If these first party ads are just showing me some sponsored message, then I'm totally ok with that. It's the tracking and arbitrary execution of third party code that drives me to block ads. And if a site has a truly awful first party ad experience and I can't block it? I'll probably stop using it, because I don't use sites that frustrate me if I don't have to.
The technique described here is still third party tracking. They’re just (mis)using DNS to make it look like you’re talking to the first-party, to defeat tracker blocking.
Those are two separate things. You can track without code, and you can make a page terribly slow without any tracking.
Interestingly, for most people it's primarily the code size and slowness leads them to adblocking, tracking is secondary.
> I can't block it? I'll probably stop using it,
As a publisher I 'd welcome that behaviour. Of course i should be partly responsible for the ads my users see, I actually try to be but it's impossible with today's technology.
It's a total fallacy that the adtech of today is the best we can have. It has become a pissing contest about "who can give you the biggest, most complex analytics dashboard" rather than providing actual value to advertisers. There is also tons of unsold inventory due to the duopolization of ad platforms by google&FB. In that sense, i 'm thankful that adblocking is expanding to upend this ecosystem.
I'm generally on the same page as you. I don't have an inherent problem with sponsored messages like some folks seem to have (ex. "outlaw advertising"). My primary issues are with the current ad network framework as it exists today. The bloat, the vulnerabilities, and to a lesser extent than most people are concerned, the privacy invasions. That is why I run adblockers. It's why I go through the effort of maintaining a pi-hole setup on my network.
I visit some sites than sell, manage, and host their own ad inventory. I make zero effort to block those ads and will even click on them if they're interesting. Most of the time they're images wrapped in an anchor tag, maybe the occasional SVG animated with CSS. I don't want personalized ads, I'd rather see contextually relevant ads if I have to see any at all.
No, it doesn't make it magically better, there is no magic. But it does make the site accountable for the content they're serving me, instead of saying, "Oh, that's not our fault you got malware, it was the third-party ad network we use." It may not protect me much more than I am now, but it shifts the accountability to the first party I am dealing with instead of allowing them to pass the buck, because I can block all third party requests if I want to.
Would this change any legal basis? I do not know, I'm not a lawyer, but I sure hope we find out.
Depending on implementation it could make correlated tracking across sites more difficult. With an external element, your same browser could be sending the same cookie to the ad service from many different sites. With first party ads, each request will be site-specific.
This. If HN decides to put their own sponsored post on the first page that's OK. If they start serving random ads, scripts, and generically crap from who knows what ad (malware) network that's not OK.
Ok... feels to me like many people on HN don't realize this already happens. The first page does show "sponsored posts" (you'll easily spot them by the fact that there's no upvote arrow) and it's a good way for HN to promote its own stuff without ever delivering any crap to the user's browser.
