Epic context menu
-
@blakeyrat said:
Except it still doesn't work when you double-click the divider in the column header, so it's still fucking wrong.
Yeah, that's pretty shitty.
-
@morbiuswilters said:
Adblocker: Unethical.
A necessary part of security, unless you don't like sites you trust installing viruses on you because some Chinese hackers paid a seedy company to put a 0-day browser exploit in the ad space they bought from Yellow Line Banner who bought ad space from Adtech US who bought it from RMX Ads who bought it from Google. Mozilla doesn't release statistics on how many total Firefox uses there are, but 15 million of them are using AdBlock Plus.
@morbiuswilters said:
YouTube downloading: Why bloat my browser with a feature 99% of people will never use? Besides, everything on YouTube is shit, so you don't need to be downloading it. And finally, are you forgetting that Google owns YouTube? Why would they provide an extension that does something they expressly try to prevent?
Because the #2 and #5 Firefox extensions are YouTube downloaders. All my features come from here, and one would argue it's better then the awesome bar.
@morbiuswilters said:
debugging: Useless for 99.99% of users. Why bloat the browser with this?
We have two choices, either have a debugger but don't provide a UI for it so that extensions can plug into it, or have the debugger and provide a UI for it. Besides, browsers have had JS consoles forever and even IE5 has JavaScript error reporting of some sort.
@morbiuswilters said:
userscripts: See above, except add a few 9s on the end.
Userscripts are just another extension mechanism. By that logic, why bloat the browser with addons at all?
@morbiuswilters said:
mass downloads, and third-party content blocking all stock: I don't even know what you mean by these, but I've lived this long without them, I'm sure I don't need them (nor do most users.)
Mass downloads: Look at DownThemAll! (7th most popular FX extension) or FlashGot (9th most popular). One feature of them is downloading every image on a webpage at once, not to mention that features they add include a better download manager (something that has to be in the browser anyways) and the ability to call external download managers (People wrote fucking IE plugins for this. It's a feature people want.).
Third-party content blocking: Another useful safety/privacy tool, used for taking out shit like Facebook like buttons when you don't even use Facebook. It would block scripts/iframes from other hosts then the site it's on until you click to activate them (they can be whitelisted). It's about one of the only features of Noscript that's left that doesn't break the web. Yet.
Besides, it looks like my hypothetical browser isn't targeting you, but targetting people like Lorne Kates and El_Heffe who are dependent on all their Firefox extensions by baking them into the browser instead of sticking up a giant middle finger to their developers.
-
@MiffTheFox said:
A necessary part of security, unless you don't like sites you trust installing viruses on you...
I don't buy it. Sure, rarely a virus has propagated through an ad network. There are several other vectors that put you at higher risk. People just block ads because they are dicks; security has nothing to do with it.
@MiffTheFox said:
Because the #2 and #5 Firefox extensions are YouTube downloaders. All my features come from here, and one would argue it's better then the awesome bar.
Pfft, so? Let's add back in a mail client while we're at it. I don't see a reason to bloat the browser unnecessarily. Oh, and everything's better than the Awesome Bar.
@MiffTheFox said:
We have two choices, either have a debugger but don't provide a UI for it so that extensions can plug into it, or have the debugger and provide a UI for it. Besides, browsers have had JS consoles forever and even IE5 has JavaScript error reporting of some sort.
Right, but it's all about how heavyweight it is. I'm not opposed to having hooks for a debugger. Hell, Chrome has a full debugger in the stock install and I'm okay with it because it runs so snappy. But FF gets painfully slow when you start adding stuff to it, so I can't really approve of adding any unnecessary feature.
@MiffTheFox said:
Userscripts are just another extension mechanism. By that logic, why bloat the browser with addons at all?
Depends on the userscripts, but I'm sure it's adding some bloat. And add-ons are actually useful to a non-trivial number of people. Plus, add-ons give the you way you can have userscripts.
@MiffTheFox said:
One feature of them is downloading every image on a webpage at once...
Porn.
@MiffTheFox said:
...not to mention that features they add include a better download manager (something that has to be in the browser anyways) and the ability to call external download managers (People wrote fucking IE plugins for this. It's a feature people want.).
I haven't needed a better download manager since 2001 when I stopped using dial-up.
@MiffTheFox said:
Besides, it looks like my hypothetical browser isn't targeting you...
Fine, I'll build my own browser, with blackjack and hookers!
-
Miff already addressed most of this, but I'll pile it on because fuck Thursdays:
@morbiuswilters said:
Adblocker: Unethical.
Aside from the usual arguments (security, my browser, no such thing as a social contract, fuck you), rename that to be "Element Hider". As in DOM Element Hider. As in tell any part of a webpage that you don't like to fuck off. Let's say you're on Facebook, and you're sick of seeing the "You might be friends with..." panel. FUCK OFF! Or how about you're on Some Shopping Site, and you don't really need a floating div that takes up half the screen with a user control panel you never use. FUCK OFF! Maybe you're trying to read your newspaper, and the top 50% of the screen is taken up by their masthead. GO TO HELL AND DIE!
Even if you never block an ad in your life, it gives you complete and total control over what you see and experience on a webpage. And isn't that what ever single goddamn website has been pushing for the past 15 years. "Customized experiences". Hell, Ebay just changed their homepage to be a "customized experience" LAST FUCKING WEEK-- pick all the shit you want to show/hide. (Okay, I admit that's all marketspeak for 'Pick from a pre-determined list of elements we've approved and use those selections to provide us with tracking and analytics metrics so we can better rape your eyeballs with ads", but the point remains).
@morbiuswilters said:
YouTube downloading: Why bloat my browser with a feature 99% of people will never use? Besides, everything on YouTube is shit, so you don't need to be downloading it. And finally, are you forgetting that Google owns YouTube? Why would they provide an extension that does something they expressly try to prevent?
Again, rename it to "Flash Video Downloading". As in I want a very easy way to redirect a video from the screen to a file. Like Print To PDF, but for videos.
1) First, every single Flash player every invented is shit. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. You can't easily skip back and forth. They all freeze or stutter or have out of sync audio. Most of them on shitty TV affiliate sites won't let you pause or cache. Some won't let you resize or fullscreen. I'd must rather save to an MP4 and watch with the video player of my choice for anything beyond a 10 second cat clip.
2) Every single non-PC flash player sucks, and every single non-PC web browser sucks. Have you ever tried to watch a Youtube video on a PS3? How easily can you watch a Youtube video on your xPhone?
3) Offline viewing. Let's say you want to watch the Feynman Lectures on the treadmill at the gym. Is there wifi at the gym? Do you have a dataplan, and even if so, do you want to use up gigs of bandwidth when your home computer is RIGHT THERE?
4) Other device viewing. I've got a large TV with a nice sound system hooked up to it, and a PS3 hooked up to that. Let's say some folks are over and want to watch a funny 78 minute review of Star Wars. Do we all gather around my shitty 15" laptop with tin speakers and horrible viewing angles-- or do I download it, throw it on the media server, and we actually enjoy it?
5) Analytics and metrics. If flash players and browsers supported this out of the box, then websites could have been collecting metrics on downloaders. Instead, millions of people use 3rd party utilities to get the videos for them which either hack out the video download link at best, or use some developer API at worst. And thus the website owners lose.
6) User security. There are tons of people who want this feature. You can google for "How can I..." and see just how many non-technical people are asking for it. Since it isn't built-in, they're often told to find a 3rd party utility to do it. Guess how many of them are malignant, ranging from scummy 3rd party websites with ads, or trojan scripts. There was a Greasemonkey script I saw that was the 2nd result for a Blip.tv downloader. It was basically "Run on all websites. On load: iterate through each cookie, grab the value, and send to hahahahahahaha.cn/fuckyou.php"
7) Why not? Seriously. What's one good reason why this SHOULDN'T exist? Every other media type you can right click and Save As...
@morbiuswilters said:
debugging: Useless for 99.99% of users. Why bloat the browser with this?
I agree with this, mostly. Obviously as developers, we want this. Hopefully, since the people making the browsers are also developers, they should have tools to do this. If Mozilla had include a robust set of webdev tools right from day 1, then there'd be no need for Firebug. It would have already existed. Hell, even Microsoft offered a webdev tool as an optional download from Version 7, and included it (but inactive and inert) from Version 8.
@morbiuswilters said:
userscripts: See above, except add a few 9s on the end.
Again, I think you're the outsider on this. Userscripts are immensely powerful, useful and fairly widely adopted. You can thank Facebook for that, and their constant fucking around with the UI. There are a ton of userscripts out there dedicated to unfucking Facebook. Again, search for "How do I..." and you'll find lots of non-technical users have the desire to modify the web to suite their needs. Why put another roadblock in front of them (install Greasemonkey first). Hell, some of them are even technical enough to figure out the little bit of Javascript needed to write their own.
@morbiuswilters said:
mass downloads, and third-party content blocking all stock: I don't even know what you mean by these, but I've lived this long without them, I'm sure I don't need them (nor do most users.)
Mass downloader: Open a page with lots of images. Right click. "Save all images". Mostly when Grandma wants to rip your entire photoalbum and put it on her iPad, or digital photo frame. Or you go to a page with "Here is our interview with Stodgy Silverspoon, in eight parts. Part 1.mp3 Part 2.mp3", etc. Right click, Save All...
3rd-party content blocking: See Ghostery. Blocks 3rd party cookies, trackers, scripts, etc. For privacy and security. Do you really need Shady Marketer following you across every site you visit. Do you really want to run http://wjlksid.cn/cookieTheif.js that some Chinese hacker sql-injected into your otherwise trusted website?
-
@Lorne Kates said:
Do you really need Shady Marketer following you across every site you visit.
Why not?
I'm asking seriously. I want a scenario, rooted in reality, that explains how an ad server tracking your behavior harms you either physically or financially. (I can tell you how it benefits you financially, but let's ignore the positives for a moment.)
I've asked hundreds of people this over the years, and NOT ONCE have I gotten an answer that wasn't ridiculous paranoia, extraordinarily contrived, or given as a vague emotional unease.
So explain it to me. Because I don't see the harm.
-
The flash video downloader would be complicated, since there is no standard way to get the video files, and many flash players actually have some intentional protection against those things.. Userscripts can be very useful, though there is no real difference between an extension and an userscript so you might as well call them extensions too.
Element hiding is one thing I use a lot. I use a "kill button" thing for Opera that lets you click to remove any element (it's javascript-based so it might work on other browsers). Mass content downloads are useful too (and yes, Opera also has this and content blocking built-in).
-
@blakeyrat said:
So explain it to me. Because I don't see the harm.
1) Because I don't want it to, and that reason is good enough
2) I don't know and cannot agree with any TOS, terms of usage, data privacy retention agreements, or any other legal agreement that "using" the 3rd party may bind me to.
3) I don't know and cannot control how that information is used. What exactly is being collected? How long is it retained for? Who is it shared with. I can agree to a TOS on a 1st party website, and have a party to hold responsible for the loss or misuse of any information. Not so with a 3rd party
3a) To make things worse, in most cases, it isn't even a 3rd party. It's a 3rd party tracker sending information to a client of theirs who is probably a firm running an analytics campaign for a client of theirs who will in turn sell that data to a client of theirs. So--9th party?
4) It removes my ability to maintain separate persona on separate sites. A site like Amazon will use this information to try to figure out what products I'd like to buy. If I've been to PurpleDildo.com, I don't need Amazon to know that. I don't need MyCompanyIsGreat.com to know I've been to JobHunter.com. Having separate parts of you life joined together can be harmful.
5) I don't trust the 3rd parties to not actively harm me. Maybe I can trust the site itself. Maybe I can even trust the particular ad network. I cannot trust their clients. What code are they running to "track" me? Are they using a harmless 1px image pingback, or some 0-day java exploit to drop a supercookie and read the contents of My Documents? They have no accountability or responsibility to me, only their clients. Who will know, or prosecute them if they behave badly? Given the risk:reward to acting badly, I have to pretty much expect at least one of them to.
6) Their trackers cost me bandwidth. Admittedly not much, but it's a real, actual cost.
7) It costs me time. Each tracking script takes up time for page load and page render. Given most popular sites have up to 11 trackers or more, that adds up. A few seconds each page load? That adds up to hours each month of wasted time. If Morbs can be pissed that a new tab takes 3 seconds to open, imagine what he'll be link when each page takes second extra to load.
8) It's a choice. Removing that choice to participate makes lack of choice a de-facto standard.
9) It benefits me financially. Wait, what's that? I thought that was a plus. No, because there is SO MUCH focus on analytics and tracking that they've become extremely valuable. They're very lucrative. That means that EVERYTHING becomes about tracking and analytics, to the detriment of everything else. Every decision becomes "will it turn a profit via analytics". How many services has Google killed because it wasn't profitable enough as an ad-serving and data-gathering platform? Same question for just about every other major player. And same question in the vein of how much innovation is being stiffed because it isn't profitable enough by that metric. It is harming innovation at the cost of saving a few bucks on electronics.
(Sidenote: don't be fooled into thinking that targeted marketing actually saves you any money. Yes, the prices may be lowered because sales are up, yadda yadda-- but those prices were raised to begin with in order to pay for the anayltics and lowered them.)
This one is a bit ranty, but:
10) Marketing people are the shitscum of the earth. Look, Blakey, I know you work with analytics. And I'm sure your company is an altruistic, do no evil, Unicorn paradise that is completely benign. But-- and I know this is hard to believe-- but that may just be atypical. Marketing companies are a plague on society, and the sociopaths who push that agenda are a cancer. Every ounce of data I willingly give to them is a penny of profit used to fuel their business. It pays for flashing ads on my websites, intrustive marketing wherever I go, billboards blocking every otherwise beautiful vista everywhere I look. It pays for lobby groups to push anti-Privacy laws. It creates real, harmful effects on society and culture.
-
@blakeyrat said:
harms you either physically or financially
Well obviously it doesn't.But, guess what, I don't like it. I don't like clicking somewhere once and having that haunt me for a week. Just as I don't like building an identity in forums or posting everything I do on twitter. You probably won't understand "why" but I just don't. I can't explain why I don't like the smell of rotten fish either (not talking about evolutionary explanations).
But every time you see someone here who does anything you don't do you throw a tantrum. You probably are the kind of person who wonders how the hell can gay men be attracted to other men if other men don't have boobs.
I remember I browsed some time with a google account and no third-party content blocker. I clicked an ad once and for several weeks ALL ADS on every page became that ad. Even worse, Youtube kept asking me to watch the same MLP:FiM episode for over a month. No thank you, I'll watch what I want.
-
@spamcourt said:
The flash video downloader would be complicated, since there is no standard way to get the video files, and many flash players actually have some intentional protection against those things
That video's got to be rendered and put on the screen somehow. At some point the pipe goes from FlashPlayer => VideoBuffer => Screen. All I want is FlashPlayer => VideoBuffer => VideoFileWriter instead.
@spamcourt said:
Userscripts can be very useful, though there is no real difference between an extension and an userscript so you might as well call them extensions too.
There are huge differences. An extension is just that-- an addon to the code of the browser itself that extends or alters it capabilities. A userscript is a piece of javascript that runs on the page itself. The barrier to write one is much lower, it doesn't require touching the browser code at all. In fact since it is javascript-based, it should be completely browser independent.
@spamcourt said:
(and yes, Opera also has this and content blocking built-in).
Well, Opera just got a bit better in my eyes.
-
@morbiuswilters said:
Fine, I'll build my own browser, with blackjack and hookers!
Miff, your browser sounds great, but I think I'm switching to Morbs' browser.
-
@Lorne Kates said:
1) Because I don't want it to, and that reason is good enough
You don't want it to, based on... what? That's exactly what I'm asking. Why don't you want it to? What's your reason?
@Lorne Kates said:
2) I don't know and cannot agree with any TOS, terms of usage, data privacy retention agreements, or any other legal agreement that "using" the 3rd party may bind me to.
By law all data collected without a use statement (and by convention the vast, vast majority of data collected with a use statement) is already anonymized. But you knew that of course, because you'd never argue against something based on ignorance.
@Lorne Kates said:
3) I don't know and cannot control how that information is used. What exactly is being collected? How long is it retained for? Who is it shared with. I can agree to a TOS on a 1st party website, and have a party to hold responsible for the loss or misuse of any information. Not so with a 3rd party
Yeah; you can't control it. I concede that. But that doesn't answer my question: how does that in any way cause you harm? This point is irrelevant.
@Lorne Kates said:
3a) To make things worse, in most cases, it isn't even a 3rd party. It's a 3rd party tracker sending information to a client of theirs who is probably a firm running an analytics campaign for a client of theirs who will in turn sell that data to a client of theirs. So--9th party?
How is that relevant?
@Lorne Kates said:
4) It removes my ability to maintain separate persona on separate sites. A site like Amazon will use this information to try to figure out what products I'd like to buy. If I've been to PurpleDildo.com, I don't need Amazon to know that. I don't need MyCompanyIsGreat.com to know I've been to JobHunter.com. Having separate parts of you life joined together can be harmful.
Harmful how? You can't just say "it can be harmful", you have to tell me HOW it's harmful.
Your examples make no sense, for several reasons:
1) Amazon and PurpleDildo.com would never share data, because non-porn ad servers never interact with porn ad servers. (But you knew this of course, because you'd never argue against something based on ignorance, right?) So that's utter shit.
2) Your company can't connect your cookie user ID with their employee database, so they have no way of knowing WHICH of their employees is visiting JobHunter.com. (In fact they really have no way of knowing it's even one of their employees, except by linking the cookie ID with the IP, but that's unreliable and I believe technically illegal-- definitely illegal in the EU.) Your company is 10,000,000% more likely to find out this information by checking their network logs, which you explicitly agreed to them tracking when you signed your "computer use agreement" upon employment. So that's utter shit.
3) Even if we assume your company finds this out by using ad server data, which is ridiculous, how does it harm you if your boss knows you visit job sites? Last time my boss found out I was visiting job sites, it got me a 15% raise without me having to do jack to earn it.
So. Rejected.
@Lorne Kates said:
5) I don't trust the 3rd parties to not actively harm me. Maybe I can trust the site itself. Maybe I can even trust the particular ad network. I cannot trust their clients. What code are they running to "track" me? Are they using a harmless 1px image pingback, or some 0-day java exploit to drop a supercookie and read the contents of My Documents? They have no accountability or responsibility to me, only their clients. Who will know, or prosecute them if they behave badly? Given the risk:reward to acting badly, I have to pretty much expect at least one of them to.
How could they actively harm you? HOW?!??!?! It's not a hard fucking question.
@Lorne Kates said:
6) Their trackers cost me bandwidth. Admittedly not much, but it's a real, actual cost.
What the fuck ISP do you use where that's a "real, actual cost"? Calling bullshit on this one.
@Lorne Kates said:
7) It costs me time. Each tracking script takes up time for page load and page render. Given most popular sites have up to 11 trackers or more, that adds up. A few seconds each page load? That adds up to hours each month of wasted time. If Morbs can be pissed that a new tab takes 3 seconds to open, imagine what he'll be link when each page takes second extra to load.
Hours each month? A few seconds each page load? Bullshit. Browsers multitask. These points are weak as shit and you know it. You haven't yet answered my simple question, but you're wasting my time with this bullshit.
@Lorne Kates said:
8) It's a choice. Removing that choice to participate makes lack of choice a de-facto standard.
What's a choice? What are you talking about?
@Lorne Kates said:
9) It benefits me financially. Wait, what's that? I thought that was a plus. No, because there is SO MUCH focus on analytics and tracking that they've become extremely valuable. They're very lucrative. That means that EVERYTHING becomes about tracking and analytics, to the detriment of everything else. Every decision becomes "will it turn a profit via analytics". How many services has Google killed because it wasn't profitable enough as an ad-serving and data-gathering platform? Same question for just about every other major player. And same question in the vein of how much innovation is being stiffed because it isn't profitable enough by that metric. It is harming innovation at the cost of saving a few bucks on electronics.
Ok. A few points here:
1) Tracking data is 100% useless on its own. It only exists to make ads served more profitable.
2) While some widely-used Internet companies are obsessed with tracking, it's only because those companies' SOLE SOURCE OF REVENUE is ad revenue. The 99% of other companies do not give a shit about your tracking data.
3) If you consume a site that exists purely due to ad revenue, that is your choice and there is an implicit contract that in exchange for the service they provide you, you provide some payment in return. That payment for companies like Facebook and Google is ad revenue.
4) If serving ads based on tracking data is 100% more effective (and it's usually more than that honestly), Facebook and Google could serve 50% as many ads. Since most of the idiots arguing against tracking cookies *also* argue against ad-heavy websites, they should realize that tracking cookies reduce the number of ads shown. In short, figure out what the fuck you want, then argue for it in a coherent way instead of being a huge hypocrite.
@Lorne Kates said:
(Sidenote: don't be fooled into thinking that targeted marketing actually saves you any money. Yes, the prices may be lowered because sales are up, yadda yadda-- but those prices were raised to begin with in order to pay for the anayltics and lowered them.)
If tracking cookies and requisite servers/databases/etc cost more than they returned in increased revenue, they would not exist. So this point is demonstrably wrong. And also exposes the fact that you seem to know NOTHING about how businesses are run.
@Lorne Kates said:
10) Marketing people are the shitscum of the earth. Look, Blakey, I know you work with analytics. And I'm sure your company is an altruistic, do no evil, Unicorn paradise that is completely benign. But-- and I know this is hard to believe-- but that may just be atypical. Marketing companies are a plague on society, and the sociopaths who push that agenda are a cancer. Every ounce of data I willingly give to them is a penny of profit used to fuel their business. It pays for flashing ads on my websites, intrustive marketing wherever I go, billboards blocking every otherwise beautiful vista everywhere I look. It pays for lobby groups to push anti-Privacy laws. It creates real, harmful effects on society and culture.
Ok, and this answers my simple question... how? Much like point 3 this is entirely irrelevant.
-
Look. It's a simple question. The fact that you (and everybody else I've asked) can't give me a simple answer, tells me that the real answer is something like this:
@People Scared Of Tracking Cookies said:
I know absolutely nothing about tracking cookies, what legal protections are in-place, what the data is used for... but I have a completely emotional response of vague unease about them! Therefore I'm going to argue against them despite having absolutely no idea why! God knows I wouldn't bother actually educating myself, or even spending a few minutes thinking about the issue in a logical fashion! The vague unease is enough for me to spend hours of my time posting to forums about how terrible tracking cookies are!
Personally, I happen to value rationality.
-
@Lorne Kates said:
Marketing people are the shitscum of the earth.
You sure know how to make a guy feel special.
@Lorne Kates said:Marketing companies are a plague on society, and the sociopaths who push that agenda are a cancer.
Oh, I work in Marketing, but we market only first-party products. (There's a high probability you've used our stuff!)
-
@Strolskon said:
@blakeyrat said:
harms you either physically or financially
Well obviously it doesn't.Finally an honest answer.
@Strolskon said:
But, guess what, I don't like it.
But why not? One sentence ago you conceded that it does no harm. So why don't you like it?
@Strolskon said:
You probably won't understand "why" but I just don't.
But you don't even understand why. I mean. Help me help you. Why are you making decisions based on... absolutely nothing? Is this how you live your life? Do you buy a house this way, or a car?
I don't get it. I'm not asking for you to be Mr. Spock, but Jesus have a fucking reason for things. How can you have ANY opinion not based by at least SOME kind of rational thought?
@Strolskon said:
I can't explain why I don't like the smell of rotten fish either (not talking about evolutionary explanations).
I can't explain X (explains X).
@Strolskon said:
But every time you see someone here who does anything you don't do you throw a tantrum.
Because it bothers the hell out of me that there are people out there making decisions based on NOTHING but vague emotional responses. Jesus. We have brains. Why don't you want to use your brain? My cat makes decisions due to emotional responses, that's because she's an animal. Don't be an animal; be a human! Use that unique sense of rationality and THINK.
@Strolskon said:
You probably are the kind of person who wonders how the hell can gay men be attracted to other men if other men don't have boobs.
I kind of am, but that's different because gay men don't harm me or my livelihood based on superstition.
Tracking cookies don't harm you, but opposition to tracking cookies harms thousands of workers like me. Indirectly, admittedly. And benefits nobody. Except perhaps you get some vague emotional warm-fuzzy feeling, I dunno.
@Strolskon said:
I clicked an ad once and for several weeks ALL ADS on every page became that ad. Even worse, Youtube kept asking me to watch the same MLP:FiM episode for over a month.
Liar.
@Strolskon said:
Even worse, Youtube kept asking me to watch the same MLP:FiM episode for over a month. No thank you, I'll watch what I want.
YouTube asks you to watch particular videos? Liar.
-
@Strolskon said:
You probably are the kind of person who wonders how the hell can gay men be attracted to other men if other men don't have boobs.
..... you do know which forum you're posting on, right? You do know that there is, at this very moment, at least three incoming pictures of
Rosiehairly man boobs. Right?Right?
-
I use AdBlock quite a bit to block images, especially certain avatars or signatures on some of the forums I frequent. Nobody cares if I have a forum up at work, but they do care if they walk by my cubicle and see some random avatar which happens to be an animated GIF of a D-cup blonde shaking her goods.
And ads. I am less likely to purchase something if I see an ad for it. So I'm actually doing them a favor by blocking ads. It's like reverse psychology or something.
-
@blakeyrat said:
Tracking cookies don't harm you, but opposition to tracking cookies harms thousands of workers like me. Indirectly, admittedly.
Whoa-- hold on there. I was following right along until this.
You're asking every end user of every website to care about you. An emotional response, not a logic one. Why should anyone (and to save on typing, anyone will be refered to as 'me') give a gant's anal fuck about you?
I should enable tracking on thedailywtf.com because it helps Alex provide content back to me. Okay, fair enough.
I should enable tracking on thedailywtf.com because it will keep money flowing through doubleclick.net to Google to keep their business afloat. Meh-- stretching it, but I can see the point.
I should enable tracking on thedailywtf.com because it pays the bills to one of the analytics aggregate that doubleclick.net uses and them peeps gotta eat. Umm-- who exactly? Why?
I should enable tracking on thedailywtf.com because a it pays for a developer who analyzes analytics from the aggregate populated by doubleclick.net which Google feeds informatoin into from websites like thedailywtf-- squarely into Who Gives A Fuck territory here. Should I feel emotional for that developer? Do I actually care anything about him.
How many people down the chain from you do I need to care about? The money from your salary that goes into your public transportation pays not only the bus driver's salary, but keeps the entire public transit system afloat, which in turn increases the quality of life for all residents in your city core, who in turn are better able to hold jobs which raises taxes to pay for parks and rec which encourages the arts which elevates the overall education and societal wellbeing of all children in your city which lowers the crime rate--- which would put a police officer out of work. Shit.
Blakey, when was the last time you read the front page? Did you click on any of the ads? Why not? You do know that that revune helps Alex pay ME for my hard work on front page articles. I'd like to know if you're generating enough revune, because I've got a hankering for a McFlurry and that icecream-like-product ain't paying for itself. I suppose you just want to take money out of Snoofle's mouth, too, huh? (Yes, Snoofle eats money. He has deep psycological problems).
If you're allowed to reject any arguments based on "I don't want to", then keep in mind the flipside: any argument is rejected that is "You should support the analytcs industry because it supports the analytics industry".
-
@Lorne Kates said:
You're asking every end user of every website to care about you. An emotional response, not a logic one. Why should anyone (and to save on typing, anyone will be refered to as 'me') give a gant's anal fuck about you?
No; I'm asking people to stop making a decision based only on their own emotional state that could harm me. I'm not asking for a positive action to occur, I'm asking for people to stop doing a negative action for no reason.
Given that you completely misunderstood that, there's no point to reading or replying to the rest of your post.
-
Ah, I forgot-- the correct response to answering your question is "I REFUSE TO LISTEN".
@blakeyrat said:
You don't want it to, based on... what? That's exactly what I'm asking.
Because I don't want to. That is my desire, and blocking the trackers fulfils that desire. Is this really that hard of a concept to grasp?
@blakeyrat said:
Harmful how? You can't just say "it can be harmful", you have to tell me HOW it's harmful.
Your examples make no sense, for several reasons:
1) Amazon and PurpleDildo.com would never share data, because non-porn ad servers never interact with porn ad servers. (But you knew this of course, because you'd never argue against something based on ignorance, right?) So that's utter shit.
Who said PurpleDildo.com is a porn site? Maybe it's a sex toy site. Maybe it's a humor site. Maybe it's a typosquat for a terrorist site. But next time I open up Amazon BAM purple dildos. You did catch the "example" part, right? That it's an example of why I wouldn't want visit information from one site shared with another, especially when that other site dynamically changes based on that data. Go back and re-read my points with that in mind. Generic examples to prove an overall point, not a concrete implementation.
To whit, though-- keep in mind that tracking information is computer agnostic. I may visit SecretSite.com at home, and PublicSite.com on my phone when out at the pub with friends. But hey, tracking! "PublicSite.com thinks you may enjoy ramming SecretSite.com up your anus. {Like}". I bring this up again since you conveniently ignored my entire point about keep personnas seperate.
@blakeyrat said:
1) Tracking data is 100% useless on its own. It only exists to make ads served more profitable.
A bullet is 100% useless on its own. It only exists to make guns more lethal. Come on, Blakey. You can't seriously think anyone is arguing over the data itself. The point is what is done by that data, and by whom. I've stated that ads harm me. They have a negative effect on society and culture by making them more focused on selling a product that make something good or useful. They cause visual pollution. They cause negative user experience on sites where they slow down, introduce malware, or otherwise annoy visitors. They prop up a scummy industry. They make me unhappy. Thus if tracking data makes ads "better", then tracking data is harmful.
@blakeyrat said:
tracking cookies reduce the number of ads shown
Prove it. Show me at least 5 major websites that employ a large number of tracking informatoin to reduce the number of ads shown. Show me side by side how the ads are different between a completely anonymous user and a heavily tracked user
@blakeyrat said:
If tracking cookies and requisite servers/databases/etc cost more than they returned in increased revenue, they would not exist. So this point is demonstrably wrong. And also exposes the fact that you seem to know NOTHING about how businesses are run.
I didn't say they cost more. I said they have a cost. Which is cheaper? Running no ads, or paying to run ads an analyze data. Hint: I'm right.
So they cost money to run. And yes, they generate revenue. But now the costs are higher. So what does any manager in any company ever do when costs go up? Pass it on to the customer. EVEN IF they get a beneift from it elsewhere.
Or maybe you think that supermarker rewards are free and haven't impacted prices at all. Or that you don't pay for Coke's Superbowl ads indirectly.
@blakeyrat said:
What the fuck ISP do you use where that's a "real, actual cost"? Calling bullshit on this one.
What ISP do you use that doesn't meter and charge for bandwidth overage? Which cellphone dataplan do you have that doesn't keep track of data usage down the byte?
@blakeyrat said:
That payment for companies like Facebook and Google is ad revenue.
If I don't use Facebook or Google (hypothetically), why should I accept their tracking cookies? {Like} {+1}
@blakeyrat said:
implicit contract
Bullshit. Show me a ToS for a site that says I must accept all third party cookies and allow myself to be tracked. That's what laywers call a real actual thing. If a site owner puts that in the usage terms, and those terms must be agreed upon to use the site, that's a contract. If a site owner puts up a blog post asking people nicely to stop using AdBlock, that's called civility. Assuming everyone will behave a certain way because it benefits you and getting pissy when they don't is called being a two year old. Or a sociopath.
@blakeyrat said:
A few seconds each page load? Bullshit. Browsers multitask.
And people don't. If you open a page and it takes 3 seconds to load, do you
a) Wait patiently for it to load
b) Use your superhuman multitasking to context switch away, pick another task to work on, perform that task in the 1.5 seconds available to you, then context switch back to the webpage in the exact optimal time in order to continue reading the page.@blakeyrat said:
@Lorne Kates said:
8) It's a choice. Removing that choice to participate makes lack of choice a de-facto standard.
What's a choice? What are you talking about?
Me: I want to choose if I participate in tracking or not.
You: You should not have a choice and should participate because I say so.
@blakeyrat said:
By law all data collected without a use
statement (and by convention the vast, vast majority of data collected
with a use statement) is already anonymized.Which law? For which state/province/territory? Which country? Of the client or the site? Of the site or the ad server? How can I even tell if its in compliance? If I can just trust them to handle the data properly, then why are there laws?
Don't be naieve.
@blakeyrat said:
Ok, and this answers my simple question... how?
... and this is the point where you start playing dumb. ADS ARE BAD. TRACKING PAYS FOR ADS. THUS TRACKING IS BAD. Simple enough?
@blakeyrat said:
The fact that you (and everybody else I've asked) can't give me a simple answer
I have. So have everyone else. You reject the simple answers, and refuse to understand the complex ones. If you've asked everyone, and have not received a satisfying answer, then maybe you should seek out the common denominator.
@blakeyrat said:
Personally, I happen to value rationality.
I think this deserves a "lol". Does it? Hang on, I'm getting word from the producer-- uhhuh--- yup, indeed. It has been officially confirmed, this statement is deserving of an lol. So, in that vein, we are now pleased to present to you this "lol".
lol
-
@blakeyrat said:
No; I'm asking people to *stop* making a decision based only on their own emotional state that could harm me.
And I'm telling you that your entire industry is a fucking scumpond that harms everyone else. Maybe you should change jobs. You're a talented developer. You could do better. And even if it didn't, it'd benefit me by reducing the talent pool in an industry that's harming me.
-
@blakeyrat said:
@Strolskon said:
I clicked an ad once and for several weeks ALL ADS on every page became that ad. Even worse, Youtube kept asking me to watch the same MLP:FiM episode for over a month.
Liar.
You seem to have quoted Strolskon twice there; is it the first part that's "obviously" a lie or the second part? If the first part, could you explain why? I bought a Christmas present for my father from Jos. A. Bank last year and at least 80% of the ads I saw over the next two months were for Jos. A. Bank. It was infuriating. And I'm pretty sure I'm not making that up. If the second part, YouTube does suggest videos it thinks you may want to watch on its home page, but as far as I know it is entirely based on viewing history (if I were to watch a MLP:FiM video on YouTube for some ungodly reason, I'd be seeing it on YouTube's home page for the next age).
-
@Strolskon said:
You probably are the kind of person who wonders how the hell can gay men be attracted to other men if other men don't have boobs.
The men with boobs are actually the least attractive. Still, I have no idea how a man could be attracted to another man.
@Strolskon said:
Even worse, Youtube kept asking me to watch the same MLP:FiM episode for over a month.
The horror! The horror!
I hate white people. You motherfuckers have all the food and material possessions you could want, so you've got to invent bullshit to get hysterical over. Whether it's senseless paranoia about gluten in your food or ads on the web, you act like you're the last fucking firewall between society and chaos.
-
@blakeyrat said:
2) While some widely-used Internet companies are obsessed with tracking, it's only because those companies' SOLE SOURCE OF REVENUE is ad revenue. The 99% of other companies do not give a shit about your tracking data.
This is patently false. Our primary source of income is products we manufacture and sell, and we track every moment you spend on our website in creepy levels of detail. How you got in, how long you spent, what you clicked, where you went when you left, how often you come back, information about the device you used to view it, what capabilities it has... The list goes on. We then try to classify you into one of our customer demographics and serve up site content more relevant to your interests.
Again, advertising generates no direct revenue for us, as we are our own client. Also, I know this is very common because I've worked for other clients in my career who did things very similarly (and were willing to pay handsomely for it).
-
@blakeyrat said:
@Lorne Kates said:
Because fuck you, that's why. The argument of "how does it harm you, physically or financially" is a completely false, bullshit argument, and you know that.1) Because I don't want it to, and that reason is good enough
You don't want it to, based on... what?
I go into someone's home, a complete starnger, whithout their permission and when they aren't around. I do not touch anything, I just walk around and look at things for a while -- In other words I cause them absolutely no financial or physical harm -- I guarnatee you that 99.9% of people would have a really big problem with that.
I pick a random starnger who is walking down the street and I start following them. Every where they go, I go I sit outside their home and wait for them to leave, and everywhere they go, I follow them. I never touch them, I never get too close -- In other words I cause them absolutely no financial or physical harm -- I guarnatee you that 99.9% of people would have a really big problem with that.
Yes, those examples are not quite the same as tracking on the Interent, but they are still valid because they illustrate that the claim of "it causes you no physical or financial harm, therefore it's OK" is bullshit. People should have the right to say "I don't like it, I don't want it, fuck off". If you are unable to respect that, then you are the problem.@blakeyrat said:
The fact that you (and everybody else I've asked) can't give me a simple answer,
No, you've been given the answer, but you don't have enough respect for people to accept an answer that you don't want to hear.
-
@morbiuswilters said:
I hate white people. You motherfuckers have all the food and material possessions you could want, so you've got to invent bullshit to get hysterical over. Whether it's senseless paranoia about gluten in your food or ads on the web, you act like you're the last fucking firewall between society and chaos.
That's because we are. I thought that was a well established fact. If it weren't for our shining example (and shining, because our skin is gleaming, clean white, natch), the savages of the world would revert to their base animalistic behaviour and devour each other while brining the whole world down in flames.
How can you not know this? Don't you watch [insert political commentary news entity here lol]?
-
@blakeyrat said:
No; I'm asking people to stop making a decision based only on their own emotional state that could harm me.
Increasingly, I'm not sure it even matters if these people block ads. They're all kind of anti-social whackos, anyway, so what the hell are you going to sell them? Ron Paul merch? One of those buckets of nutritious paste that you can eat out of for 3 months in case the grid goes down? Poorly-xeroxed Noam Chomsky essays?
-
@Lorne Kates said:
Ah, I forgot-- the correct response to answering your question is "I REFUSE TO LISTEN".
There's no point replying to an argument made based on a misunderstanding of what I typed. Or in other words, I already obsoleted the argument by correcting the misunderstanding, so there was no point in reading the rest of it.
@Lorne Kates said:
Because I don't want to. That is my desire, and blocking the trackers fulfils that desire. Is this really that hard of a concept to grasp?
No. I'm just asking what your reasoning is.
@Lorne Kates said:
That it's an example of why I wouldn't want visit information from one site shared with another, especially when that other site dynamically changes based on that data.
But WHY not? You're still not answering my extremely simple question. WHAT IS YOUR REASON?
@Lorne Kates said:
To whit, though-- keep in mind that tracking information is computer agnostic.
It doesn't believe computers exist? What?
I think I see what you're trying to say, but you're wrong: a tracking cookie tracks (at best) a browser, not a person. There's no way to link data from one browser to another browser. (Unless you have a login, like if you log in to Amazon, but ad servers don't see/can't use login data.)
So again, you're arguing from ignorance.
@Lorne Kates said:
Come on, Blakey. You can't seriously think anyone is arguing over the data itself. The point is what is done by that data, and by whom.
Ok; then WHAT is done? What is this thing ad servers are doing that you're so opposed to? Just tell me what it is.
@Lorne Kates said:
I've stated that ads harm me.
How?
@Lorne Kates said:
They have a negative effect on society and culture by making them more focused on selling a product that make something good or useful.
How would you know about the good or useful product if nobody told you it existed? If Audi makes a car that gets 80 MPG and goes 0-60 in 3 seconds, you think they shouldn't be able to tell anybody about it? Is this what you seriously believe?
@Lorne Kates said:
They cause visual pollution.
And there would be less visual pollution if ads weren't targeted towards the user? Is that the implication?
@Lorne Kates said:
They cause negative user experience on sites where they slow down, introduce malware, or otherwise annoy visitors.
And this would happen less if ads weren't targeted towards the user? Is that the implication?
Did you suddenly lose the entire thread and go into "general rant against all marketing ever" mode, forgetting that we were talking specifically about tracking cookies?
@Lorne Kates said:
Thus if tracking data makes ads "better", then tracking data is harmful.
What if the tracking data read, "this user doesn't like obtrusive ads, so serve him only subtle text-based ads for products he enjoys?" Would you still delete that cookie?
@Lorne Kates said:
@blakeyrat said:
If tracking cookies and requisite servers/databases/etc cost more than they returned in increased revenue, they would not exist. So this point is demonstrably wrong. And also exposes the fact that you seem to know NOTHING about how businesses are run.
I didn't say they cost more. I said they have a cost. Which is cheaper? Running no ads, or paying to run ads an analyze data. Hint: I'm right.
Did you just read the first half of the first sentence and stop to write a reply?
If you're not going to reply to what I typed, don't bother wasting our time with it.
@Lorne Kates said:
What ISP do you use that doesn't meter and charge for bandwidth overage?
At the moment, Comcast. The last ISP I used that metered bandwidth was AOL, and they canned that in, what, 1998?
@Lorne Kates said:
If I don't use Facebook or Google (hypothetically), why should I accept their tracking cookies? {Like} {+1}
If you don't use them, then don't. Did you expect I'd argue about that point? Because duh.
@Lorne Kates said:
Bullshit. Show me a ToS for a site that says I must accept all third party cookies and allow myself to be tracked.
I see you do not know what the word "implicit" means.
@Lorne Kates said:
Me: I want to choose if I participate in tracking or not.
You: You should not have a choice and should participate because I say so.
You do have a choice with the vast majority of sites.
@Lorne Kates said:
... and this is the point where you start playing dumb. ADS ARE BAD. TRACKING PAYS FOR ADS. THUS TRACKING IS BAD. Simple enough?
No.
Even if I concede that "ads are bad" (which you haven't made much of a case for), you still haven't demonstrated that "tracking pays for ads" (that doesn't even make sense.)
@Lorne Kates said:
I have. So have everyone else.
Everyone? You'd think I'd have heard of that then.
@Lorne Kates said:
I think this deserves a "lol". Does it? Hang on, I'm getting word from the producer-- uhhuh--- yup, indeed. It has been officially confirmed, this statement is deserving of an lol. So, in that vein, we are now pleased to present to you this "lol".
lol
And you do... comedy writing? Huh.
-
@Lorne Kates said:
That's because we are. I thought that was a well established fact. If it weren't for our shining example (and shining, because our skin is gleaming, clean white, natch), the savages of the world would revert to their base animalistic behaviour and devour each other while brining the whole world down in flames.
The funny thing is, I'd say people now are about as dumb as their Kipling-esque forebears. Less actively violent, sure, but just as full of silly superstition and schizophrenic paranoia. I'm exposed to this shit all the time; white people getting upset because of what "they" are putting in the food; or about genetic engineering when they don't even understand the first thing about it; or going on about chemtrails or feng shui or god-knows-what.
To sit and listen to wealthy, well-educated white people who had opportunities their ancestors only dreamed of talk about how eating dairy causes the chakras to go out of alignment... I just want to start stabbing people.
-
@heterodox said:
@blakeyrat said:
@Strolskon said:
I clicked an ad once and for several weeks ALL ADS on every page became that ad. Even worse, Youtube kept asking me to watch the same MLP:FiM episode for over a month.
Liar.
You seem to have quoted Strolskon twice there; is it the first part that's "obviously" a lie or the second part? If the first part, could you explain why? I bought a Christmas present for my father from Jos. A. Bank last year and at least 80% of the ads I saw over the next two months were for Jos. A. Bank. It was infuriating. And I'm pretty sure I'm not making that up. If the second part, YouTube does suggest videos it thinks you may want to watch on its home page, but as far as I know it is entirely based on viewing history (if I were to watch a MLP:FiM video on YouTube for some ungodly reason, I'd be seeing it on YouTube's home page for the next age).
When I was shopping for a car, I kept noticing ads for specific make and model combinations I had been researching (I ended up with a Prius). It did make me feel uncomfortable.
I get this a lot with Amazon, too, but I'm actually a loyal Amazon customer because a) my experience with their customer support has been consistently great, b) they're generally conscientious about my preferences, and unrelated c) ♥Kindle♥. Generally, though, because they treat me like a person rather than (or at least ≥) a sales prospect.
-
@Lorne Kates said:
And even if it didn't, it'd benefit me by reducing the talent pool in an industry that's harming me.
How. Is. It. Harming. You.
-
@joe.edwards said:
@blakeyrat said:
2) While some widely-used Internet companies are obsessed with tracking, it's only because those companies' SOLE SOURCE OF REVENUE is ad revenue. The 99% of other companies do not give a shit about your tracking data.
This is patently false. Our primary source of income is products we manufacture and sell, and we track every moment you spend on our website in creepy levels of detail. How you got in, how long you spent, what you clicked, where you went when you left, how often you come back, information about the device you used to view it, what capabilities it has... The list goes on. We then try to classify you into one of our customer demographics and serve up site content more relevant to your interests.
Again, advertising generates no direct revenue for us, as we are our own client. Also, I know this is very common because I've worked for other clients in my career who did things very similarly (and were willing to pay handsomely for it).
So your company is run by an idiot who does things for no reason? Is that what you're saying? I guess I don't get the point of you posting this.
-
@El_Heffe said:
I go into someone's home, a complete starnger, whithout their permission and when they aren't around. I do not touch anything, I just walk around and look at things for a while -- In other words I cause them absolutely no financial or physical harm -- I guarnatee you that 99.9% of people would have a really big problem with that.
Yeah and if you became dictator of Germany and killed 7 million people in gas chambers, 99.9% of people would have a really big problem with that.
BUT WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH TRACKING COOKIES!?
@El_Heffe said:
Yes, those examples are not quite the same as tracking on the Interent,
If by "not quite the same" you mean "could not be any more different from", then ok.
@El_Heffe said:
People should have the right to say "I don't like it, I don't want it, fuck off".
Name a site that uses tracking cookies and doesn't have an opt-out link. I dare you.
Lorne made this same stupid argument. What planet are you guys on where you think you don't have a right to say no to tracking cookies? Mars? Jupiter? Wongo?
How do you even debate with people THIS divorced from reality!
-
@joe.edwards said:
When I was shopping for a car, I kept noticing ads for specific make and model combinations I had been researching (I ended up with a Prius). It did make me feel uncomfortable.
I don't get this. Who cares if some site knows you were shopping for a particular car? I'd rather see ads for a car I was interested in than one I would never buy (like a Prius).
The only time it ever caused real harm is sometimes I look at sites like Infowars for a chuckle, but after visiting one of those sites I started getting a ton of ads for Ron Paul shit. And the Ron Paul ads were bugfuck crazy (but you expected that). They were on YouTube and they were like 3 fucking minutes long. It was some black dude telling a long story about how Ron Paul wasn't a racist or something.
So it was like "Yes, I can watch this 3 minute Ron Paul spot before watching my 20 second video clip, or I can just skip this shit." (I always skip ads on YouTube anyway.) But it came up, no joke, like the next 100 times I watch a YouTube video. You think someone in Ron Paul HQ would have realized that even the mouth-breathers who love the guy aren't going to want to watch the same 3 minute ad over and over.
-
@blakeyrat said:
@joe.edwards said:
@blakeyrat said:
2) While some widely-used Internet companies are obsessed with tracking, it's only because those companies' SOLE SOURCE OF REVENUE is ad revenue. The 99% of other companies do not give a shit about your tracking data.
This is patently false. Our primary source of income is products we manufacture and sell, and we track every moment you spend on our website in creepy levels of detail. How you got in, how long you spent, what you clicked, where you went when you left, how often you come back, information about the device you used to view it, what capabilities it has... The list goes on. We then try to classify you into one of our customer demographics and serve up site content more relevant to your interests.
Again, advertising generates no direct revenue for us, as we are our own client. Also, I know this is very common because I've worked for other clients in my career who did things very similarly (and were willing to pay handsomely for it).
So your company is run by an idiot who does things for no reason? Is that what you're saying? I guess I don't get the point of you posting this.
My point was that tracking data is valuable to virtually every company with customers; basically the opposite of what you said.
-
@joe.edwards said:
When I was shopping for a car, I kept noticing ads for specific make and model combinations I had been researching (I ended up with a Prius). It did make me feel uncomfortable.
Why? Why did it make you feel uncomfortable?
-
@joe.edwards said:
My point was that tracking data is valuable to virtually every company with customers; basically the opposite of what you said.
Hm, I see what you're saying, and I'd respond: maybe. Tracking data within a site certainly is, but tracking data between different sites (which is what we're talking about, unless you're Lorne and you're just spitting out whatever turds come to mind) isn't nearly as much so.
I could certainly see that some retailers *think* it's a lot more valuable than it really is, also.
-
@blakeyrat said:
@Lorne Kates said:
Ah, I forgot-- the correct response to answering your question is "I REFUSE TO LISTEN".
There's no point replying to an argument made based on a misunderstanding of what I typed. Or in other words, I already obsoleted the argument by correcting the misunderstanding, so there was no point in reading the rest of it.
"I REFUSE TO LISTEN"
@blakeyrat said:
@Lorne Kates said:
To whit, though-- keep in mind that tracking information is computer agnostic.
It doesn't believe computers exist? What?
I think I see what you're trying to say, but you're wrong: a tracking cookie tracks (at best) a browser, not a person. There's no way to link data from one browser to another browser. (Unless you have a login, like if you log in to Amazon, but ad servers don't see/can't use login data.)
Tracking is done at more than the cookie level. You can track someone by IP. You can track them based on browser fingerprint. This is your business. You should know there's tons of ways a user can be identified (and thus tracked) without relying on cookies. That is why the trackers themselves get blocked.
@blakeyrat said:
@Lorne Kates said:
That it's an example of why I wouldn't want visit information from one site shared with another, especially when that other site dynamically changes based on that data.
But WHY not? You're still not answering my extremely simple question. WHAT IS YOUR REASON?
Stop being an intentionally fucking moron. Unless you're being an accidental moron. In which case stop being a fucking moron, period. If you can't imagine why someone wouldn't want their browsing history and personal preferenes flashed on the screen when others might be watching or judging, then you live in a fantasy world. Stop being a fucking moron.
@blakeyrat said:
@Lorne Kates said:
I've stated that ads harm me.
How?
Which I then went on to answer. Seriously, stop being a fucking moron.
1) Advertising and marketing put an unhealthy emphasis on desiring and obtaining material posessions
2) They have made it a race to the bottom on the defacto standard of doing business on the web. It reduces the amount of useful content because people are overly reliant on ad revenue to do business, and feel they cannot or should not produce useful content without being paid by ad dollars
3) It fuels an industry that promotes poor health choices, negative body image, and lowering people's self worth and self esteem, in order to sell product.
4) It promotes want over need by definitation
5) It collects and aggregates an unhealthy amount of data on individuals, and shares that information with untrusted third parties.
All of the above harm the society I live in and are harmful. So fuck you.
@blakeyrat said:
At the moment, Comcast.
You're trying to use COMCAST as your counterexample of a user-friendly ISP that in no way rapes you over bandwidth. I-- you shock me, Blakey.
@blakeyrat said:
@Lorne Kates said:
Bullshit. Show me a ToS for a site that says I must accept all third party cookies and allow myself to be tracked.
I see you do not know what the word "implicit" means.
And I'm saying that there is no implicit contract. None. It doesn't exist. It's a figment of your imagination. You cannot use it as a reason why I should accept trackers. I call it utter fucking shit and you are shit for even thinking that such a thing exists.
@blakeyrat said:
You do have a choice with the vast majority of sites.
Really? Which ones? Show me. I'm waiting.
You don't have a choice because either I should uphold your "implicit contract" and accept them or fuck off. Or there's a ToS saying I need to accept them or fuck off. There are exactly zero sites where you can put in an option that says "Don't put tracking cookies on my browser. Don't include any 3rd party content. Don't load trackers from 3rd parties. Don't share my data with anyone, ever."
Show me a site that both employs these trackers, and has these options. Show me that option enabled and you're still allowed to legally use the site. Show me a perfectly clean Ghostery for that site. And I will hold you to the "vast majority" there. Bob's House Of Fuck You doesn't count.
@blakeyrat said:
Even if I concede that "ads are bad" (which you haven't made much of a case for), you still haven't demonstrated that "tracking pays for ads" (that doesn't even make sense.)
STOP BEING A FUCKING MORON! Your entire point is that tracking data is useful ONLY to serve targeted ads. The ONLY reason why tracking exists is to fuel the ad industry (if we are to ignore the privacy and government spying which neither of us have touched). Perhaps I should have said TRACKING ENHANCES ADS AND THUS MAKES THEM A DESIREABLE BUSINESS PROPOSAL TO THOSE LOOKING FOR THE MOST ROI ON ENHANCING ONE TECHNOLOGY WITH ANOTHER.
@blakeyrat said:
@Lorne Kates said:
I have. So have everyone else.
Everyone? You'd think I'd have heard of that then.
Everyone else on this thread. STOP BEING A FUCKING MORON. (And I would hazard a guess that so has everyone else you've talked to but you've just refused to listen)
@blakeyrat said:
How would you know about the good or useful product if nobody told you it existed? If Audi makes a car that gets 80 MPG and goes 0-60 in 3 seconds, you think they shouldn't be able to tell anybody about it? Is this what you seriously believe?
Word of mouth. Discussion forums. Friends. Seeing it in action. News report. HOLY SHIT A CHEAP WORKING ELECTRIC CAR!
I bought a car recently. I did my own fucking research. Read Edumnds, read car review sites, went for a test drive. I did it all without letting every website I was on know I was shopping for a car and let them shove flashing ads in my face. Ads that would have been biased based on who was paying for them anyways. HOW DID I DO THAT?
I don't need ads to hear about products, and if I do, then I don't need the product. STOP BEING A FUCKING MORON!
@blakeyrat said:
@Lorne Kates said:
They cause visual pollution.
And there would be less visual pollution if ads weren't targeted towards the user? Is that the implication?
They'd cause less visual pollution if they didn't exist. You asked me how ads harm me, and I gave you that example. By your own admission tracking data fuels the ad industry. I've connected as many dots for you as I can. STOP BEING A FUCKING MORON.
@blakeyrat said:
Why?
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4u2ZsoYWwJA#t=457s"]Why? Why? Why?[/url]
-
@blakeyrat said:
Tracking data within a site certainly is, but tracking data between different sites (which is what we're talking about, unless you're Lorne and you're just spitting out whatever turds come to mind) isn't nearly as much so.
Your points thusfar (direct quotes)
1) Tracking data is 100% useless on its own. It only exists to make ads served more profitable.
2) Tracking cookies don't harm you, but opposition to tracking cookies harms thousands of workers like me. Indirectly, admittedly.
So tracking data DOES make ads more profitable, and benefits you.
So make up your mind. Is Tracking Data useful or not?
If it isn't, then why do you or anyone else care if it's blocked.
If it is useful, defend yourself. Why should a anti-social pollutant of an industry be propped up with my browsing habits? Remember, my points are:
1) Errosion of privacy
2) Accidentaly exposure of personal information to antagonistic third parties
3) Intentional exposure of personal information to self-interested third parties who want to make a buck off me
4) Desires of marketing industy is given presedence over the desire of the public at large
4a) ... by using money gained from serving ads (enhanced by tracking information) to lobby for marketing-friendly laws
4b) ... by neglecting or suppressing arts and technology that is/would be enjoyed by the public but isn't marketable. (For example, think about your favorite show that was really fucking good, but was cancelled because it didn't rate higher than the reality show de jeur)
And one point of yours I didn't directly address (paraphrased)
@Blakeyrat said:
Would you reject a cookie that said 'Do not track'
Fuck yes I would. Because that should be the DEFAULT behavior. There's a big difference between saying no, and not being a datapoint at all. If I lose the cookie, I'm tracked. If I keep the cookie, I'm still tracked and that is still useful marketing information. Since this isn't the default behavior, I chose to make it so by blocking third party trackers.
0 != null
-
@Lorne Kates said:
1) Advertising and marketing put an unhealthy emphasis on desiring and obtaining material posessions
I agree that materialism sucks, but I'm always surprised when people try to blame society's obsession with material goods on advertising, marketing and business. They're just giving people what they demand. The root of the problem is social and cultural.
@Lorne Kates said:
2) They have made it a race to the bottom on the defacto standard of doing business on the web. It reduces the amount of useful content because people are overly reliant on ad revenue to do business, and feel they cannot or should not produce useful content without being paid by ad dollars
Well, I'm not going to create content without getting paid (looks at approximately 8800 posts.. damn) but I agree that ads suck. The problem is, nobody has made micropayments work and I don't believe in stealing from people, so ads it is.
@Lorne Kates said:
3) It fuels an industry that promotes poor health choices, negative body image, and lowering people's self worth and self esteem, in order to sell product.
Once again, why do you assume this is the fault of marketing and not people themselves? Marketing doesn't make people eat junk food, the delicious taste of junk food does. And lowering people's self-esteem is exactly what they want. I'm not saying they want marketers to make them feel bad, but what they are obsessed with are quick fixes and improvements. People want to feel they're making themselves better. And since the advertisers aren't selling Superman pills, they have to start with a lower baseline and sell you normalcy.
What's the solution? You not participating isn't doing it, sorry to say.
@Lorne Kates said:
All of the above harm the society I live in and are harmful. So fuck you.
The society you live in has harmed itself. Stop trying to find a boogerman. This is how people have always been; silly, vapid, vain and ignorant. Marketing has just changed the face of it, made it more about the common man satisfying his desires. True, our culture used to have a bit of self-restraint. A belief in community, family and religious faith before oneself. The virtue of thrift rather than the need for non-stop instant gratification.
But that's been dead since the 50s and 60s, when "Do what feels good" took over and we became a "nation of mes". And now if someone who values what I listed above stops by, they're mocked for having religion, for not being materialistic enough (in the original sense of the term.) Some people miss quiet communities and "simpler times". But then they don't seem to see when things changed, when the move towards creating the selfish, narcissistic hellhole of modern life began. There doesn't seem to be the realization that undermining the culture and its values is what ultimately lead to the hyper-consumerist, welfare state nightmare we're currently trapped in.
-
@Lorne Kates said:
Tracking is done at more than the cookie level.
No it's not.
@Lorne Kates said:
You can track someone by IP. You can track them based on browser fingerprint.
You can yodel in Klingon. But nobody does. Similarly nobody is doing this. (Although Google tried some skeezy stuff a year back which only worked on Apple browsers anyway.)
@Lorne Kates said:
This is your business.
I'm more into the reporting area, but yes I'm pretty familiar with it. Which is why I find it amusing that you keeping bringing up points that are ignorant at best, and bald-faced lies at worst.
@Lorne Kates said:
If you can't imagine why someone wouldn't want their browsing history and personal preferenes flashed on the screen when others might be watching or judging, then you live in a fantasy world.
Maybe I'd be able to imagine why if you just told me why.
@Lorne Kates said:
1) Advertising and marketing put an unhealthy emphasis on desiring and obtaining material posessions
We were talking about tracking cookies, not advertising.
And who the fuck are you to dictate how much other people should desire possessions? Fuck you. We have this thing in the States called "freedom", maybe you've heard of it.
@Lorne Kates said:
5) It collects and aggregates an unhealthy amount of data on individuals, and shares that information with untrusted third parties.
Anonymized data is not, by definition, "data on individuals". Like I said previously, at best you can link it to a particular browser on a particular computer.. At best. It's impossible to link it to a particular individual.
@Lorne Kates said:
You're trying to use COMCAST as your counterexample of a user-friendly ISP that in no way rapes you over bandwidth. I-- you shock me, Blakey.
No; Comcast is a shitty company and I'm only with them because Frontier is worse, and since I live in ISP monopoly-land those are the choices I get. Did I say they were user-friendly? Quote me. I dare you.
But Comcast doesn't monitor bandwidth.
@Lorne Kates said:
And I'm saying that there is no implicit contract. None. It doesn't exist. It's a figment of your imagination. You cannot use it as a reason why I should accept trackers. I call it utter fucking shit and you are shit for even thinking that such a thing exists.
Don't you get paid by Alex for work on this site? How do you reconcile that with this opinion? If Alex stopped paying you, would you continue writing articles? Help me out here. How does your brain work where it can store these two things without self-destructing?
@Lorne Kates said:
@blakeyrat said:
You do have a choice with the vast majority of sites.
Really? Which ones? Show me. I'm waiting.Here's Google's. Here's instructions on how to opt-out of Amazon's tracking. Here's Microsoft's.
Can I guarantee every site that tracks its users has an opt-out feature? No. There are millions of sites.
@Lorne Kates said:
There are exactly zero sites where you can put in an option that says "Don't put tracking cookies on my browser. Don't include any 3rd party content. Don't load trackers from 3rd parties. Don't share my data with anyone, ever."
I just linked to 3.
@Lorne Kates said:
Everyone else on this thread.
Not true.
@Lorne Kates said:
Word of mouth. Discussion forums. Friends. Seeing it in action. News report. HOLY SHIT A CHEAP WORKING ELECTRIC CAR!
And if they took out an ad, what would you suggest the punishment be? Fines? Imprisonment? How do you think you'd get those news reports in a world where advertising were illegal?
@Lorne Kates said:
Read Edumnds, read car review sites,
How would those companies stay in business in your hypothetical world?
@Lorne Kates said:
I don't need ads to hear about products,
Nobody's saying you need ads. That's ridiculous.
@Lorne Kates said:
You asked me how ads harm me, and I gave you that example.
No; I asked how tracking cookies harmed you. You still haven't answered the question.
-
@Lorne Kates said:
1) Tracking data is 100% useless on its own. It only exists to make ads served more profitable.
2) Tracking cookies don't harm you, but opposition to tracking cookies harms thousands of workers like me. Indirectly, admittedly.
So tracking data DOES make ads more profitable, and benefits you.
So make up your mind. Is Tracking Data useful or not?
Those two points aren't mutually-exclusive.
@Lorne Kates said:
2) Accidentaly exposure of personal information to antagonistic third parties
What antagonistic third party?
And I repeat for about the 50,000th time: it's not personal information, it's anonymized.
@Lorne Kates said:
4b) ... by neglecting or suppressing arts and technology that is/would be enjoyed by the public but isn't marketable. (For example, think about your favorite show that was really fucking good, but was cancelled because it didn't rate higher than the reality show de jeur)
All of the shows I like were ad-supported. How do you propose shows fund themselves?
@Lorne Kates said:
If I keep the cookie, I'm still tracked and that is still useful marketing information.
No it's not.
-
@blakeyrat said:
@joe.edwards said:
My point was that tracking data is valuable to virtually every company with customers; basically the opposite of what you said.
Hm, I see what you're saying, and I'd respond: maybe. Tracking data within a site certainly is, but tracking data between different sites (which is what we're talking about, unless you're Lorne and you're just spitting out whatever turds come to mind) isn't nearly as much so.
If I had usage analytics data for sale for competitor websites (and for some handwave reason it's legal), they'd throw cash at me hand over fist to buy it.
The reason why advertisers and social networks are doing all the tracking is they're the ones in a position to incentivize third-party websites to collect it for them.
Marketers (all kinds) go batshit backflipping crazy for usage data.
-
@joe.edwards said:
Marketers (all kinds) go batshit backflipping crazy for usage data.
Ok.
-
@blakeyrat said:
All of the shows I like were ad-supported. How do you propose shows fund themselves?
How about getting paid up front? The old patronage model does work for certain activities.
Yeah, it's a different paradigm, but you're guaranteed to always make back at least your production cost. If you produce a popular item, you can charge more for the next one.
If you want the model of winning the "popular content lottery through rent seeking" then you should have to risk the possibility of zero remuneration in exchange.
Nobody* ever consciously said to themselves "I'm willing to watch this broadcast TV show at no out-of-pocket expense to myself in exchange for having to sit through commercials." Modern advertising isn't satisfied with that old model - they want ways to force people to be exposed to their ads.
This is why there is uproar. Whether it's justified or not is a different issue entirely.
*Yes, yes, hyperbole and generalization and all that
-
@blakeyrat said:
@joe.edwards said:
When I was shopping for a car, I kept noticing ads for specific make and model combinations I had been researching (I ended up with a Prius). It did make me feel uncomfortable.
Why? Why did it make you feel uncomfortable?
It made me feel uncomfortable because site A had no affiliation with site B, so it seemed like they knew more than they ostensibly should have about me.
Let's say I have a private conversation with friend A, and tell her that my favorite kind of Foo is Bar. A few days later, I meet a new business associate B and talk over a steaming bowl of Foo. He tells me he already ordered my favorite. WHY DOES HE KNOW THAT?
You can say it's not the same thing at all, but it really is. We form relationships with brands. Their sharing information with each other feels like a violation of trust. In our analogy, I didn't mention to friend A that this was confidential information - it wasn't - but just the fact that she is gossiping about me, especially in completely different social circles, is offputting, and I probably would lose some trust with friend A at that point.
Now, OK, website A didn't really tell website B about me; Ads-R-Us was simply eavesdropping on my conversation with website A. If anything, that's worse.
Your point is that vague touchy-feely emotions are irrelevant. I say fuck that point, society as a whole depends on reasonable expectations of privacy and amiable social interactions.
-
@joe.edwards said:
It made me feel uncomfortable because site A had no affiliation with site B, so it seemed like they knew more than they ostensibly should have about me.
And why does that make you uncomfortable? How much "should" they know about you?
Are they aware that you have some "minimum level of stuff a site can know about me before I feel uncomfortable" measurement unit? Do you expect them to be aware of that? How?
@joe.edwards said:
Let's say I have a private conversation with friend A, and tell her that my favorite kind of Foo is Bar. A few days later, I meet a new business associate B and talk over a steaming bowl of Foo. He tells me he already ordered my favorite. WHY DOES HE KNOW THAT?
You can say it's not the same thing at all, but it really is.
I get it's the same thing.
I *don't* get why that makes you uncomfortable.
@joe.edwards said:
Now, OK, website A didn't really tell website B about me; Ads-R-Us was simply eavesdropping on my conversation with website A. If anything, that's worse.
Why?
@joe.edwards said:
Your point is that vague touchy-feely emotions are irrelevant.
Only if they're not backed by any rational thought.
-
@too_many_usernames said:
The old patronage model does work for certain activities.
So you're suggesting the solution to ads is that the only entertainment we should get is what the super-wealthy decide to fund and then offer to us for free?
@too_many_usernames said:
Yeah, it's a different paradigm, but you're guaranteed to always make back at least your production cost.
You're just shifting the cost from the producers to a benevolent rich person.
@too_many_usernames said:
Nobody* ever consciously said to themselves "I'm willing to watch this broadcast TV show at no out-of-pocket expense to myself in exchange for having to sit through commercials."
Of course they do. In fact, most people would seem to be happy to watch ads if it gets them free TV.
@too_many_usernames said:
Modern advertising isn't satisfied with that old model - they want ways to force people to be exposed to their ads.
What the fuck are you on about? Your "old model" is from the effing Renaissance.
-
@blakeyrat said:
@joe.edwards said:
Now, OK, website A didn't really tell website B about me; Ads-R-Us was simply eavesdropping on my conversation with website A. If anything, that's worse.
Why?
I thought the verb eavesdrop might clue you in. I think your question has the same answer as, "why is wiretapping illegal without a warrant?"
-
Ok. Slow down buddy. Let's talk this out.
You go to a restaurant with friend B. He orders crab salad for you, which is your favorite. He explains he learned about your favorite food from friend A.
Why does that make you uncomfortable? I want you to explain what exactly is uncomfortable about that situation.
-
It's sunny out and I have a dance show to rehearse for. Don't take my silence for giving up. I'll be wasting more of my employer's money tomorrow morning.
-
@morbiuswilters said:
So you're suggesting the solution to ads is that the only entertainment we should get is what the super-wealthy decide to fund and then offer to us for free?
If you're up in arms about having to watch ads, then, yes. You can't really have it both ways - you either watch ads and let the ad people pay for it, or you only get what scraps fall from the patronage model. (Although Kickstarter seems to have demonstrated that patrons don't have to be single rich entities by any means.)
@morbiuswilters said:
Of course they do. In fact, most people would seem to be happy to watch ads if it gets them free TV.
I'd argue they tolerate the ads and appreciate the bathroom / snack breaks.
@morbiuswilters said:
What the fuck are you on about? Your "old model" is from the effing Renaissance.
I was just saying that people scream because they want their free stuff, and the people paying for it are now saying "no you have to do this (watch the ads we paid the content producer to put in front of you) first." The comparison to "old model" was actually old broadcast TV, not renaissance patronage in that case. Specifically, old advertisers were happy to just have the TV broadcast the ads and the viewer could do whatever they want, compared to now when they are saying "nu uh you can't go to the other room while this ad is active."
