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IAB Urges People To Stop "Mozilla From Hijacking the Internet"
hypnosec writes "In its latest attempt to stop Mozilla from going ahead with its proposed default blocking of third-party cookies in Firefox, the Interactive Advertising Bureau took out a full page ad urging users to stop 'Mozilla from hijacking the Internet.' Through the advert, IAB has claimed that the Firefox maker wants to be the 'judge and jury' when it comes to business models on the web. According to the IAB, Mozilla wants to eliminate the cookies which enable online advertisers to reach the right audience. IAB notes that 'If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.'"
They're just afraid of losing their revenue. Cowards.
If the advertisers are bitching that you are taking over the internet, you know you're doing it right. Keep up the good work Mozilla.
Oh, the poor ad industry. Who is going to stop them tracking on us, spying on us, and ramming unwanted crap down our throats with their gaudy, distracting banner ads?
Take your violins elsewhere. You won't find sympathy on the Internet.
Apparently what they mean by "Mozilla is hijacking the Internet" is "Mozilla is preventing *us* from hijacking the Internet".
and as such will act on what they believe will increase their market share. This basically means that they will do what the users want as often as possible, which on the internet includes not loading every cookie from every third-party on earth. It's not their fault that humans hate businesses.
I think the IAB went full retard with that one...
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
Fuck off.
A culling of all the aggregation sites that only exist to serve adverts is well over due. Perhaps search engines will become useful again, rather than wading through expertly placed placeholder pages for shit like Gawker, CNET, ask et al.
Interesting phrase "Right now consumers have control over whether they receive interest-based ads through the Digital Advertising Alliance’s self-regulatory program." Yep, and here's the consumers' response to how well your "self-regulatory" program works. It doesn't. Since the DAA isn't acting in a desirable manner, the consumers are doing this instead. If the advertisers were less obnoxious (and big brother-ish) then the consumers wouldn't resort to drastic measures. Also (as noted in the summary), Mozilla appears to be "default blocking" of third-party cookies. If the consumers found that the benefits of the more "relevant and diverse Internet experience" were worth it, they can still turn them on. Opt-in instead of Opt-Out. Oh, what, nobody would opt-in? Wonder why....
Fail to see a problem.
Frankly I'm tired of abusive advertising, and entities that disrespect rules and privacy is one of them.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Firefox is just an open source browser. If you don't like what they are doing, make a fork called Ad-Fox.
Here:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Developer_Guide/Source_Code/Mercurial
http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/08/12/2011245/new-attack-uses-attackers-own-ad-network-to-deliver-android-malware
There are too many stories of ads delivering malware or otherwise compromising someone's computer. If we can reduce the number of systems that are added to a C&C network, we'll all be that much better off.
Of course, for the tin foil hat folks, big brother is watching out for you. :)
[John]
Shit better not happen!
That they're actually trying to say that changing a default setting to a more secure option is taking control away from users or that a large portion of people who find out about this will believe them...
Netscape created this cookie mess, it's about time someoen took a stand against cookies and Mozilla is the perfect organization.
Get this advertisers: no one wants a personalized visit to pages on the web.
Ads went from text only, to static banners, to animated banners, to Flash-based banners, to multiple banners, to inline graphics, and now with HTML 5 they can even bypass a browser's setting not to show graphics or animations.
Most don't want personalized ads, in fact, most hate ads.
Mozilla's decision to have ad blocking on by default is the right choice. The only reason the IAB does not like this; people are lazy and often run software with whatever the defaults. There are many, many reports of ad servers coughing up ads linked to malware and said servers being compromised in other ways. The short of it is this; Mozilla has the balls to do the right thing by defaulting that attack vector to off and I salute them. The IAB really has nothing to worry about. There are still plenty of users out there that will install anything, run as root and a host of other insecure activities so their ads will still be seen. The IAB can make any claims they like but that does not mean if my grandma had wheels would she be a wagon.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Yeah! I, for one, like going to a site I've never been to and being served women's clothing ads because one time a year ago I clicked on an ideeli ad because it had a cute supermodel.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The IAB advertisement includes the text:
Send an email to StopMozilla@aboutads.info to tell Mozilla you don’t want them hijacking cookies on the Internet.
Provided they actually read any text in emails to that address, I don't see why you couldn't send email in support of Mozilla instead.
"If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience."
1) No, you dicks will just come up with some new way to spy on us, and we'll come up with a new workaround. So it goes.
2) I'll believe that targeted advertising delivers a 'relevant and diverse experience' the day the ads show me stuff I want to buy but haven't yet, instead of stuff I just fucking bought; as it stands, most "targeted ads" are essentially a redux of the contents of your last Amazon shopping cart.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
"I can not think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil."
- Arnold Toynbee
From being hijacked by advertisers.
IAB notes that 'If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.'
Well, someone will get less relevant, but I don't think it will be the consumers...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
For a moment I though IAB what the IAB...
My towns newspaper had a full page ad in it from an advertisment agency a while back. It had a picture of North Korea, the "country without advertisment". Basically what they claimed was that, without ads, we would become like them.
You know what there IAB, I don't want your fucking cookies. I don't want your web-bugs. I don't want your shit tailored to me. I don't even want your damned ads.
Let's be honest about this, you wish to gather information about me in order to fulfill your wishes to make money off me.
I'm not prepared to give you that information. I don't care about your business model -- I care about my privacy, and not having douchebags like the IAB know enough about me to do targeted advertising.
When I visit a website, I haven't signed an agreement with you saying I'll see your ads, and provide you with information to track me.
So websites like advertising.com and brightcove and eyereturn ... those are blocked at my firewall. You don't ask my consent to collect information about me, and I don't need your consent to deny it to you.
Stop acting like your'e entitled to this information, or that what you think is going to make you the most money isn't against our best interests.
Now, if Apple could only competently block 3rd party cookies in Safari, I'd have yet another browser I can use to keep these idiots away.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Google managed to develop and market Chrome, and get a lot of people interested in it. They make no money directly from Chrome. It exists entirely for the indirect benefit to their advertising revenue.
A consortium of internet advertisers must be able to produce a fair amount of cash. More than woul dbe needed for developing a piece of software (Mozilla seems to have an annual budget of about $2 million which is not a vast amount for a lot of companies). A lot of the technology is freely available and cna be used even in a closed source browser.
All they need to do is make it better than firefox and give people the choice. If one of the improvements is a "relevant and diverse Internet experience" then that's a marketing point. If people actually don't like thid party cookies, then they'll need to make a better browser to encourage pepel to accept the cost. I'm sure that's quite possible.
Why such a desperate move from the IAB? There are plenty of ways to track users that are just as or more effective, unless I misunderstand something. I don't see the problem.
Either the IAB is tone-deaf or I am; I can't imagine advertisers getting much sympathy from the public. Maybe the advertisers believe their own hype, that their tracking provides such a valuable service for users.
Their ad would be more effective if they simply provided instructions for enabling third-party cookies.
How about an add-on, with enhanced tracking for more personalized ads? It would be interesting to see how many people used it.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
End-users who don't like Mozilla's decision are free to use a different browser.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yeah, and spammers used to cry that spam filters were breaking the internet too. And infringing their "free speach [sic] rights." But honestly, what parasite welcomes its host's attempt to dislodge it?
Professional liars caught lying... news at 11.
I am from the industry and think the IAB's stand is poppycock. I firmly believe and have done ever since I learned a lot about targeting using cookies etc that the choice should be with the end users. It is totally unfair that the options exist currently, but only for the most savvy users. This current hullabalo shows that all the current initiatives such as the NAI http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ are all spin. Also, there already exists methods whereby companies store cookies for individuals on the cloud where the end user has no control. I think the online ad industry already 10+ years old has become like the MPAA or RIAA (always wondered: *why* does an organisation even exist that has the name records in it). The focus of the innovation has to be how to deliver targeted content WITH user consent. Not add more layers and tracking beacons and then selling it all to the NSA.
Look, I'm one of those people that doesn't mind relevant, unobtrusive advertising. Yea, my mind is trained to just ignore and not even register online advertising, but sometimes when I'm looking for something or researching new products, I go down the advertiser link holes.
But right now with the third party tracking, I get *worse* advertisements than I used to. It's ridiculous. Just yesterday I went to Levenger.com and bought some refills for a notebook. Literally, over 90% of the ads that I see now are Levenger or Levenger's competitor's ads. There doesn't need to be any Levenger advertising, I just bought from them! I can actually do a search for computer motherboards right now and ads for Levenger paper come up.
If I click a link and look at a simple product on Amazon, that product's ads track me and stay by my side no matter where I am until I look at some other item. Right now, online ads are waaaay too far on the tracking side; I hardly ever get contextual ads any more. It's all about getting me to buy whatever was the last page with a buy button on it that I navigated to, even if I already bought it! Talk about dumb.
So, yea, I think that the state of internet advertising might actually get better without these trackers. They might have to actually detect what I'm interested in and serve up relevant ads, rather than plastering every page with a freakin' ad for paper that I already bought. Kudos Mozilla. I might just switch back from Chrome...
It's good to see the slashdot effect working again at full steam.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
It's definitely a good sign. I'm still waiting for integration of AdBlock plus. Being in the top 10 installed plugins means that users want this feature.
I'm not even against ads but I don't like being tracked by ads servers getting my IP address, my browser fingerprint ( https://panopticlick.eff.org/ ), and the page I was reading (referrer).
RequestPolicy and NoScript are two more good plugins for controlling what info your browser gives to who.
But there's more hope of this sort of thing getting into a fork, such as GNU IceCat: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Most users of Firefox probably never notice or remember Mozilla in the name. Ironic considering how advertisers are supposed to be so savvy at targeting consumers.
Where's the full-page ad against Apple? Oh, right, better to not take on a billion-dollar behemoth and run ads against the nonprofit giving people more control over their Internet browsing experience.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If the feculent leeches in the Internet advertising/data mining industry (and/or social media industry, for that matter) object, this is a great indication that Mozilla is doing the right thing. On the backs of Google, DoubleClick, Facebook, and a host of other advertising and data mining organizations, the Web has become infected with a continually encroaching plague of bots, cookies, tracking, and other privacy obliteration techniques that become even more and more egregious as time continues. Hostile and persistent, pervasive and privacy-obliterating, advertising on the Internet has gotten out of hand. Monetizing "You" has become the primary target and is completely unfettered by privacy regulations in the US (though, the EU is at least a little better in this regard). The data mined and sold by these advertisers has become so all-encompassing and we've all see the ramifications thereof.
If blocking third party cookies is such a major blow to these advertisers, so much the better. Crying over lacking the ability to follow users with invisible 1-pixel trackers across their entire browsing experience is insulting. Users can and should always opt in to their information being stored elsewhere or allowed to be tracked - I'd be quite satisfied if Firefox's default turned off cookies all together. While I'd like to see more of the feature set of AdBlock Plus/Edge, Disconnect, HTTPS Everywhere, BetterPrivacy, and NoScript actually implemented natively in Firefox with sane defaults, this is a great first start. Mozilla has again proved that products like Firefox and Thunderbird are some of the only major, "Newbie to Guru Usable", cross-platform FOSS programs of their kind that are built with the user's experience as the primary goal, rather than to cater to some sort of data mining or advertising network. Sane defaults that place the choice to reveal information and do so in a way that ensures the user is fully informed of the options, is paramount. Anything that can be done to cut the lifeline of these disgusting, shameless, money-grubbing entities is a benefit, and so I applaud Mozilla and hope they are not dissuaded by this temper-tantrum thrown by these corrupt, petulant children.
The Mozilla foundation has yet to do anything that makes me suspect they have nefarious intentions. I cannot hardly begin to say the same about advertising or marketing people. Most or sleazier than that underside of a toilet seat. If Mozilla is causing problems for these people, stfu. I'm behind Mozilla 100%.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
I didn't see it.
(thats the joke)
One side of this is that (especially) Facebook and Google will gain more traction because of this, at the expense of other, smaller, ad-networks and national JIC's.
When marketers say "a less relevant and diverse Internet experience," it really means "you won't see annoying, tailored ads for shit you don't want or need."
I don't see your damned ads anyway. I use AdBlockPlus and I also block third-party cookies. But since there are less net-aware people out there who don't have the knowledge to mess around with addons or anything other than the default settings, I support Mozilla: Block the cookies from those asshat marketers and help out the less techie people who are on the net.
Q: What do you call 10,000 dead marketers at the bottom of the Marianas Trench?
A: A good beginning.
Not so long ago, when we heard a reference to "the IAB," what came to mind was the "Internet Architecture Board" (http://www.iab.org/). That was the place were Postel or Cerf contributed... Times have changed.
I use Adblock Plus and Noscript. Not because I have something in particular against advertising in general, but because I've personally seen more than enough abusive practices to put an end to it myself.
Ya know, like drive-by malware through ad networks.
Until the industry adopts some real standards and actively polices them, then you, IAB and everyone else, can fuck right off.
--
BMO
I'd forgotten to turn off third party cookies in my current browser. Thanks for reminding me that the option exists.
"If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience."
1) I'm not a "consumer". I'm a person.
2) Advertising in the U.S. has become more and more disgusting. Most ads include some dishonesty. A lot of advertising is extremely evil, such as trying to get people to eat expensive sugary food. In my opinion, you at the IAB represent one of the most destructive social forces in the United States. Most ads are attempts to get people to waste their money.
3) You don't know what experience I want. My internet interests cannot be predicted by knowing what I did in the past.
4) I don't buy things because of ads. I do research. I spend money carefully, not because I saw an ad written by someone who thinks he is smarter than me and can take advantage of some weakness in me.
5) You at the IAB obviously have NO technical knowledge. If the Mozilla browsers don't block "cookies" from being stored on my computers, I can block them other ways. And will! You have an opinion about something you don't understand.
6) A large part of what causes people to block advertising is moving pictures, which are distracting when someone is trying to read. If you want ads accepted, avoid making them intrusive and annoying.
Stopped using FIrefox more than 200 versions ago, been using Chrome for 400 versions. Still waiting for 1 good version of IE.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I'm still waiting for integration of AdBlock plus. Being in the top 10 installed plugins means that users want this feature.
No, just no. I don't want some unknown person at some 3rd party company deciding which web sites are blocked or not. I wouldn't mind seeing them add a generic URL/IP blacklist which you can maintain yourself, or choose to integrate with a blacklisting service like AdBlock.
I'm not even against ads but I don't like being tracked by ads servers getting my IP address, my browser fingerprint ( https://panopticlick.eff.org/ [eff.org] ), and the page I was reading (referrer).
AdBlock doesn't do any of those things, all it does is prevent your browser from sending requests to specific IP's which the Adblock people have decided are serving ads. You'll need a scriptblocker to prevent a lot of those things, and for some of them (such as your browser UID) you'll need an additional plugin which masks or falsifies your browser string and referrer information. To block IP the only way to be sure you're hiding it is to make use of some sort of an anonymous proxy service, use Tor, a VPN, etc. And there's always the chance that the people serving ads switch up their IP which will bypass AdBlock until the maintainers discover the change and update their blacklist. (Yes, I know you can mange the blacklist yourself, but if you're an advanced enough user to do that reliably you can be even more effective and block it via hosts file and/or blackhole it at your edge router)
equestPolicy and NoScript are two more good plugins for controlling what info your browser gives to who.
NoScript is an awesome plugin, especially from a security viewpoint, but there is still a lot of information a web site can relay to advertisers without using scripts. And NoScript can be intimidating and confusing for novice users, who are often unsure which sites to allow permanently, and which to deny permanently. So I don't know that it would be a good thing to include in the default install either.
What is the best current layer of blocking add-ons for Firefox?
I asked because you mention RequestPolicy, which I have never heard of and don't have the time to investigate right now.
I already run AdBlock, FlashBlock, Ghostery, and NoScript. And I like the results (the internet is fast again, and I don't mind giving sites permission to execute - my wife, not so much but that's why she has her own laptop - and a recent image...).
BlameBillCosby.com
People need to check out panopticlick. It's a tool created by the EFF to show you how non-anonymous you really are online. Based on other information your browser provides that ultimately uniquely identifies you when used in combination you could be tracked across the web still. Does the tiny image thing still work as a tracking cookie? There are other ways to track users is what I'm getting at. I'm not proposing a legal change though. If it's illegal [here] (wherever that may be) for ad networks to track they will just move off-shore.
https://panopticlick.eff.org/
Do you really think the annoying, flashing, pop-up, not relevant to your interests, ads are coming from the companies that are tracking you? Personally, I think the companies that are willing to throw that kind of garbage into our faces are not the ones that spend money to try and figure out what interests us.
A Call for Open Standards
IIRC, even Mozilla didn't agree when the IE team wanted to make DNT default to on.
One thing I would like is some granularity regarding DNT. There are definitely certain sites where I'm more than happy to submit to that kind of data.
It's funny how marketing departments/companies push for ever increasing ad revenue and then wonder why we want to get around them. You think they would have learned something from radio and TV.
My heart almost sank until I realized IAB != IAB
Good IAB: http://www.iab.org/
Bad IAB: http://www.iab.net/
"Right now consumers have control over whether they receive interest-based ads through the Digital Advertising Alliance’s self-regulatory program." ...and I rely on my dog's self-regulatory program to keep him from eating the bacon.
The problem is, is that all this stuff can still be tracked from the site the content is actually coming from. The reason we are so easily able to block ads and cookies from advertisers is because they come from third party sites. What happens when the cookies, scripts, and ads start being served by the content provider themselves. It wouldn't take a genius to develop a system where all the cookies were set by the first party site, and the required information communicated to the advertising network through original website itself. They could even make the ad content look different every time, making it harder to fingerprint what is an ad, and therefore making it difficult to block. You wouldn't get a unique ID because it wouldn't send back the cookies from other sites, but using browser finger printing you could get a pretty good chance of matching people across different sites. This is just a small step in the grand scheme of things, and it won't stop advertisers for long. The worst part about this is to do it well, the advertising networks will want their code running on the content providers servers, opening up a whole slew of new and fun security holes. Bu the content providers will do it anyway, because they want to actually make a few bucks back on their website.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The economic ecosystem extends far beyond that website on which you run ad-blocker and steal their content by breaking the social contract of using their bandwidth and consuming their content in exchange for seeing their ads.
Pssst - If your business model depends on annoying people - You don't get to claim the moral high-ground when people get annoyed. You simply vanish when they find a way to avoid you.
"Stop shooting me with that nerf gun!"
"But I get paid to do it - And you wouldn't want the toy stores, and the trucking companies, and Nerf itself, and and the plastic manufacturer, and the oil companies to go out of business would you???"
because fewer ads tracking my position is a BAD thing? honestly, id rather have a less diverse internet that is ad free.
...the terrorists win.
(coming soon)
Rothenberg said that that the company has “lost its values” as it took away users’ rights on controlling cookies and how they were used on their systems.
Obligatory car analogy:
It's like claiming a user has more control over his car when the automatic park button is on by default.
Although in this case it's more like claiming a user has more control over his car when it automatically brakes and turns on the beam headlights for five minutes whenever passing a billboard on the highway; these aren't cookies that serve the user, like an automatic parking system, these cookies serve to try and extract money out of the user as efficiently as possible.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
FWIW, the marketing term for the functionality this kills is "retargeting." The ability to stalk users with ads across multiple sites because of a previous visit or search days or weeks ago is huge business these days.
(Had to chime in because I don't think anyone's used the right term yet.)
On the contrary Firefox allows me to not see your adds which pollute pages and my browser cache taking up space.
If I want your product I will find your site and purchase it. If I'm not interested no matter how many screaming ads you throw at me I won't buy.
Mozillas motto, "Take Back The Web"!
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
What the IAB doesn't tell you is they want to exploit bandwidth at the recipients' expense. I paid for my ISP, I paid for my bandwidth, and I expect to be in control of how that bandwidth is used not some organization crying "hijacking" and "judge and jury". If I want to block ads because I hate them and they can potentially deliver malware and the IAB doesn't like it, then they can cry me a river.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
I was thinking the same thing, "tailoring" ads to "diversify" your experience sounds like an oxymoron to me.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
>> I don't buy things because of ads. I do research.
Marketers giggle when they read stuff like this.
They use sidebar ads to repeat brands and brand attributes, since repetition leads to better recall. Then they research what sites consumers like you use to research products, and seed those sites (including, yes, Wikipedia) with information, reviews and other content that will build up their products and steer you away from other products (often by rigging evaluation criteria or "what you should look for in...").
You say it doesn't work...but results demonstrate that it does.
NoScript is an awesome plugin, especially from a security viewpoint, but there is still a lot of information a web site can relay to advertisers without using scripts.
If you like NoScript - check out RequestPolicy - think of it as an inverse hosts file - instead of blocking individual trackers you whitelist sites instead. Not only that, but the whitelisting is on a per web-server basis, e.g. you can let ESPN's include stuff from doubleclick without letting any other sites include stuff from doubleclick.
It makes the interweb soo much faster and protects against fingerprinting because your browser never even connects to the fingerpinter much less hands over any identifying information.
To ensure that the IAB and its members properly respect individuals' privacy, I suggest that any members, employees, or affiliates of the IAB be required to publicly post their own data that is of the same kind they collect. This means their own political preferences, purchasing statistics, and location data, etc. should be available to the public, in real time. And, while I'm sure the IAB would be eager to comply with this simple request in a show of good faith, this requirement should carry the weight of law.
The ad will detect you using firefox, block the page with a full screen ad that says "Get Google Chrome to continue viewing this site" - Google (AKA the Internet Ad Company).
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
But these IAB folks sure think I do. I buy a specific amplifier? I get that-exact- same model on my ads. Buy a nice new guitar, same model pops up in my ads.
Id say I would get a more divers advertisment experience, without the tracking...
Oh, and it annoyed me to see non-useful ads, so I disabled -all- ads.
Ghostery is another good privacy addon. Blocks Facebook Like buttons and other bugs.
What?
No, just no. I don't want some unknown person at some 3rd party company deciding which web sites are blocked or not. I wouldn't mind seeing them add a generic URL/IP blacklist which you can maintain yourself, or choose to integrate with a blacklisting service like AdBlock.
Erm, AdBlock Plus (which was created to improve Adblock) allows you to subscribe to filter lists of your choice, or you can maintain your own local filter list.
The principle objection I have with ads is that they slow down loading the pages that I really want. A small cookie? No problem. I can selectively clean them up myself or blacklist/whitelist them.
Right now, the local cafe WiFi providers appear to be in some sort of pissing match with Google. It takes forever to load anything Google. Even their search page. Google analytics? Forget it. That site is hung. So the more tools a browser can provide me to stay out of the advertisers' poo flinging wars, the better.
Have gnu, will travel.
While what you describe is technically possible, it does have two significant drawbacks.
First, it imposes a hefty tech burden on the 'original' site to install the software. No longer is it just a little snippet. Now there will be some server side aspect to gather this data. This server side aspect will also need to be available for different platforms etc. This is massively more complicated to deploy than the current "here paste in this snippet".
Secondly, this imposes additional bandwidth requirements on the 'original' site. It will need to fetch updates to the ads it serves from the provider, it will need to serve those ads to each user, it will need to gather the user data and finally it will need to communicate (either in aggregate or real-time) user activity. This is all network traffic that in today's model bypasses the 'original' site entirely. Many sites which only make a little bit of money off of ads will not doubt lose money on them with this additional cost.
Once again, "Team America" applies to F-heads making demands on the rest of us. . .
. . . . and so. . . .
Mozilla is a bunch of dicks! They're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the Internet Advertising Board are pussies. And the Advertisers are assholes. Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes who just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate — and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves... because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know that if you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!
Team America: is there ANY situation it's not applicable for these days ???
First paragraph of the actual ad:
Finding stuff you’re interested in on the Internet is easy these days. That’s because advertisers can tailor ads to specic interests through the responsible and transparent use of cookies.
Oh, I think I can stop reading here.
Reality check: Who cares about companies hiding behind 3 letter names? AAF, ANA, DMA, IAB, NAI..... The internet was nicer before they came along.
"Finding stuff you're interested in on the Internet is easy these days. That's because advertisers can tailor ads to specific interests through the responsible and transparent use of cookies."
No, it isn't. This the lie you love to perpetuate. The reason my web browser plugins include an ad-blocker is that you have, time and time again, steadfastly proven that you're entirely incapable of grasping the terms 'responsible' and 'transparent.'
"But Mozilla wants to eliminate the same cookies that enable advertisers to reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time."
Let's say someone purchased a copy of Robert Towne's film Personal Best online. The next thing they know, they're drowning in ads for lesbian erotica. The niceties of lesbian erotica aside, perhaps our someone didn't buy the film for that reason, but it's telling that's the only aspect you trout-brained nincompoops regard, so it's the wrong audience and the wrong message. And as for the "right time," decades of abuse long before the Internet's advent have shown that you think it's in the time frame of dinnertime.
"Mozilla claims it's in the interest of privacy. Truth is, we believe it's about helping some business models gain a marketplace advantage and reducing competition."
As the song says, it's your misfortune and none of my own. What is this bizarre sense of entitlement that posesses you?
"Right now consumers have control over whether they receive interest-based ads through the Digital Advertising Alliance's self-regulatory program."
Oh, yeah. That "opt-out" you love to foist on us all. That's kind of like getting down on one's hands and knees asking the cockroaches skittering across the kitchen floor to please stop that.
"It appears that Mozilla wants to be 'judge and jury' for business models on the Net."
I can't speak for Mozilla, but I'd be willing to bet they could care even less than I do about your "business models."
"If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience."
A "relevant and diverse Internet experience" doesn't include pop-ups that obscure what I'm trying to read, or those full-window ads that shut out the entire web page, unless one happens to be a total freakin' idiot, a sociopath, or some combination of the two, which would explain why the lot of you think this crap is such a grand idea.
"Send an email to StopMozilla@aboutads.info to tell Mozilla you don't want them hijacking cookies on the Internet."
Is there an address I can use to tell you all to intercourse yourselves? Because it's all about choices, as you love to say, and that's the choice I want.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
If they're going to be putting up ads anyway, I would rather they track me. I'd much rather see an ad relating to something I viewed or purchased a few weeks ago rather than random ads. I'm more likely to click and less likely to be annoyed if you show me an ad for a plush companion cube instead of immigrant legal advice. I would love it if TV could track me and only show me ads I'm interested in. New sci-fi movie coming out? Great! New brand of feminine hygiene product? N/A.
That being said, there's no reason people shouldn't have a choice in the matter. If Mozilla didn't allow users to be tracked that would be a different issue.
You want AdBlock Edge instead of AdBlock Plus. That is, unless you want that "allow obnoxious ads" option -- but if you do, why would you install AdBlock in the first place?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The same gloom and doom story the Telemarketers gave us. Advertisers dont beleave in the word choice which Mozilla is going to give people now will the Advertisers do as the web user wants thats the real question or will they play god and ignore out wants?
Jack of all trades,master of none
I didn't say it wasn't more complicated. However, I think it's the only logical next step if a significant (perhaps 50%, I don't know) number of visitors to a site end up blocking ads. That or asking people to actually start paying for content. Most people won't be willing to go for the second option. I wonder though, if it could be made to work. It would have to be a very small amount of money. Maybe less than a dollar a month. But that's probably more than most content creators made off ads from a single person anyway.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Because obviously there are not other browsers out there and you can't turn the blocking features off... No, wait.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
> all this stuff can still be tracked from the site the content is actually coming from.
On a technical level, yes. But don't forget about the humans involved.
It would give the websites knowledge and control over what they're sending on to the data gatherers. When it's all via third-party servers, the website owners can turn a blind eye and say "I'm just adding a link", but if they had to receive a list of data to pass on and had to take an active role, they might think twice and at least limit the data or anonymise it first. And they could publish info about what data gets collected so the public would be aware.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Maybe we'd like to browse a website without feeling like the advertisers know more about us than our own family does.
I wouldn't trust proprietary software to look after privacy.
You can see the javascript files, so at least there's transperancy, but since it's not free software, there's no community. Nobody's looking a the code and if there was a problem, no one could fork it and distribute a problem-free version.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
All this sturm und drang over it changing from opt-out to opt-in. Hmm ....
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
I gotcher cookie right here.
The logical reasons behind this statement have been laid out very well already by others. I just thought a little outraged cynicism with respect to these lying, user-abusing creeps was in order.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
"consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience"
Oh yeah, it's so much worse of an internet experience when I finally get a big scoop full of get your damn stalker ads out my face served up on a silver platter. Poor me. How will I ever survive looking at lolcats without a flashing banner showing all the crap I just searched for on Tiger Direct?
They will simply need to use browser fingerprinting via web bugs. In combination with flash cookies, stored content and java cookies. It will just get a little more technically complicated. But not much.
I don't even know why he makes such a big fuss. When the task gets more complicated, web advertising companies will have to use more technical expertise making the market harder to penetrate. Which benefits existing companies. So his customers are safer from new competition.
Blocking third-party cookies, which I've done for years, isn't enough. You also need something like Abine's DoNotTrackMe, which blocks most of the known tracking sites. And you may have to go to the Flash preferences page and turn off some things there.
The BlockSite add-on for Firefox might seem useful, but it's spyware - it reports all your browsing activity to a site in the Czech Republic ("api.wips.com") If you don't "opt in", it won't let you visit major sites like Hotmail. That's acceptable to Mozilla's "Developer Relations Lead". Mozilla isn't as tough on privacy as their PR people say they are.
PS. Fuck advertising companies.
I am typing before thinking this out, so please take it for what it is, but perhaps the solution is for an RFC to be created for a 'standard' advertisement tag. If Google and Mozilla could agree on it, advertising could be made much less intrusive. The browsers could get real aggressive on things like third party cookies and at the same time, they could make the path of least resistance to be a more discreet advertisement.
When the Internet was first starting out, there was a lot of concern about the sheer amount of advertising which would be poured into it. Recall the backlash against the Green Card Lawyers?
If anything, it's the advertising industry that has hijacked the internet. Firefox is just taking one small step in taking it back.
It is too late for Mozilla to hijack the Internet. NSA beat them too it.
Also, how do you know who or what to research?
Aggressive advertisement is the tragedy of the commons in action, and few people see it.
This is not a zero-sum game. You are paying for this, with your attention and mind. Yeah, we have become great at filtering out all the crap they throw at us, both with technology (on the Internet) and with our mind (for billboards, etc.) - but both comes at a price. A price that we pay, not the advertisers.
These parasites are grazing their cattle on our common space. Our bandwidth, our public spaces, our visual field.
And they don't know their place. They should be thankful we let them, they should wonder every morning why we don't make them pay for wasting our resources. Not the building they nail their billboard to, or the site they mess up with pop-up-under-obnoxious crap, but us, the owners of the public resources they contaminate.
Instead, they whine and cry and demand more.
They are like really badly behaved children, and need to be treated that way.
If someone doesn't understand the value of what he's been given for free, the best way to teach him is to take it away. Sao Paolo needs to become an example for cities world-wide.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I'm still waiting for integration of AdBlock plus.
You shouldn't. ABP has been sold and the new owners are... an advertisement agency. There are a couple good articles out there, go Google it. Their business model these days is to approach ad companies and basically take protection money from them - for putting them on the internal whitelist. Also, they boost their own business because, of course, the ads of companies in their own network are not blocked.
That's what was really behind all the "acceptable advertisement whitelist" that made the headlines a while ago. It's not about acceptable, it's about having an excuse - any excuse - for allowing some ads through. Your own and those of people who paid you to let them through.
tl;dr: ABP has turned evil. Switch to one of the forks.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The point made by the qualifier "when I actively log in." If someone wants an internet that is being manipulated by third parties, they can always uniquely identify themselves (by logging in, turning on cookies, etc.).
I don't want my experience shaped by the assumptions of marketers. I want the internet to be a reference. I want ads that are context based, not audience based.
Imagine if you walked in to a movie advertised as an action flick, and the PatronScan3000 determined that because the audience was 75% female, a romantic comedy would go over better. That's BS. But it is exactly what the internet is becoming, with the content that you are shown constantly being manipulated by the "analysis" of your preferences -- analysis that I assure you is quite crude.
Or better yet, imagine if online dictionaries started hiding alternate definitions based on what they know about your habits and interests, you know, to provide you with a more "streamlined" experience.
All this tracking and spying is supposed to be about is learning what we're interested in, etc. Right?
What about creating a new standard that would allow US to tell THEM what we're interested into? Instead of guessing and tracking everything, they would have direct information from the user itself. They shouldn't complain about that idea and give us our full support.
I say that blocking 3rd-party cookies is only the first step. Block 3rd-party javascript, too. Maybe that will teach idiots to stop using bloated libraries to do simple things that only requires ten lines of javascript.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
No, it's fear of having a stupid opinion, hence the AC tag.
It is not just about the fact that I have to see ads. It is the fact that the ads spin my CPU, use popups/CSS/Flash/etc. to prevent me from actually reading the text I wanted to read, act as web bugs, and so forth. I do not care about pixels, but I do care about battery life, personal privacy, and being able to read the promised page.
If websites are worried that they will go broke without ads, they should stand up for their users and demand that advertisers stop pissing us off. Otherwise we will eventually just block ads by default.
Palm trees and 8
Hey, wait a minute....this may be a revolutionary Global Warming/Climate Change solution.
Not only would we be sequestering carbon, but eliminating CO2 emissions from them breathing. ;-)
All we need to do to make this work is remove the 10,000 marketer cap, and add lawyers and politicians to the list for a good start.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I agree with everything most of what you said, but not this. For a large number of people, their interests can precisely be predicted by knowing what they did in the past. That's exactly what makes third-party cookies so invasive and anti-privacy
But many users cannot, will not, or won't even know what a third-party cookie is or why they should care. That is why Mozilla's actions are a good thing. Third-party cookies should be something that is only enabled with the user fully understanding what they are agreeing to.
If advertisers started insisting that all TV's had an option that recorded everything the user watched, and insisted that this option be turned on by default, and not have any standard consistent way to turn it off, all so that TV advertising could be more "relevant and diverse", they would get laughed out of the room.
This is the same thing.
All that will start happening is companies will offer libraries that run on the server so they can deliver ad content/scripts from the same domain and business will be same as it ever was.
This is going to solve almost nothing.
You are probably right, but I've always wondered....
Studies regarding the efficacy of advertising are typically (not surprisingly) conducted or funded by advertisers. And they are really good at convincing people that they product they are trying to sell does what they say it does. Maybe they've just convinced big companies that advertising pays....
The popularity of Kickstarter, and of many recent indie games seems to indicate that word of mouth does a good job as well, as long as you have a good product.
What if the effectiveness of advertising is nothing more than good advertising.
Thank you Mozilla....
Beware the wood elf!!!
I work on a web based application/service that allows small to medium size companies in our industry to offer the same sort of experience for their customers that a much larger company would offer. As part of this system, we offer the ability for our clients to incorporate third party applications into our product using various single sign on methodologies.
Unfortunately, many of these scenarios require third party cookies to be allowed in order to maintain two different sessions in two different applications (from different sources). We already struggle with this in the browsers that already have 3rd party cookies disallowed by default. If Firefox goes through with this, we anticipate huge numbers of unhappy end users whose experience will be very negative until we are able to educate them on how to allow 3rd party cookies.
I hate ad spam as much as anybody, and use all the blockers and no-[whatever] add-ons, and ghostery, and, and and myself. But I'd sure like a solution that doesn't involve breaking perfectly benign features as well.
WALSTIB!
how much X-10 equipment have you bought in the last decade?
yeah, even you probably long forgot about those jackasses.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If you want to keep tabs on a user. Ask them first.
Stop walking up to people on the street and putting sticky notes on their backs when they're not looking.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Or "Tell sites That I do not want to be tracked" (Firefox). I know they were trying to make it voluntary, this says it will be a cold day in hell.
The most recent financial statment I could find for mozilla is the 2011 one. In it is this gem.
"Mozilla entered into a contract with a search engine provider for royalties which expires
November 2014. The previous contract term expired in November 2011. Approximately
85% and 84% of royalty revenue for 2011 and 2010, respectively, was derived from this
contract."
Now the default search engine provider in mozilla browsers is google (there was talk of changing it but this proved very unpopular). So this most likely means that most of mozilla revenue is coming from people using google through the browser search box. Google can pay mozilla for those searches because google gets advertising revenue from them.
So while mozilla may try a few things to reign in the most abusive advertiser practices I doubt they would do anything that seriously threatens the industry.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Hi. I'm from a country that isn't America and the great proportion of these ads are from companies that don't exist in my country.
You bet I do research instead of looking at the ads. You say it works. Global economics demonstrates that it doesn't.
Rule #1 is: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB!
Four Words, APK:
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
--
BMO
As far as ads are concerned, maybe. Personally, I believe *any* ad is irrelevant - it's not what I came here to see. Therefore, anything that lowers the selling value of ads makes my internet experience more, not less, relevant.
...a browser so ad-averse, the IAB is panicking? I MUST HAVE THIS BROWSER!
-Every internet user ever
Every trollism an AC posts is prefixed, in my mind, with "A. Coward whined, in a weak and cowardly voice:"
>So, go on: Make me "STFU", since I certainly have essemtially shut "you & yours" up, lmao, easily!
Ok, so you asked for it:
If I maintain a custom Hosts file all by my lonesome, I do all the heavy lifting myself. Before Adblock, I had been using "ad blocking hosts files" for years that were maintained by "someone else" after maintaining my own manual Hosts file,
The difference that I get with Adblock Plus is that it updates automagically for me and I don't have to schedule cron jobs to fetch new lists or manually edit /etc/hosts. And then I can still add stuff manually should I need to, but that is exceedingly rare.
You may have nothing better to do than edit /etc/hosts with TECO, but I have other things to do. I suspect that the vast majority of people also have this POV.
Now shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.
--
BMO
>hosts file application
That's fine. You still have a problem:
If you had linked to this far earlier in your rants against Adblock Plus and done a less offensively-formatted and /calm/ justification of why your application is better, I'd probably have already downloaded it by now.
But every time I bring up Adblock Plus, you go on this tirade about how hosts files are better never once mentioning(AFAICT) that you've written automation for this. Maybe you did mention it, but it was buried in excessive formatting and voluminous posts.
Take what I said above seriously, and people will respect you more.
I'm going to download your application and try it.
*looks again*
Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003/VISTA/Windows 7/Server 2008 (possibly beyond):
What, no Gahnoo Linux?
>written in Borland Delphi
That takes me back a few years.
The next time I'm on a Windows box, I'll try it.
--
BMO
And I completely failed at closing my italics tags. :-P
--
BMO
>The next time I'm on a Windows box, I'll try it.
Correction, I'm going to see what this does in Wine.
--
BMO
Update:
>Wine
Nope.
--
BMO
What's the SITES.txt file for?
Your personal whitelist?
Because looking at the contents, I can't tell what the common thread is.
Thanks in advance.
(it's running, on 7).
--
BMO
I keep running into this:
http://i.imgur.com/toJen6I.png
Hrmf.
Architecture: Intel Atom
OS: Win7 with updates
RAM: 4GB
Don't know why.
--
BMO
I strive for COMPLETE accurate information
Sometimes completeness gets in the way of clarity.
The Bard said it best.
From Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1602:
LORD POLONIUS
This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
--
BMO
Nevermind. It's called being patient.
--
BMO
Some things I left out because I'm short on time.
>I don't like being told "STFU"
That's because I took your first reply to me as excessively rude. Sorry.
It almost hurts (for me) to read your posts, quite honestly. The formatting along with the excessive length came off as abrasive. I really try not to do that with other people. I know you love html tags, but your README in your Hosts program was better formatted than any of your posts. Really.
Someone I knew once said "if you can't say it without plain ascii, you shouldn't say it" - much like Jonathan Schwartz's view on Powerpoint (if you can't say it with pen on acetate, it wasn't worth saying).
>Hairyfeet
I have HF foed because sometimes I can't bear to read his posts because I don't know where to even start when he gets all conspiratorial, and he's been incredibly hostile to me in the past. I just simply couldn't handle any of his replies anymore.
>"& beat you with experience", that is, UNTIL the meet me
Those who anger you control you. - A good friend of mine, and she's right.
>very, Very, VERY similar to Delphi)!
Well, that's to be expected because Delphi is based on Pascal. It's been so long since I've had Borland Turbo Pascal here.
Anyway, off to the downtown Boston I go.
--
BMO
I do not fear that at all. I revel in it.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Team America: is there ANY situation it's not applicable for these days ???
Humour?
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.
>How's my 1st post to you rude?
Because much like all caps, abusing bold is like shouting.
I just got back. I was meaning to go to Boston Medical Center and didn't quite make it. I wound up going to Mass General. And not for a good thing.
>You'll understand him/myself here-> "Fight the GOOD fight, every moment"
Life is enough of a struggle without making it one.
--
BMO
Then that's perfectly OK then.
Don't worry, advertisers, I'll continue to use the internet. And all of your advertising is still going to have to penetrate past my built-in filter telling me that "anyone attempting to sell anything to anyone is a thief and a liar." Enjoy, you thieving scumbags.
I'm sure there is, valid, useful advertising out there. But it is thin and far between.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"