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Comment by gorhill | Hacker News Reader

> it is irresponsible, populist and ultimately self-defeating for uBlock and chums to block self-hosted Piwik

First, a precision: EasyPrivacy blocks Piwik. uBlock Origin enables EasyPrivacy by default. If you think it's wrong for Piwik to be blocked, bring the issue to EasyPrivacy maintainers.

Now, why is it "irresponsible" for Piwik to be blocked?

Some of us just do not like to have all our movements scrutinized, even by 1st parties -- I personally consider this a healthy stance, I just do not like to be treated as a product.

Also, what guarantee there is that all the data collected by one 1st party through Piwik is not sold to any number of 3rd parties? There is no guarantee -- thus all tracking deserve to be blocked as much as it can. It's for the same reason I choose to not disclose my phone number or postal code at the cash register when they ask in brick-and-mortar stores.

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I think the 'ethical' choice is some kind of a middle ground approach. It's true if everyone blocked all tracking and analytics the web could not exist as the largely free service that it does today. Websites also would struggle to improve their quality without the analytical data.

That's why I think the orbital strike option of block everything all the time is ultimately selfish. I think individuals should make some attempt to block ads/tracking that they think is itself immoral but not block what they consider fine.

For example, I don't block ads in google search results since they are unobtrusive and clearly marked as ads.

If you're really this worried then you should probably be spoofing your request headers and hiding your IP behind a VPN, because those will reveal a lot more about you than what most 1st party trackers will.

> Some of us just do not like to have all our movements scrutinized, even by 1st parties -- I personally consider this a healthy stance, I just do not like to be treated as a product.

And that is your choice and I can respect that, but please, don't be one of those entitled people who complain about a website completely blocking you for blocking their stuff.

And for the record, I love uBlock and your work. I use it myself, but I use it in blacklist mode only. Which I feel is the best way to do it. Block the shady sites, don't hurt the ones who just want to get a little analytics.

If you make it an arms race, you will never be done racing. You should be honored that people want to use your site, not angry because you feel entitled to creep on them just because they made a GET request.

Yeah, I get it. I should be honored to pay a server bill to display content that you want to see, and not get anything out of it.

You should be honored I had the content you wanted to see and agree to what I require in exchange to view said content.

So many people claim they'd rather pay a fee to view a site than have an ads shown to them.. But in practice, I highly doubt anyone would pay for the amount of sites they visit daily that display ads in exchange for delivering the content they want to see.

Why are you so hung up on the server bill? The costs of distributing information are next to '0'. The cost of the creation is an entirely different matter.

Cost of creation is one aspect, a server bill is the most tangible way to show cost. Take your post for example. Did it cost you a lot to write it? No. But I bet the cost in resources on your server for it making the front page of HN did go up.

It's negligible compared to the time I spent writing it. At the same time, there are no ads on that page and there isn't a single tracker on it either. And the way the page has been slimmed down the bandwidth costs are a lot lower than what you might think they would be (that page transfers less than 15K of data).

If server costs are a worry then definitely spend some time on thinking about slimming down the presentation to the point where those are no longer a worry.

Whether that page gets viewed 10K or 100K times doesn't bother me, if it would get into the millions I'd have to do something about it (probably slim it down even further).

I mean don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved your post and I understand it, but your argument right now is pure anecdotal.

I haven't ran a site in the last 5 years that had an advertisement on it. But I have ran sites in the past that served over 400,000 unique visitors a day, and the only way I could afford to continue delivering the content that those visitors came for was to either require them to pay for it, or put advertisements on it.

I couldn't afford at that time a $1500/mo server bill to give content out for the love of it. It was a full time job just to curate and provide the content let alone work a full time job to pay for it too.

I see both sides. If you want to block ads and trackers, I fully understand and that is your right. I just don't like the fact that people feel entitled to the content of the website without agreeing to view the other stuff on the same page.

Once again, if you block my ads, go for it, your right. But it's also my right to deny you that content on the fact that you blocked my ads.

Ah, but you are conflating ads and trackers, which is exactly the root of the problem. I'd be more than happy to view the ads, I might even click on them. But I point blank refuse to be profiled/tracked/long term cookied/finger printed and served a side of malware to boot.

That is the problem here.

But people fight the trackers by installing adblockers, because lets face it, the biggest offenders are ad companies. And all ad blockers are in whitelist mode by default, and nobody cares enough to turn it to blacklist mode, as a result the guys who display tasteful, unintrusive, non tracking ads, get caught in the crossfire, and the go to argument by these people is "It's my right to block anything I want." but in another breath they're complaining because a company decided that if you block their ads, they're blocking you.

Yes, but I think it is a step (or rather several steps) too far to blame the users here. The advertising industry decided to take what it could so here we are today. Web properties have had ample time and opportunity to dial up the heat on the agencies and the ad-tech companies to stop this all from happening but the money was just too good.

So now the unintrusive, non tracking ads (the good guys, if you wish) will be lumped in with the rest, because they are a very small fraction of the total and people that have finally had enough of all this can't be bothered to be precise enough about how hard they slam the door.

And I'm not complaining about companies that block me because I run an ad blocker, I couldn't care less, their loss, not mine, there is enough content out there that you couldn't consume it in several lifetimes if you wanted to.

I would just like to say I enjoyed this discussion. Most people don't like my stance on adblocking (I'm not totally against it, I use and love uBlock Origin) and it usually ends up with me being downvoted to oblivion for having an alternative opinion.

Have a good weekend and happy high five Friday.

The same to you. Thank you for the exchange and have a nice weekend!

Ads in some context are okay. People who use adblockers wouldn't click on your ads even if they'd see them. But tracking is a completely different thing and much more serious. And most of the time I don't even have a choice, the website just tracks everything about me with no way of turning it off.

The way trackers are implemented, they aren't a trade of good content for some info. They're a proposal of "I won't even let you find out whether I have good content unless you give me your info up-front". It's literally the privacy-invading equivalent of a clickwrap EULA that you can't read until after you've already agreed to it.

To which the answer is "no, now take the business model that you thought required this and shove it somewhere anatomically improbable".

I can understand phone number, but what possible reason is there to refuse to give zip code? The only thing I can think of using that information for is to determine the optimal location to open another store.

With tinfoil hat on, they mighy want to get a few more fingerprinting bits. https://panopticlick.eff.org

Zip code data correlates strongly to wealth.

I thought part of the reason they ask for zipcode is that it is for verification purposes if you use a credit card to pay

I've only ever run into that when getting gas, and even then only in high-fraud or very busy areas.

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