Jonathan Mayer Threatens To End “Do Not Track” Talks
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
It is also riddled with technical errors that suggest this journalist lacks even the basic understanding of technology that should be a prerequisite for working in this space.
This is all especially frustrating because, for some strange reason, these Business Insider pieces get a lot of traction online. This piece is on the HN front page at the moment, and their last, similarly asinine, piece about the proposal to block 3rd Party Cookies in Firefox has over 3,000 comments on Reddit. [1]
For a more accurate representation of the current state of Mayer's 3rd party cookie blocking patch, read Brendan Eich's recent post [2].
[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1dy74c/jonathan_... [2] https://brendaneich.com/2013/05/c-is-for-cookie/
"The move might also invite legislation from Congress."
So ... presumably a govt body would define what a web browser is, then define what tracking is, and then ... what ? Legislate browser code ?
Would wget need defaults built in for the code that comes over ? What if I 'nc' to port 80 and redirect to a file ?
What is a "web browser" anyway ? What constitutes consumption of tracking codes ? Are there punishments involved ? Is the curl library at fault if it is misused in this government mandated way ?
Terrible, depressing, and predictable.
* Some governments require windows to present a choice of web browsers.
* Some governments require websites, operating systems, or programs to provide for accessibility to the disabled.
Some governments also regulate information collection and sharing:
* Some governments (including the US) regulate what information credit card companies must provide to consumers.
* Some governments (including the US) regulate what info credit bureaus can collect, sell, require them to provide free copies on demand to those surveilled, and set up a framework for a dispute process.
It's perfectly reasonable for governments, as an agent of the people, to create laws and regulations around what can be collected and how. And yes, code may have to go into browsers to comply.
Online tracking is a difficult problem without a purely technical solution available. Even with 3rd party cookies blocked, advertisers will still use first party cookies (Google, Facebook), or more sneaky and difficult to mititgate mechanisms (browser fingerprinting, evercookies) to track Internet users.
Legislating is slow, uncertain, full of compromise, and riddled with conflicts of interest (hold the comparisons to the current DNT negotiations, please). While it is sometimes appropriate, or required as the only remaining recourse, it is far from an ideal solution - especially with a problem such as this where there is such an imbalance of influence between parties in Washington.
Governments routinely get involved in matters such as this and by every account it makes a lot of sense. Online advertising is a critical part of many businesses and there needs to be stable, considered policies that factor in everyone's interests.
Let's move beyond that obvious stumbling block and assume their non-existent jurisdiction actually exists: how do you expect this to be enforced? Do we levy fines against any entity (human or otherwise) distributing non-compliant web browsers? Do we install ransomware on people's computers that locks their devices unless only authorized browsers are installed?
When bits pass by my router then I will do with them as I please.
If you build a house for free, does that mean it's exempt from building codes?
If people don't want to use my software then they don't have to.
Oh and by the way, you OWN a house.
And relatedly, if I give away viruses for free, am I good to go?
Not that I'm particularly sanguine about the odds of legislators getting it right, but I agree with rayiner that "open-source" isn't a GOOJF card.
On the other hand, it seems clear that code I write only for my own use has different regulatory requirements. In general, laws often let people do riskier things for themselves, relative to risks they let people take on behalf of others. But in this case, if you write code for yourself, it's obvious that you opted in to its features.
Right. I think a law that said that open source browsers had to do this or that would be stupid. But that's a strawman anyway. The regulation would probably involve what advertisers could do, or regulate browsers sold with PCs or tablets, or whatever. Not that I'm in favor of regulating it at all... but the fact that it's open source has nothing to do with it.
Is the new trope to say "you are just citing fallacies instead of having an argument?"
OK. Then instead I will say:
"The fact that there will be some dividing line between a web browser and something that sends out packets doesn't mean that we cannot establish any regulations at all on web browsers. Like there is some speed that you will get you written up while some speed marginally less than it will not -- this does not mean that there is no such thing as a legal limit on speed. Nerds often think they are Kirk talking the super-computer into destroying itself for having some logical inconsistency, when in reality the world is full of inconsistencies, and the law has already had a long line of jokers line up in court thinking that they are going to use their superior minds to outsmart the system. You are nothing new, you are nothing special, look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair."
I think it's easier on everyone to just link to a Wiki page, but, hey, I can cut-and-paste from my private text files just as easily.
A) Firefox holds its ground, Advertisers hold their ground as well. Advertisers refuse to work with websites that support the version of Firefox with "Do Not Track", unless the websites add some code to tell their visitors to use another browser/refuse to load the site. This leads to two scenarios:
Ai) Developers agree and implement advertiser strategy, Firefox becomes an unreliable browsing experience, market share slips. Firefox possibly reverses position.
Aii) Developers refuse to implement advertiser strategy (by using either another ad partner or moving to a different monetization strategy), and advertisers finally reverse position.
B) Firefox holds its ground, advertisers cave: websites start seeing less revenue from ads as targeting isn't as effective anymore, websites that get most of their money from ad revenue either start panicking and blocking Firefox users, or start putting up paywalls.
C) Firefox yields, advertisers get their way: pretty much the status quo.
D) Firefox yields, advertisers yield: some sort of compromise between the two camps.
Yeah, that is likely the same number of issues you will have with no third-party cookies.
It's also an unfair comparison because Adblock is opt-in -- you have to download the add-on to get it to work, which not many people are willing to do (what percentage of Firefox users use AdBlock -- maybe 5%?). DNT, on the other hand, is something all Firefox users will have enabled by default -- Imagine 20% of the worldwide browsing market suddenly blocking all tracking cookies.
...why not just not do the video at all? Playing a blocked ad for longer doesn't seem to make any sense.
They could probably block people who block ads and just refuse to serve the video, but that could prevent people from legitimately watching the show if their adblock-checker went haywire. Plus, users would be probably more pissed if you outright blocked them rather than if you made their experience annoying.
It's opt-in. My guess is that the gap between people willing to install an add-in and people willing to dig into their settings and check a box is not large.
...That would leave Firefox in a permanent state of blocking advertisers' cookies by default.
But surely it must me much higher in the technology segment.
Block third-party cookies for everybody, and the ad industry suddenly starts to care. The perennial pitches for first-party tracking and first-party ad-serving products get funded this time around, and eventually you won't be able to block ads and tracking without simultaneously blocking site content and functionality.
Having third-party cookies turned off won't cause you any problems, it's true, but that'll be because what they used to do will get done through other means.
Currently, whenever I hear "I see too many ads for shit that is too related to my interests" (paraphrased), I consider it the ultimate 21st century 1st world problem. Because this is how sites make their money, and how Google got to where it is today. You want to cut off online ads? Fine:
- Any sites that are free will undergo a paywall, as people don't work for free. - More apps in the app stores increase their prices, as ad revenue is no longer there for the apps they create - More paywalls and higher prices mean that lower income people and people in developing countries can't access free and distributable content.
And don't give me this BS about how "If X site were pay-per-use with no ads, I would totally pay for it" because <i>power users don't power websites</i> ... as soon as you charge for something then 90% of the users drop off. [See: Google Reader, any social network, etc.]
That model may have worked for Google Reader as well. Social networks have a harder time, because anything that reduces interaction in the network reduces the value for everyone.
Maybe you should find less obstructive ways to charge people? If the charges occurred in the background, without anyone having to log in and enter credit card data over and over, it would be a lot easier to get people to do it. If paying 0.1 cents per page were transparent and required no login or special authorizations, I am pretty sure that 90% would drop significantly.
Basically, what you need is digital cash, and you need to link it to something people already pay for (say, their ISP). Imagine if you pay your ISP for service, and as part of that payment, you received a bunch of digital cash tokens that would be sent to websites as you visited them. Yes, you would need some security to ensure that these tokens were not stolen by malicious advertisers, but I do not think that is an insurmountable problem (and it is no different than click fraud). Set a sensible default for the number of tokens that will be held at the begin of a billing period (say, enough for 50,000 page views per month -- probably more than even the most bored 4chan user will visit), and address issues related to large organizations providing their users with access (e.g. universities, libraries, etc.) and you might actually solve the problem.
It is not a perfect solution by any means, but (a) it protects everyone's privacy and (b) removes the need for spam^H^H^H^Hweb advertising.
Further it's regressive, as it impacts lower income and developing countries hardest.
People in general do pay for apps and do pay for subscriptions to specific sites (e.g. Netflix). I do not think the problem is that people are cheap. Let's put it this way: imagine having to enter payment information every time you clicked on a HN link.
That is the reason sites see people running for the hills when they put up a paywall. The paywall interrupts the entire experience, and people just go elsewhere. There is also the matter of charging people enough to even cover the transaction costs -- which results in big charges that scare people off. From where I sit, the answer is to make the payments as small and transparent as possible, and digital cash is a perfect fit.
"it's stupid and a generally despised practice (and they STILL show you commercials!)"
This is where I think the problem will come in: the fact that web advertising would not go away even if a micropayment system were used. The answer is for browsers to fight advertising head on, making things like ABP the default.
"Further it's regressive, as it impacts lower income and developing countries hardest."
Sure, but that is a social problem, not a technical problem, and there are social solutions to it. Here is one idea, adapted from Jaron Lanier: pay people for their contributions to websites. Imagine if every HN upvote gave you 1/10 the cost of a single page view. Imagine if every time someone viewed your Youtube video, you received some fraction of the micropayment sent to Youtube. That is clearly a harder thing to do, since it requires that individual people receive payments, but again it is not insurmountable from a technical perspective. People in developing countries could then monetize their own use of the Internet, and possibly bootstrap their web browsing (or make it less painful).
Another idea is that developing countries can host their own websites, with their own payment structures, catering to local cultures and languages. The Internet is not supposed to have borders, so I am not a big fan of this approach, but it does have its advantages.
And that is basically what I want: an internet of people who are writing because they want to, about what they want, not demand media writing crap. I want the rest to be paid for, or run on donations (see Wikipedia). I would love the best webmail client to be one I had to pay 3 usd/month for but which integrated PGP, instead of gmail.
Adds create monopolies, paying for services creates oppertunism for competition.
I REALLY disagree with this statement, namely because the data shows otherwise when it comes to the online space -- for example, Waze became a legitimate contender by <i>remaining free</i> and instead doing location based advertising. Bing and other search engines are allowed to be decent competitors to Google because advertising drives search.
Second, donations is not a scalable model for the internet, as it definitely doesn't allow for competition in any meaningful way at large scale. Why does it work for Wikipedia? Because of its mission to remain free for anyone in the world (also because of a desire to be unbiased, but let's table that for now, because as politics tells us donations don't always lead to unbiased decisions.)
And honestly, that should be the crux here: the idea of a paywall for Wikipedia or any site that advocates for free and open information dispersal would immediately devalue its mission -- a rando in Uganda should have the same access to information as me in my cushy western Tech job.
... and we'll end up right where we are today.
I certainly hope people would think twice about actually implementing something like that.
and people will come up with ways to set and spoof what kind of headers their browser sends.
but your right, where we are today is where people that care enough to circumvent tracking, do circumvent it.
EDIT: Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but the only way I can get an article to show up on this site is to disable all plugins, and load it in an incognito window. Up-to-date Chrome on up-to-date Lion.
(Edit: Chrome on a mac, no plugins. I've enabled 'Block 3rd party cookies and site data' and Click to play for flash)
Weirdly enough after four of five clicks it finally directed me to the article.
Luckily, I don't generally find its content worth unblocking.
This is what I predict will happen, should Mozilla begin shipping with it turned on by default.
Advertisers will modify their contracts such that they pay $x if tracking is enabled on the browser and $y if it is not. $y will be much less than $x, perhaps 1/10th the amount because the Advertiser will argue it is harder to detect and prevent fraud without the tracking cookies.
Web sites will then these do not track (DNT) sessions as "low value" sessions and will either refuse to display content, or force some difficult to subvert captcha movie watching thing with survey in order to establish the low fraud barrier and get the 'good' price for ads.
The result will be that 'free' web sites will become even more obnoxious and subscription sites where they actually reduce or eliminate the advertisements altogether will become more practical.
I also just realised that there are sites in the US, UK, Europe to watch and follow debates on each parliament, but the debates on the important workings of these groups seem to be sporadically reported, even here on HN.
Anyone want to help me setup a "theyworkforyou" for w3c working groups?
(I mean if congress rules how a browser should behave in the US, does it affect me here? If not then frankly these groups overrule each individual parliament in fairly significant ways )
Now, you could argue, this is desirable -- after all, companies with large consumer brands have much more at risk in terms of doing unethical things with data (yes, I'm aware of the irony of saying that after the PRISM issue, but I think that only affirms my point). At the same time, does Google/FB/etc need any more help in dominating advertising than they already do?
If we (e.g. Mozilla, others, open web supporters) want to educate users about 3rd party cookies can't we just create a new startup wizard or something, like the windows "choose a browser" popup?