free' internet...

Next up: the shills shouting how using such tools "breaks the implied social contract" of viewing free content.

The Internet could survive with far fewer ads

[Animats]

Suppose commercial web tracking was absolutely prohibited unless you were explicitly using a single company's site. Third party ads could not be personalized. What would the Web look like?

Many of the useful sites on the Internet are actual stores, from Amazon to Grainger to Digi-Key. Their revenue doesn't come from advertising. It comes from selling real stuff. They'd barely notice. There are major paid services like Netflix. They provide a service for money. No problem there.

Google was profitable before they had ad personalization. Search ads don't need to be "personalized" - the user tells you what they're looking for, so it's straightforward to present relevant ads. Running a search engine isn't that expensive. AltaVista was a demo for DEC Alpha computers, not a business. Cuil was a flop, but demonstrated that you could do a search engine for about $25 million. Blekko and DuckDuckGo are funded at about that level.

The only business that desperately needs the anal-probe level of intrusive personal monitoring is Facebook.

Targeted ads built the Internet

[maple_shaft]

In more than anyway imaginable, advertisements and targeted advertisements helped to fund and thus build the internet as we know it today. Taking targeted ads out as a possible revenue stream will lead to a string of bankruptcies and site shutdowns across the Internet. It will stifle new innovation and content that can't get adequate funding.

Startups will struggle and fail too. Ultimately, the only content generators that will matter at that point will be hobbyists who spend their own time and money to partake in the internet just to be noticed.

I don't think people truly realize how much money will dry up without targeted advertising.

Re:Slashdot censors posts

[poetmatt]

uh, preventing spam and flood prevention is not censorship. it's preventing spam.

let's not lump that crap together.

The full list

[SmallFurryCreature]

Adhere
Demandbase
Dynamic Logic
Facebook Connect
Facebook Social Plugins
Google +1
Google Analytics
Google FriendConnect
ShareThis
Twitter Button

I have ghostery installed,a plugin for all browsers that blocks not ads themselves so much as all these trackers.

This particular site isn't even that bad, mostly all the social crap that tends to get everywhere like the scum it is. But there are worse sites.

Do I mind being tracked? Not really no... the main reason I installed ghostery was to get rid of all those annoying scripts that make the net just a little bit slower with each and everyone of them.

But what about the free content I consume? Once the internet was a non-profit area and frankly I think it was better for it. Using google becomes more and more a pain as companies that try to sell something I don't want outrank information sites. I feel like I finally got rid of the deluge of paper ads on my doormat everyday and now it insteads gets delivered by the truck load through the wires in my home. I do not have an answer as to how sites like Slashdot would survive without advertising but frankly, I don't care. The internet would adapt, go back to privately run sites on private funds for the hell of it and only post articles that are intresting, not just to attract the most eyeballs.

Advertisers keep pushing the limits and users are pushing back. If one day we users push back so hard that advertisers starve to dead (preverably a miserable and painful one) then... MISSION FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED!

Re:Slashdot censors posts

[Qzukk]

flagged comments are listed on a page for the editors to individually review. Once there, we have two options: downmodding the comment or ignoring the report.

You're welcome to try it out, if you'd like. It's basically just around for downmodding spam and things like the racist copypastas. So far, probably 95% of the reports have been for perfectly normal comments, on which we've taken no action.

-- Soulskill

Feel free to believe it or not.

Re:What is the flag?

[Soulskill]

Hitting the flag icon will bring that comment to the editors' attention. Nothing is automated. (For example, several comments in this thread were flagged.) When we look at it, we'll downmod it if it's spam, or something like the racist copypastas.

It's basically just an avenue for people without mod points to get the worst comments downmodded more quickly.