Slashdot Log In
The Advertisers are Watching You
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Monday March 10, @10:24AM
from the zip-it-up-buddy dept.
from the zip-it-up-buddy dept.
pcause noted that the New York Times is running a story about the information being collected about you by internet advertisers. Of course much of this is not news to you, but it's important that the mainstream media is more aware of the issues surrounding this.
Related Stories
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
You may be surprised who is involved (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You may be surprised who is involved (Score:4, Interesting)
Mainstrem media attention not "important" or good (Score:5, Insightful)
Stuff like this doesn't really inform the general public, it only frightens them and makes them even more irrational. It's like the occassional story about the kidnapped kid or terrorist attack that causes everyone to freak out and start demanding irrational laws.
Re:Mainstrem media attention not "important" or go (Score:4, Interesting)
At the risk of straying off-topic, I'd like to see a "mainstream media" story about the different security risks/exposures between internet purchases, phone purchases, and in-store purchases. Tracking behavior is certainly easier online, but cutting people out of the loop does good things for security. Although imperfect, I trust automated billing a lot more than inmates working phone banks or high-schoolers swiping cards at their summer employment and throwing away paper receipts.
Re:Mainstrem media attention not "important" or go (Score:3, Informative)
Yet, I can almost guarantee these are the same people who have no problem with the government wiretapping their phones without a warrant, or having a Na
Re:Mainstrem media attention not "important" or go (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mainstrem media attention not "important" or go (Score:4, Insightful)
Once you know that every character in your page request has been sent through an adware service, you kinda lose control of your bowels
That may be... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Advertising is intended to lie to me. I refuse to spend time listening to known liars.
Re:That may be... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I still think it's a little inaccurate to say that all ads are trying to get you to buy something based "on issues aside from the products qualities". That's often true - Fear-mongering / Band-wagon attacks / etc are common. But ads do exist that do nothing more than try to make you aware of a product's qualities rather than trying to delude you.
I'm not saying, I'm just saying...
Re:That may be... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That may be... (Score:5, Interesting)
Feel free to correct me if anyone has actual knowledge/data. I reject the argument that white-listing is stupid because advertisers suck - I know they do but, if they pay sites I like to provide content to me without forcing me to subscribe, I'll put up with them. But, if white-listing slashdot (et al.) really does not help them at all, then I'll clean out my white-list.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously. I've been waiting for a check for like, five years now. All of those adblocking slashdot readers must be interfering with my revenue stream.
Re:That may be... (Score:5, Insightful)
I still don't get the supposed benefit of "well-targeted" ads. Every time I hear that phrase I think of the book/movie Minority Report.
As for sites like slashdot shutting down... meh. I like slashdot and all, but quite frankly, if it went under because a few people who don't like to see ads block them, then so be it. There was an internet before massive amounts of advertising. There will continue to be an internet with massive amounts of ad blocking. If they invent more invasive methods, we'll block those too and you suckers who feel morally obligated to look at them will just have to suck it up.
-matthew
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I see dead ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Privacy is the next killer ap (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
- use Firefox.
- use Adblock. Constantly update it. Mercilessly add all sites that push annoying, irrelevant ads onto your screen.
- regularly clear your cookies. Block any cookie forever from any web
Use a tracker filter (Score:3, Informative)
stuff (webbugs, tracking scripts, etc.), the "ABP Tracking Filter" [adblockplus.org] (see #3 on the left).
This of course doesn't make you anonymous online at all, but it helps against the worst
offenders and keeps your data out of their DBs.
(Full disclosure: I am a co-author of that list)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cookies (Score:5, Informative)
I personally use two ways to block this. First is NoScript which is a must have companion to Adblock. Adblock stops the known stuff, NoScript stops the unknown stuff.
Second, on Windows, I deleted the Flash Player folder in Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Macromedia, and created a text file with the exact same name as the folder. This makes the Flash player unable to write any persistent data to disk. However, this does sometimes mess up sites like YouTube which store legit preferences.
Third, I run a utility called ccleaner (used to be called Crap Cleaner) which is great for removing random junk left over in Windows apps.
This is not perfect, but good for most sites. If you want better security, consider running your Web browser in a VM that dumps all changes since a known good snapshot. I do this for some entertainment Flash sites because I don't feel like allowing, even temporarily, all the data mining companies write access to my machine.