Slashdot Mirror
Student Project Could Kill Digital Ad Targeting
An anonymous reader sends this quote from Ad Age:
"[Rachel Law's] creation, called 'Vortex,' is a browser extension that's part game, part ad-targeting disrupter that helps people turn their user profiles and the browsing information into alternate fake identities that have nothing to do with reality. People who use the browser tool, which works with Firefox and Chrome, effectively confuse the technologies that categorize web audiences into likely running shoe buyers, in-market auto buyers, or moms interested in cooking and football. ... It's a bit like the ad blocker extensions of yore, except it scrambles information to trick ad targeters, all in service of an addictive game deemed 'Site Miner,' which allows players to fish for cookies visualized as sea creatures. Players can gobble up cookies Pac-Man style, creating a pool of profile information that has nothing to do with their actual web behavior. ... Vortex features a profile switcher that people can use and share to take on a new identity while browsing the web. 'It's a way of masking your identity across networks,' she said."
to paraphrase Tyler Durden:
You are not your cookie trail.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I'm not sure why I should hate targeted ads. I actually see ads for things I'm interested in... instead of random stuff. The tracking, ad infinitum, has always been going on, will always be going on.
I'd thought of doing that as part of one of my browser add-ons, but it has problems. The general idea is that you send your cookies to a central site which sends them out to others to confuse tracking. As the article says, "The Vortex system will build a database of cookies gathered by players." So you've traded multiple limited data collection systems for one central one. There are a number of obvious ways that can backfire.
Just turn off third party cookies. Or run Abine's Do Not Track Me.
Rachel is a she.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
but my alternate identity can't get enough of it!
Then you will not have as many websites.
Making and supporting a web site takes time and money.
To support a website you need to be able to do the following.
1. Have the site support or extend a product or service you are paying for. This is most corporate web sites. Their features are about the company and extras are there to keep you on it so you remember the name.
2. Some sort or grant (IE Begging for money). This will work as long as you have enough supporters.
3. Pay to use the service (Pay Wall). Your product really needs to be special enough for this.
4. Use some space to advertise.
I am not sure if you remembered how horrable adds were in the late 1990's early 2000. Adds and adds cluttering your system all about irrelevant stuff. Today for most reputable sites You have a couple adds, more or less about stuff you are interested in, they are not often a lot more subdued and out of the way. However because they are targeted towards your profile they are more useful and don't need to be so much in your face.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Why are they pestering the user to be involved in the process? Just do it and don't bother me.
When ad filters are on the offensive.
When there is high-quality content, supporters will keep it alive. Look at xkcd, not an ad on the site but yet it still remains updated and high-quality and free.
Yeah, we might lose some mediocrity, but high quality will remain.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Yeah I went looking for the plugin before reading the article. It's not available yet.
It's probably just a concept at the moment, and someone will probably code and release a plugin that does this or worse to advertisers before she releases hers in September.
Today for most reputable sites You have a couple adds, more or less about stuff you are interested in.
Let me FTFY:
Today for most reputable sites You have a couple adds, more or less about stuff you were interested in before buying it from a different site last month.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Untargeted ads are easier to ignore and thus less distracting. I don't want to train my eyes to look over towards the ad section of a webpage. I'd rather get in for the stuff I visited for and then get out. It's hard enough in this day of ever-present ads and neuromarketing to keep attention where I want it.
Plus, assuming targeted ads actually work as designed, I don't want to be encouraged to consume stuff I wouldn't have consumed without the ads. Studies have shown that we have a limited reservoir of restraint from impulsive behavior. The more this reservoir is "drained" by resisting temptation, the more likely you are to give in later. You can increase this reservoir with practice, but there are simply limits. I'd rather avoid temptation and save my money.
The one exception to this is search engines, where I want results relevant to what I'm searching on. But you don't need to build a profile for that. You just need to give me tools to more narrowly specify my search and build more intelligent responses to that.
The tracking, ad infinitum, has always been going on, will always be going on.
I'd rather not be defeatist about that. The primary motivation of tracking is to better sell you stuff. If I'm not interested in buying, then I'm definitely not interested in paying that extra cost in privacy for "service" I don't want.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I don't think most people block ads, unless you restrict "people" to tech-savvy people.
On the other hand, most of the people who don't block ads will also not install this browser addon.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Look at xkcd, not an ad on the site...
See this link?
You can get the Subways comic as a poster!
That's an ad. Them posters ain't free.
Not a bad ad, not an obnoxious ad, but still an ad.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I'll give you one reason: echo chamber. I don't particularly like seeing ads at all (yes, it's the price for "free" content); however, I like to broaden my perspective on the world. If I receive targeted ads for items that are of interest to me and a very small slice of society, I'm at terrible risk for mis-perceiving society at large. For example, I don't like (almost any) hip hop music. But I don't want to be denied the opportunity to be informed (via ads) that much of the rest of "western civilization" thinks it's great.
So yes, I want all my ads UN-targeted. If I need something unusual, I can bloody well find it for myself using The Google.
This doesn't even address the fact that the data accumulated to create targeted ads can (has, and will continue to be) misused for other purposes. For example,let's say your particular buying habits correlate with certain anti-social or unhealthy lifestyle choices, but that you don't have these particular negative attributes. A prospective employer or insurer might still use them to label you as a bad risk, and deny you a job or insurance policy.
Companies don't collect information about you for YOUR benefit.
It's different, IMO, since it's part of the site. It's the difference between going to a concert and the band selling CD's, and going to a concert and the band painting a Wal-Mart logo on the stage.
Why destroy all ads and marketing? We still need a mechanism that allows us to know what is available, and at what price.
What I want to destroy is the means for marketers to set prices of goods and services based on "targeted" information that seemingly have no relation to the product or service being purchased. I hate when people in Florida have are offered a product via a WWW site that costs more than the same exact product offered to someone in Massachusetts. It is even worse when you take a look at the picture on a global basis. I hate it when I pay $100 more for an airline seat than the guy sitting next to me. We both got the same exact service, but at wildly divergent prices.
Make a good product...sell it at a price point determined by supply and demand (which I am guessing won't fluctuate each minute) where a reasonable profit can be had, and be happy with it. Probably a little naive...
I would like to think in this day and age people are mature enough to ignore targeted ads.
is toss one site back to another, so they are tossing ads back and forth, making it look like all the hits are coming from other advertisers. I would suspect eventually the hosting sites will end up blocking themselves, and all will be well in the Twitterverse.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Then you will not have as many websites.
Only true insofar as quantity. Quality OTOH will likely improve, if you want the truth. Any site that relies (even in large part) on ad impressions for its survival is likely one that has starved itself to death a long time ago, is is barely straggling along.
there are far too many other ways of making income from a website (an internal store, premium content, even donations stand out as examples.)
Making and supporting a web site takes time and money.
So does any other worthwhile endeavor. Doesn't mean it has to have adverts, though.
I am not sure if you remembered how horrable adds were in the late 1990's early 2000.
I beg to differ - it's uglier today.
Turn off all your blockers/add-ins/extensions sometime, and go visit ZDNet or parts of CNET. They stand out as only a couple examples of how a company can jack in a shit-ton of intrusive dancing adverts (where even clicking on what looks like blank space will toss an advert at you). Also note that back in the late '90s you only had popups and cookies at worst (okay, they had Bonzi Buddy or whatever-the-hell-that-was, but that bullshit required your explicit collusion to install).
Today you have to contend with LSOs, stealth "toolbars" that slide in just because you updated Java and weren't paying attention, and other intrusive-as-fuck tracking techniques that slip right by most non-techies. Oh, and I won't even have to mention that now we get to put up with ISP collusion as a matter-of-course (ad-packed redirects for failed DNS lookups, anyone?)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
oops
Spartacus Load Letter?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Really? The bulk of advertisement revenue for profits is coming from the embedded world, not Web Browsing. More to the point, whether this person likes it or not they don't control the design models of WebKit, Blink, etc. This will not kill advertising.
Making and supporting a web site takes time and money.
Yes it does, and if you can't break even with it by asking for donations, you either accept that it's a hobby and you're not skilled enough to run it professionally, or your shove ads in people's faces. If we remove the latter option, I assert that the web will be a better place for it.
However, the main focus of the creator is the discrimination, that the information she is jumbling enables, like higher prices for certain groups of people. That we can sweep the legs from under advertisers too with her tool/game is just sweet, sweet payback for defacating in our beautiful playground.
... whatever
It's different, IMO, since it's part of the site. It's the difference between going to a concert and the band selling CD's, and going to a concert and the band painting a Wal-Mart logo on the stage.
More like the ticket takers selling attendance stats to Wal-Mart while handing out serialized flyers as people come in the door.
I recently joined an internet advertising startup whose claim to fame is that their technology works without cookies tracking individuals. It really is creepy how you look at something on Amazon and you start seeing Amazon ads for that item on other sites you visit.
We're profitable so at least THIS company isn't going to lay me off any time soon.
"We still need a mechanism that allows us to know what is available, and at what price."
Yep. It's called "google", or if that doesn't work for you, there are various sites that specialize in comparing, reviewing and telling you were you can buy various products. Hey, it will even rank the various results by cost, if you like! Advertising is completely superfluous.
Don't be an idiot. A proper capitalistic system where information is transparent and the consumer is given the tools and the latitude to make informed and cost effective decisions makes for shitty QE reports. And who's more important? Little old you or shareholders of $CORPORATION?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I don't understand why advertisers are so eager to profile users. Really. Now with ABP I don't see many ads, largely because they're usually so obtrusive and irritating, but that's another story.
The advertiser's key mistake is that they try to target users. The only thing about a user they should target (to make ads useful) is geographic location. E.g. when I'm looking for restaurants, I'd be happy to see advertisements of restaurants near me. I'm looking for restaurants in Mongkok, show me ads of restaurants in Mongkok, not those in Central. Wasting my time.
Another thing: when reading /., I'm interested in IT related stuff. Show me IT related ads, and I may be interested in them. Don't show me football related ads just because I've been browsing a bunch of football sites before. Similarly, when browsing football sites, show me sports related ads, not IT related ads because I visit /. ten times daily.
Gender, age, etc - it all matters so much less. The web sites themselves tend to filter that out very much already, as many web sites target a very specific audience with an often quite narrow interest.
For example on /. you find males with high education, that are working in the IT field. On mylittlepony.com you find young girls that are in primary or maybe junior secondary school. On recipies.com you find desperate housewives. And if I, a fairly typical /. demographic, may visit mylittlepony.com then probably I'm looking for a present for my (imaginary) daughter, and may be very interested in promotions related to that toy. I'd be quite irritated to see the same IT related advertising I may call useful when placed on /..
As a side note: the original ads by Google tried to do just that: relevant ads, depending on the content of the page. Somehow though it never seemed to work well. I always get very relevant, and often useful, ads when doing searches - when I see those text ads in web pages they're often totally irrelevant. From my own campaigns I also got far higher click-through rates on the google.com main site, than on their "affiliate sites" or however they call it. As in >10 times higher rates.
Right now, facebook
wants me to save 15% on my vacation (no thanks),
also offers to save me 40% on my vacation (are you fucking deaf?),
has determined that i need a harness for falling protection (huh?),
thinks that I would probably like a pulled pork burger (yuck!),
and wants me to test my smarts on some trade school's website (something to do on my 40% off vacation?).
Targeted ads are a joke, and this from a company that probably has the best vantage point in the whole goddamn world to shove ads in my face.
... whatever
I don't browse on my phone, only play some games or use other apps.
I see advertising when I happen to have wifi on (no mobile data) - and what I notice time and again is that the advertising is exclusively for other apps. No general products or brands are being advertised, only other apps, and those apps are either games or gambling related things.
Which makes me wonder: is it really me? Or is it geographically different? Or do general advertisers really shun the mobile in-app advertising realm?
I'm a military contractor.
I'm also a fitness instructor.
Due to my searches for weaponry, vegas trips, and yoga mats Adsense thinks I'm gay.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
well done good sir, This guy reserves the medal of freedom.
When there is high-quality content, supporters will keep it alive. Look at xkcd, not an ad on the site but yet it still remains updated and high-quality and free.
Yeah, we might lose some mediocrity, but high quality will remain.
Your choice of what example you give of "High Quality" leaves me baffled. Of all the bazillion sites on the internet you chose a comic.
But looking past that.....
How do "supporters" keep something alive? What puts food on the owners table and shoes on his children's feet?
12 million hits per hour does nothing but put him further in debt to his hosting company.
If I want free content, I put up with some ads. If the Ads get too obnoxious the content is no longer worth the trouble and I leave.
Or maybe I read the site through RSS, depriving the site of all its revenue, my way of telling the site that their ads campaign is
too intensive and obnoxious.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The advertisers want to shove those ads down your throat in a rapid fire super sized orgy of marketing intrusion.
The reason why the ads aren't as bad now is because people rebelled and found ways to kick their asses off the websites.
Then the advertisers found ways around those first restrictions and plastered everyones faces again.
The users again found a way to deal with it.
This back and forth went on many times, and will probably continue for a long time to go.
The "not so bad" ads you see now are the result of this war. Some of the advertisers finally figured out that people do NOT want constant mega in your face advertisements, it just pisses them off to the point where they find a way to get rid of them. Because of that, the advertisers have accepted a reduction of intrusion to a level that will fall below many peoples threshold of bullshit they don't want to see such that they don't bother to take action.
It's like the difference between a fly buzzing in your face and landing on your nose, vs the one flying around down the hallway. Which one are you going to swat? Most people won't even bother with the one down the hall unless they are an obsessed fly killer, or they've finally gotten tired of the last 3 hours of faint buzzing.
The advertisers want to be the fly on your nose, but everybody kills those, so they have no choice but to move out of swatting range if they want to live.
It's more that ads from 201X are less irritating than ads from 200X in general.
Not at all true. Turn on a TV. Obnoxiously insipid and puerile, stars in their eyes twenty-somethings going gaga over shiny baubles they can't really begin to understand, and they want the latest version. Females futzing over cosmetics, shampoo, overpriced clothing, men extolling the virtues beer, of overpriced fuel guzzling hotrods, both of them falling for weight loss snakeoil, expensive and unnecessary pharmaceuticals, breast augmentation, hairloss treatments and cat toys. Halitosis, body odour, split ends, cracked fingernails, longer lashes ...
Ick. Holy !@#$%^& boring, and offensive! I hate sharing a planet with people like that, and you know what? Real people AREN'T like that, but "Madison Avenue" portrays us that way. The commercialized web is no better. I'm reminded of that, "We've already determined you're a whore. Now we're just haggling over price."
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I just wish there was a plugin that would scramble this stuff automatically. Take each tab and generate a random browser string, garbage "clicked from" info, random cookies to scan, random history, etc. for every link I click.
Twinstiq, game news
I'm confused. Are you saying that Adsense is spot on or way off?
Says the typical Slashtard.
Says the typical shallow as a pane of glass webmonkey. Go play on Facebook.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
If I have to see ads at all, I'd sooner they be of stuff I may be interested in, to be honest.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Can we please stop describing games as being "addictive"?
Anybody want a peanut?
That might not be a great example; Facebook seems to be particularly terrible at targeting advertising. The best 0-for that I've seen included advertisements for meeting Christian singles (I'm not Christian, and Facebook knows it), meeting "bad" girls (I guess Facebook doesn't have any specific reason that I'm not interested in "bad" girls, but I have no idea what they do know that would lead them to that idea), and an online MBA program.
FWIW, I don't use blockers/add-ins/extensions. Of course, that means I find MANY web sites so obnoxious I only go there once. And that's without haveing flash installed.
ISTM that the basic idea is good, but it should, itself, be targetable. I.e., you should be able to "greenlight" certain web-sites, and to "red-light" certain extensions. This would, of course, interfere with it's anonymizing feature, but not, I feel excessively.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I want to try it. Where is it? Link please...
A lot of ad platforms already have a non-cookie mechanism working. Storing hashes of user agent and IP address is common. You have to go through a proxy or otherwise change IP address for that not to work. It's easy to find services advertising this as a feature: http://www.ipfingerprint.com/we_dont_use_cookies.aspx The truth is that cookies aren't that great for tracking. People want to know your activity across browsers and devices. That requires using additional information like phone unique identifier (sent by apps), website logins, billing address fields, coupon usage, and so on. That information can be tied together to track you. You're not going to be able to prevent that kind of tracking by messing with cookies.
Oh, please call the software Fakeblock.
I just want to jack with the advertisers without any effort at all. though I don't see any reason to cease my current strategy of just blocking them.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Females futzing over cosmetics, shampoo, overpriced clothing, men extolling the virtues beer, of overpriced fuel guzzling hotrods, both of them falling for weight loss snakeoil, expensive and unnecessary pharmaceuticals, breast augmentation, hairloss treatments and cat toys.
I have to ask...what show are you watching that has cat toy commercials that are so evil and offensive? I'm not sure I've ever even seen a cat toy commercial...
I'm guessing repeated searches for "catholic schoolgirls" are to blame.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
From the article: "Vortex isn't available publicly or even in a closed beta form..."
As vapourwear goes, it would seem rather vapid then.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
I assume that he's talking about the Cat's Meow motorized cat toy gizmo. This thing is advertised non-stop on daytime TV.
don't hide from our data collection overlords just confuse the hell out of them.
Honestly I'm a little confused myself so I'm not sure.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Due to my searches for weaponry, vegas trips, and yoga mats Adsense thinks I'm gay.
Similarly, my wife's interest in old movies and a few other "cultural" things seems to have convinced AdSense, Netflix, Amazon and others that she's a gay male. I'm not sure what they think I am, and maybe I don't want to know.
An even funnier confusion started years ago, when she was a student at a local university, and a friend of hers who was from Russian discovered that she was pregnant. The husband was still in Russia, and wasn't here when it was time for the birth, so my wife went along to the hospital to help her deal with the bureaucratic types there (and as an occasional translator). She soon discovered that the hospital had put her name down as the "father" of the child, when she started getting ads for new-baby products. This has followed her since then, although the friend and her son have long since returned to Russia. Two decades later, she still occasionally gets junk mail implying that she has a son. (She has two grandsons, but no sons.)
So she's a gay male who is the father of a Russian baby. And I'm married to her (which is legal here in Massachusetts ;-).
This tells us a lot about the credibility of "ad targeting". ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I use this free service http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ to generated an identity. I keep hitting
generate till I get a zip code that's close and use that info for whatever site.
An email address to that identity is also available (for a price) but I use www.spamgourmet.com for that.
Cookies are taken care of with a .bat file.
And of course a HOSTS file, I use APK to gather all the HOSTS files, combine them then make a HOSTS file from it's output
http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74
makes for one nice HOSTS file.
He can join the Free/Open Source Shoes movement.
Just screw with it. I occasionally go on facebook and search for odd, disjointed things: For example, I'll LIKE adult diapera, search for childrens clothes, then look up athiest and christian groups.
I get the weirdest ads.
At some point, someone will have session cookie for its job's intranet sent into the mixer...
That's pretty much my biggest issue with ads. Want to try selling me something, sure. I really don't have a problem with a respectable attempt to demonstrate a products value. I do have a problem when the person doing it is all but flat out stating that they feel we're drooling morons. The chances I've had to actually talk to people involved with advertising has made it pretty clear that the industry has no desire to move away from that model. Unless they do, I also don't feel bad about getting shows from newsgroups with the ads cut out, using adblock when it works, or even just staring at a blank screen for 90 seconds rather than watch a 30 second commercial in those instances when it doesn't function properly.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Then you will not have as many websites.
Awesome. I can thing of metastatic cancers like Facebook thet can go away right away.
Making and supporting a web site takes time and money.
And you know what? If advertising is not intrusive, I'll even watch it. I think most people will. I think most people understand that the sites and merchants are there to make money. But that isn't really the issue.
When you have sites stalking you, as we do now, placing cookies in non cookie places, companies like Facebook tracking you, whether you have a facebook account or not, and others, it gets a little annoying to say the least. And I would be more than happy for them to go away and stay away. I don't measure the quality of the web by the proliferation of junk sites.
The very odd thing is that in trying to sell you their goods, they have declared war on you. Facebook stalks you all over the web. It's almost understandable that Google would have data to offer with search analysis, but even they are stalking you heavily. Just the other night, I went to a Google maps page to check some map stuff out. Never signed in, just tried a few things with maps, and decided that wasn't the way I wanted to go. in maybe 15 minutes, I got an email to "anonymous+ a number". Was I supposed to think that because they sent it to my email as anonymous, they didn't know it was me?
That's a big line to cross, because they now have associated my name with my surfing habits. Just from visiting a page, nothing else. Right now, maybe that's just to target advertisement. Maybe that's it. For right now.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Honestly I'm a little confused myself so I'm not sure.
Do you like gladiator movies?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It would be nice if you could flag ads or companies that you don't want to see again and have them be gone forever. To my sensibility the ads are in my face. I would like to be able to cancel ad displays that I do not find relevant--right now there is no feedback mechanism.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
The link worked for me.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Only if there's a lot of drama and talking.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
I ended up adding adblock, flashblock and noscript to all of my machines. Blame Club Med. I searched for a vacation online, and for the next two months, got endless ads for Club Med. "hat lady" became a joke in the house Dumped cookies, etc. Now I search vacations or other products on a netbook pre wiped and cookie dumped. I haven't seen a banner ad in weeks. Thank you Club Med...oh, I went there years back, had a great time....but the marketing has turned me off to your brand.
Then you will not have as many websites.
Omelettes...cracked eggs. A price to pay, but worth it.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
Why destroy all ads and marketing?
Because advertisers have made a really useful resource such a pain in the arse to use. While we're at it we should also get rid of non interweb advertising as well.
We still need a mechanism that allows us to know what is available, and at what price.
Such as a website people can go to when they particularly WANT to see ads. One that includes the ability to search for goods, services and their suppliers. And is, of course, payed for by the scumb^w advertisers.
What I want to destroy is the means for marketers to set prices of goods and services based on "targeted" information that seemingly have no relation to the product or service being purchased. I hate when people in Florida have are offered a product via a WWW site that costs more than the same exact product offered to someone in Massachusetts. It is even worse when you take a look at the picture on a global basis. I hate it when I pay $100 more for an airline seat than the guy sitting next to me. We both got the same exact service, but at wildly divergent prices.
Make a good product...sell it at a price point determined by supply and demand (which I am guessing won't fluctuate each minute) where a reasonable profit can be had, and be happy with it. Probably a little naive...
Yep.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
re echo chamber, a good, overlooked point. Too much customization restricts worldview, which I don't see as a good thing.
I got news for you.
Do you have a 401k? Any of your relatives have pension plans? Did you get paid scholarship to go to that college that failed to teach you even the basics of economics?
Congratulations. You're an evul "shareholder" of a bunch of corporations.
(well, in the last case, your scholarship was generated from your endowment being a shareholder).
I have an idea. How about you stop spouting nonsense and go read Joel on Software blog where he explains how pricing discrimination works and why it happens. You can't even accuse him of being a right wing corporate shill - he's a small business owner with internet-wide technical reputation and pretty far-left political views.
I would use it based on that quote alone. But if she really wants to fuck with algorithms, she should make it scramble cookies by updating them with random info.
Who doesn't?
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Remind me again - does Slashdot have adverts? I've been getting that thing about "As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable advertising" for so long now, I can't really remember if it has advertising or not. (OK, yes, there's slashvertisement, but "meh" ; some of that can go hilariously wrong.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I went through most of the pages, they look terrible when stretching the comics to fit 1080p. It's even worse on retina display devices!
Clearly they should have had more ads to compensate for this.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
That's a fairly bizarre statement and I can't help venturing off-topic. I, for one, do not have an FB account — neither fake nor real — and fail to see, why would anyone "need" one... Care to elaborate?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
No, no, and no.
Shit, I still can't believe I have a chequing account.
Also, I never called shareholders evil, that was your freudian addition. Myself, I would have difficulty pinning moral agency on a such a cypher-like class of people.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!