Slashdot Mirror
When Opting Out of Ad Tracking Doesn't Opt You Out
jfruh writes "Privacy blogger Dan Tynan couldn't help but notice the ads targeting his web browsing for a plus-sized women's clothing store, not least because he's neither a woman nor plus-sized. But trying to figure out why those ads kept popping up in his browser led to some disturbing discoveries. He had opted out of targeted Google ads, and at first glance the ads seemed to come from Google — but digging deeper, he found that Google's DoubleClick was only the intermediary, which meant his opt-out didn't apply. And his opt-outs from other ad services seemed to have vanished."
I have difficulty seeing the author as a professional when he uses words like "porcine" to describe an overweight woman. Is that really necessary in a professional publication?
Opt-outs are a scam. They have been since the late 90s. Opting out just tells spammers that they hit a real e-mail address, and thus its value goes up. It also tells them one other important piece of information: You're willing to click on links that send you to random websites.
Anyone who tries to 'opt out' is an idiot, and anyone who suggests them as a solution to spam and advertising should be dragged into the street and stoned to death. There is only one solution: Get rid of all of it. The end. Stop your monetization of the web 2.0 synergizing cluster fuck of the internet... it survived just fine before you vultures descended on it. It will survive your demise as well.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
And solve the problem.
I don't understand why the person writing this article would choose to jump through the advertiser's hoops to deal with this problem. Install Adblock and Ghostery or something similar and forget about it.
I don't respond to AC's.
I've seen beta.slashdot.org and was horrified. Once the "old" slashdot goes away, so will this nearly two-decade user.
Seriously, there are STILL people out there using browsers without ad blockers?! Are they also still using IE 6?
Hint: If you are using Windows 95 or NT 3.51 then SeaMonkey 1.1.19 and Adblock 0.5 or Adblock Plus 1.0.2 do a great job.
There is just no excuse.
No , really ? I am not surprised. The ad industry torpedoed every instance of normal regulation and do not track, they are handling self regulation like robber barron, laughing all the way. There is only one option : the nuclear option, and it is adblocking. All of it. And if a web site does not want to show me anything because I block ads , well I can most probably live without that web site.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
It is a serious problem to me. My point is that, in any capitalist society, you can expect advertisements to be present, and they will be as sleazy and manipulative as companies can get away with.
It's only evil when you get caught.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
All this, and the big question still goes unanswered: Why is he getting targetted for plus-sized women's clothing? I mean, the behaviorial information causing him to be an ideal candidate for purchasing plus-sized women's clothing is coming from somewhere, no?
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
So far in this discussion, hat we're seeking, I think, isn't the wholesale replacement of capitalism, but finding a way to limit one of the more socially damaging behaviors it encourages.
It's possible to find free-market capitalism based on imperfect ideas, believe it to contain flaws, and still not find any of the alternatives inherently superior.
I'm not sure you understand that your argument fundamentally ignores that the advertisers' attempts to circumvent people's wishes to not be tracked is fundamentally no less valid (and certainly on a morally higher ground) than their desire to target people for advertising.
Let's use an analogy. If the Jehovah's Witnesses followed everyone around and amassed records about everything we were doing to decide which doors to knock on, that would be equivalent to what we're seeing with today's targeted adverts.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Ad tracking a little flawed because it seems to be based on the idea you might want to purchase some that you type in a search bar. Going by my own search history 5%, maybe less, of my searches has anything to do with trying to buy something. Most of the time I'm just farting around doing what amounts mindless channel surfing. I imaging most people are generally the same, spending a small about of time researching products, and most of the time looking for everything else.
How is trying to control the information people receive about your product anything but a logical and necessary outcome of capitalism?
Capitalism relies on people trying to make the best decision for themselves they can, based on what information they have.
The validity of that hypothesis rests on several assumptions:
That people are not coerced.
That people act under rational self interest.
That the competitive market itself will facilitate consumers getting the information they need to make decisions.
Advertising has achieved a level of sophistication that this is no longer entirely true. The information available is not reliable, and I cannot make informed buying decisions.
All that's left working in the customers favor is direct word of mouth, reputation systems (wherein I might trust a particular reviewer who has steered me well in the past), and government regulation (truth in advertising, labelling laws, etc... which some beleive are anti-capitalist, and everyone knows are largely co-opted and corrupted or just outright violated by the regulated industries).
Compared what the industries are prepared to expend "controlling" information; with what I have at my disposal to research something? I am at such a substantial disadvantage that I am frequently operating against my own self interest. And I'm in the minority just being truly aware of it.
For example, if I want to buy an X and I don't know much about X, and its not something my friends or family use then I'm pretty much helpless.
Word of mouth doesn't work if I don't know people I trust with an X.
I can't rely on a reviewer of X if I don't have any experience with that reviewer (and I know that many reviewers are shills, or just plain idiots)
I can't rely on review sites and such, I know in many cases the reviews are paid, the 'likes' and 'followers' and '+1' are corrupt or paid for, and full of idiots. And in the worst cases, the entire review site is 'fake' and hosted by the vendor.
I've learned to try and filter out what i need from newegg and amazon.com and other review sites -- but its cat and mouse, and the advertisers get cleverer, and my resources to combat them are not increasing proportionally. And for some products... I don't really know where to even start, and again I like to think I'm 'above average' at this 'game'.
It's sick really.
Why would anyone think it was a good idea to turn a good looking, well working site, into something that looks like a blogspot blog?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
And this is why I figuratively (and literally) flip off any ass hat who comes in bitching about adblockers whenever they come up.
Malware, black-hats, etc.. are actively hostile to us, our privacy, and our systems' security, and we take steps to mitigate the threat they pose.
Advertisers have proven, time and again, that they belong in the same category, and do so overtly (they don't even try to pretend otherwise). IMNSHO, to not mitigate them borders on negligence.
Don't trust marketers to honor the "do not track", they never will. The solution is simple: Install AdBlock, Ghostery, Disconnect.me AND PeerBlock. Death to online tracking.
You mean like requiring restaurants to provide calorie and other nutritional information for their menus? And warning labels on products, warning against idiots using them in idiotic ways? And any other sort of regulation that actually doesn't do anything other than make people feel good about protecting the idiots out there that don't actually (or can't actually) read the various things that are now regulated?
We are now at a point where there are so many regulations, that many times they are contradictory or duplicated or otherwise have become meaningless noise that people filter out anyway. AND removing these over regulations is impossible, so instead of solving any problems we are just building more of them into the system.
Too many times people say "There ought to be a law" and not enough people saying "why?"
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I did something like this a couple years ago. I "married" an obviously fake girl I created on Facebook. My ads internet wide quickly switched from "singles" ads to mortgages and retirement ads (with a smattering of child education savings thrown in). A couple months later I "divorced". That brought on the lawyer ads, and a fresh onslaught of singles.
I've been Facebook free for a while now, but the screen captures I grabbed and posted while doing this provided a lot of amusement for my friends.
"You can't win. You can't break even. You can't quit." -A. Ginsberg
What is covered is that they're making the best decision for themselves
What does that even mean semantically, if the utility buyers assign to things is projected onto them by the suppliers?
Lets imagine ants. As a colony they gather the closest richest food source they can find.
Suppose a supplier puts out some food. The ants discover it and start harvesting it.
Then a competitor 'opens shop'; he's a bit closer, and his foods a bit richer. The ants discover it, and gradually they shift to the new source of food.
That's "capitalism" in the sense that the ants are collectively making the best decision for themselves. They've preferred the new source because its better utility. They harvest more energy and spend less energy doing it.
So far so good.
Then the first supplier wants to get the ants back. He could move even closer, or make his food even richer. He could clear route to his cache of predators... he could do any number of things to compete, to become the ants 'preferred choice'.
But he doesn't. He just goes and paints a strong pheromone trail to his cache. This literally overrides the ants decision making process, and they follow the new strong trail.
Are they making the best decision for themselves?
That's what sophisticated advertising is... it literally short circuits and reprograms our decision making processes to change how we value something.
Its a continuum of course... every external stimulus impacts us in some way, and I'm not suggesting we must block everything that influences us, so don't throw that straw man up.
But modern adverting is reaching levels of sophistication that are a whole different ballgame from more mundane examples of things that influence us.