New Firefox Collusion... ATS and 3rd party Cookies

We can be overly paranoid at times.

You can assign a "read only" designation to the macro-media file making ad-dons like Betterprivacy unnecessary. Don't have a clue how to do it in Windows (Gurgle it) but it's just a change of permissions (make hidden files visible, right click the folder) in most Linux distros.

my Dad worked in reconaissance for decades. I think this instilled in me that anything that can be connected to the internet is tracked; we really can't avoid it without serious MAC address shuffling, etc.

It also instilled in me the idea that I don't care. I imagine at some point it might make a difference if people are hirable for certain jobs, or that we prefer to look at a certain type of porn or something.... but honestly I don't worry about it. When our world comes (overtly) to that point people will fight it - it will be a reason to mass together and stop TPTB.

Originally posted by L00kingGlass
We can be overly paranoid at times.

I think maybe that should say overly reactive! The tracking is there and obvious, it's how we react to it that matters.

Not to hijack your thread op, but I made a similar thread about this topic a few days ago. about how I thought there was a conspiracy that ats was leaving the high volume threads out of hoax or grey area forums (when they clearly deserved it) to build more traffic for the ads... It got moved twice by the mods.... But in the end SO made some very good points... And Im sure hell make more good points in this thread as well

reply to post by PrecogPsychicSensitive


Any Mods? Care to explain this finding? ...Or do mods only delete threads and block comments?

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

Originally posted by Only1King
reply to post by PrecogPsychicSensitive

 

Any Mods? Care to explain this finding? ...Or do mods only delete threads and block comments?

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

They responded in page 2

reply to post by Only1King


'erm.... friendly advice, read the whole thread before posting...

I don't care if someone is looking at our stuff, actually isn't that the point. If someone of influence or power takes a good thing we perceive and it changes the world in a positive way it cannot be anything but good. Trouble lies in this philosophy though is our individual perception of good. I wonder if the saying "out of all bad comes some good and out of all good comes some bad" can be overwritten by a better way of life ? I don't know where my father got that saying, it was probably borrowed from someone else.

Oh no, guess they will find out that I like anime and manga...and the occasional doujin.

Well, also like going to various forums.

reply to post by Only1King


Site administrator's response:

Originally posted by Crakeur
While I am sure that SO will have much more to say on this, let me clarify a few of the sites mentioned that, apparently, we link to.

google - duh. how else will anyone find ats when they google?
google+ - there's a google+ button on the site now so it has to link back to that
quantcast - quantcast, like alexa, is an information site that shows traffic and other stats on websites
gorilla nation - advertising. they provide us with some of our ads
doubleclick - see above
tribal fusion - see above
and so on. we have a variety of ad networks so each one will wind up on the list.


as to the gent who said that, since there's no way we would know if someone is blocking ads, you are correct and, yet, our members love to announce it in every thread that ads are discussed. We are relying on our members to honor that condition and, in return, we bring you all the alternative news and conspiracy theory we can, as fast as we can and it's all free.

Site owner's response:

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
I'm just about to head out for some much needed exercise (off road cycling on the awesome trails here in Arizona) but will quickly respond and check in later.

We're not hiding anything. All of this is revealed in our privacy policy (linked at the bottom of every page) and we have a large "Ad Coices" button at the bottom of every page.

Without all this, it's impossible for sites like ATS to realize revenue sufficient for operations and growth. ATS is free and always will be. It's our job to present members and visitors with an equitable value proposition such that the services and content more than make up for what's mentioned here.

Both on page 2 of this thread


I've tried it and nothing happened at first, but then all the circles started showing up and it was really interesting seeing the connections.

reply to post by PrecogPsychicSensitive


What is a real job? Working at walmart?

You seem jealous

How do I explain this..... A very brief history is needed...

Some years ago I began digging very deep in to subjects like mind control. technologies like Tesla's stuff etc. I was also one of them idiots that actually read the bills, acts, directives and EO's when bush came into office. Even when it took days and weeks reading through them, doing research and so on. This list goes off in many directions. To many to list here.

Let me first say that I did not have viruses, trojans or the like. I even went to the extreme of formatting drive and starting from ground zero if I suspected any of those things. I lived with a hacker for a time so I learned many things that allowed me to identify that I was being hacked/watched.

For about 4 to 5 years I was being harassed. I can only speculate as to whom it was. I was being prevented from viewing controversial website, video etc. Things I would download to show hubby the next day, were being corrupted or deleted outright. I downloaded my Bill of Rights and Constitution more times then I care to remember. I always checked to make sure things downloaded properly before shutting down for the night. So I know they were NOT corrupted. I would watch emails coming in to my private ISP email literally vanish before my eyes. Emails where being intercepted and not show up for days from the date they were sent to me or others from me. This I tested repeatedly to confirm my suspicion. Again this list is being extremely shortened.

Point is this... I know I am being watched. Even after switching to linux, I was let know that I could not prevent this. I know I can not prevent them, whomever they are, from watching me. But I will make it as difficult for them as I possibly can. It is not fun losing complete control of your computer and no matter what you did you could not get control back with out formatting and starting over once again.

Absolutely nothing to do with paranoia...

~Babbling Idiot~

Don't they only make money if we click on said ads?

I use the add-on NoScript and you can mark untrusted sites from running scripts on each web page you visit. You may not be able to stop ALL scripts but I've mitigated a lot them from this free add-on. This should help sites from receiving your data.

Originally posted by Chadwickus
Probably a good time to point this out from the T&C's...

20b) Ad Blockers: As the Websites are provided as a free service, in part through the income of our advertising, you agree not to use "ad-blocking" software or similar built-in web browser options designed to obfuscate or block online advertising while using the Websites.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

that's kind of stupid... ads take away from the ats experience. and anytime I see an ad I leave the said site. so why does ats want me to look at its ads

Originally posted by LonelyGuy

Originally posted by Chadwickus
Probably a good time to point this out from the T&C's...

20b) Ad Blockers: As the Websites are provided as a free service, in part through the income of our advertising, you agree not to use "ad-blocking" software or similar built-in web browser options designed to obfuscate or block online advertising while using the Websites.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

that's kind of stupid... ads take away from the ats experience. and anytime I see an ad I leave the said site. so why does ats want me to look at its ads

I'm guessing so they can pay their bills and feed their families.

Originally posted by PrecogPsychicSensitive

Originally posted by Chadwickus
Probably a good time to point this out from the T&C's...

20b) Ad Blockers: As the Websites are provided as a free service, in part through the income of our advertising, you agree not to use "ad-blocking" software or similar built-in web browser options designed to obfuscate or block online advertising while using the Websites.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Would ATS know if someone was using ad blockers?.. if not, then thats a pointless T&C..

lol, no I doubt they would know. They just expect you to follow that rule. It should obviously be an optional thing, especially on a website like this. All websites in this day and age are filled with trackers, to the point of absurdity. Those people who browse the internet using a default Internet Explorer browser are just begging to be tracked and infected with the tidal wave of nonsense that will hit them on every single page they visit, without them even really knowing it. Most people here contribute the content that ATS makes a profit on, then for them to enforce a rule such as that mentioned above onto their user base is completely unfair. It should be optional, because people are going to use an ad-blocker despite what the rules say. Some people simply don't want to be connected to all those external 3rd parties.

reply to post by PrecogPsychicSensitive

Like someone else said. ATS is a free site. You really can't expect them to host something this big without some seriously hard costs. So there's a trade-off called advertising and it's fully understandable. I doubt ATS management even knows where some of those "cookies" originate, probably CIA/NSA front companies but there will only be a few and really, one is too much.

So you have a choice, live with it or get cookie blocking software. As I said in another thread, you can configure Firefox to tell sites not to track and to disable third part cookies. Both options are in TOOLS --> OPTIONS --> PRIVACY.

ETA: Here's a little more information. I am running Ghostery and Collusion with site tracking and third party cookies turned off in Firefox. Collusion shows NO accumulation of cookies. Firefox in the TOOLS --> OPTIONS --> PRIVACY --> SHOW COOKIES only shows cookies for ATS which is correct. But Ghostery shows every outside cookie "placement attempt" however it appears they are not being stored.

Cheers - Dave

as to the gent who said that, since there's no way we would know if someone is blocking ads, you are correct and, yet, our members love to announce it in every thread that ads are discussed. We are relying on our members to honor that condition and, in return, we bring you all the alternative news and conspiracy theory we can, as fast as we can and it's all free.

For what it's worth, there are ways to detect if someone is using an adblocker, and then serve up a message to that person as a result. I've run into that on a few sites. But I also disable adblocker for sites I think have merit (like this site). After all, without those ads, this site does not exist.

A site apparently can make a lot of $$$ from ads however. Facebook for example, makes 85% of their billions from advertisting alone. That's pretty amazing.

Not a single thing from this site sending data.
My configuration of addblock plus (with "antisocial"subscription) , no script and siteblock did a great job.
Great add on to test if anything slips trough though. THX for posting!