[HN Gopher] Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats wha...
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Why is there a TikTok tracking pixel on UberEats what is this crap?
Author : cmoog
Score : 286 points
Date : 2022-03-06 17:45 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (user-images.githubusercontent.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (user-images.githubusercontent.com)
| soared wrote:
| OP is going to have a heart attack when they install ghostery.
| tester756 wrote:
| bing and yahoo.co.jp are interesting
| calrueb wrote:
| As many people have pointed out these are for tracking the
| performance of ad traffic. Savvy, "privacy minded" businesses may
| listen to this sort of outrage, and pull the pixels off their
| websites. But you are kidding yourself if you think you aren't
| being tracked because the frontend JS is all first party.
|
| The same thing can, and is happening server side. Every platform
| out there now has an event/conversion API [1]. If you are logging
| in to Uber Eats with a email/phone number you have used elsewhere
| then you are going to be tracked full-stop.
|
| 1. Here is TikTok's for example
| https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article?aid=10003669
| sexy_panda wrote:
| Even more concerning is Hotjar.
| Raed667 wrote:
| at least hotjar respects do-not-track settings
| LeonM wrote:
| DNT is not the solution though.
|
| DNT status is not readable by JS (by design), so DNT cannot
| be implemented in the client. So all tracking calls are still
| made over the network. It is then up to the server processing
| those calls to drop them if the DNT header is present. Thus,
| there is no way for a user to verify that DNT is actually
| honored.
|
| Hotjar is probably the only one (claiming to be) honoring DNT
| consistently. Luckily Hotjar is a SaaS where the customer
| cannot influence this decision. But for all other tracking
| solutions, whenever marketeers are given the option, they
| will always choose to ignore DNT.
| tentacleuno wrote:
| That's not true. There's Navigator.doNotTrack[0]. It works,
| but it's deprecated and I'm not sure what the replacement
| is.
|
| [0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/d...
| lexicality wrote:
| It's deprecated because DNT is deprecated since barely
| anyone respects it
| Nextgrid wrote:
| If DNT is sent when loading the initial page it is totally
| possible to serve HTML that doesn't include the tracking
| scripts. If you load your tracking scripts you've already
| gone against your objective since even the initial HTTP
| request that loads the tracking library leaks the user's IP
| address and browser fingerprint back to the tracker.
|
| This is not a defense of DNT by the way - it has other
| problems such as the increased fingerprinting surface, etc.
| LeonM wrote:
| You are right, didn't think of that
| jstanley wrote:
| > DNT status is not readable by JS (by design), so DNT
| cannot be implemented in the client.
|
| But the JS is served by a server, which can read the DNT
| header, so why can't it just write different JS based on
| the content of the header? It can be as simple as writing
| "let do_not_track = true;" if the header is present.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| Somewhat unrelatedly, just "innocently" embedding a tweet on a
| site adds a TON of trackers from Twitter. It's really unfortunate
| zero_k wrote:
| People here talking about PII reminds me every day that we still
| haven't grasped what Personal Data is, and how incredibly
| different it is from PII. Ah, sad.
| tentacleuno wrote:
| The amount of tracking on this page is astounding. Just from the
| screenshot, I count 9 trackers: Uber Eats' own
| analytics sc-static.net (Snapchat? whois doesn't reveal
| anything.) Google Tag Manager Facebook Connect
| Yahoo TikTok ispot.tv (Some sort of ad management
| solution.) Hotjar (Behavioural analytics.) Bing
| mabbo wrote:
| This is honestly very few considering how many different places
| Uber Eats probably advertises on.
|
| I work on helping new Shopify merchants get more early sales,
| and ads are super important for that to happen. Open up any
| small and growing e-commerce store and you'll see at least this
| many.
|
| Without ads, you don't find these small businesses, and all
| consumers just go to Amazon, or other large established
| marketplaces.
| itslennysfault wrote:
| That's just 9 in this screenshot. I'm sure there are loads
| more if they scroll.
| medion wrote:
| Not on the main topic, but is there a way I can get in touch
| to discuss how you might be able to help us and our Shopify
| shop?
| mabbo wrote:
| It's a hard topic. My team mostly does experiments, A/B
| tests on new merchants to see what nudges leads to better
| results overall. The reality is we have a lot of ideas and
| we're trying to get data to figure out those answers. But
| we don't truly _know_ yet.
|
| The hard part (as far as I can tell) is product market fit
| and finding your customer base. Once that's established,
| you have some momentum, leading to repeat customers and
| lower acquisition costs. IE: once an ad network has some
| existing customers to build a model on, it's cheaper to
| target ads on similar customers.
|
| But that initial part is very hard. New privacy rules, like
| Apple's changes, are a _good thing_ generally, but they
| make it more expensive for small businesses to acquire
| initial customers because ads are less effective, so you
| have to pay for more of them to find your customers. That
| gives Amazon (and other established competition) a massive
| advantage. They know everyone deeply and can target
| everywhere very precisely.
|
| I've heard that the Shopify subreddits are well liked by
| merchants. Good info there.
|
| There's also the Gurus that can provide some support for
| free, as well as you can hire an 'Expert' through Shopify
| to get even more help.
|
| All this is to say the most groan-inducing phrase in
| business: you've got to spend more to make more. And
| there's no guarantee that you'll earn it back because
| business is hard.
| jon9544hn wrote:
| Same!
| pc86 wrote:
| From their profile it looks as if they work at Shopify, so
| probably just through the generic contact page would get
| you to at least the right department.
| user_named wrote:
| Because they run ads on TikTok
| Ourgon wrote:
| The answer to this is the same as to all similar questions: _why
| are you not blocking third-party content by default_? To which
| the reaction tends to be that this is too difficult /too much
| hassle/should not be necessary. No, it should not be necessary
| just like locking your door should be necessary. Unfortunately,
| it is.
|
| By the way, in this specific case another answer is "UberEats?
| Learn To Cook(tm)!"
| derimagia wrote:
| Looks blocked to me.
| sha256sum wrote:
| Protip: if user privacy is a concern to you, then not supporting
| these companies (by handing them your data) is a good place to
| start.
| badrabbit wrote:
| No. This needs to be criminalized. Not liking a good or service
| is one thing. Having things done to you or your information
| without consent for the purpose of spying on you is stalking
| with extra steps. Many of these companies still deprive you of
| your privacy even without using their services by developing
| shadow profiles on you.
| [deleted]
| ipaddr wrote:
| This is an image that loads from a different host.
|
| Neither of these companies will create a shell profile if you
| never visit them.
|
| If they are criminal why would you use them?
| Retric wrote:
| > If they are criminal why would you use them?
|
| People don't give money to scammers because they know their
| scammers.
|
| It's the same with privacy issues, people who don't know
| what's happening can't make informed choices.
| notatoad wrote:
| >people who don't know what's happening can't make
| informed choices.
|
| it's really distasteful how privacy advocates always
| assume that everybody who doesn't feel the same way they
| do is uninformed. the average person has a basic
| understanding that companies keep track of them online.
| everybody who's spent more than five minutes online
| without an adblocker understands retargeting.
|
| it's not that people don't understand, it's that they
| don't care. telling people they're not informed enough to
| make their own decisions isn't going to convince them to
| start caring about the issue you care about.
| amelius wrote:
| This is why user-tracking should be opt-in. And not opt-
| in by clicking a button, but opt-in by filling out a
| physical form and sending it by mail.
| skummetmaelk wrote:
| Yes, everyone knows. That's why there are people in this
| thread and others like it, on a website catering to
| highly technical people, who are surprised at how deep
| the tracking goes and what it is used for.
|
| Surely then, the average person is much more informed!
| notatoad wrote:
| i encourage you to talk to an "average person" about this
| some time. check with your parents to see how much they
| assume they're being tracked online.
|
| most people i've discussed the topic with misunderstand
| how much they're being tracked, but assume that they are
| being tracked _more_ than they actually are, not less.
| and they 're totally okay with that.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| A common one is noticing that targeting works so well
| they see ads for things they've talked about and assume
| their phone is listening in on them. Though I wouldn't
| say they're okay with it.
| somehnguy wrote:
| > everybody who's spent more than five minutes online
| without an adblocker understands retargeting. I think
| you're being absurdly generous here. I think there are
| _way_ more people online who have no idea what this
| sentence even means than people who understand it. Like
| 99:1 'way more'. I can't think of a single person I know
| who doesn't work in the computer field who would
| understand that without being explicitly told. It simply
| isn't something your average person ever even thinks
| about.
|
| Even people like my parents - who have been using
| computers in some capacity since the late 90s but don't
| work in anything related to computing - had no idea that
| Verizon was selling their browsing data despite being
| account holders who 'agreed' to the T&C and received
| e-mails warning them that it was going to start doing so.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The fact that people suspect Facebook of outright
| _listening_ to them (even when that 's not the case)
| suggest people aren't fully aware of what data is
| collected, how it is used and how it can be misused.
|
| "Facebook listening to people" wouldn't be noteworthy if
| people weren't creeped out by it.
| badrabbit wrote:
| Informed or not, they were not allowed to give consent.
| No problem with people consenting to be tracked.
| hw wrote:
| Please, no more annoying popups asking me if i want to
| accept cookies or be tracked. I am in the 'do not care'
| camp and i just want to be able to visit sites without
| having to click accept every time.
|
| These consent banners are a false sense of privacy.
| People who "dont know" are most likely just going to give
| consent anyway. It's the same thing as TOS consent.
| [deleted]
| Sparyjerry wrote:
| People give consent all the time when it is still bad for
| them. It is a moral question in the end, the same way, we
| can say people consent to selling their body for sex, but
| have made it illegal, or say people consent to gambling
| knowing the odds put them at a disadvantage every single
| bet, or how people consent to credit card debt at insane
| rates not knowing just how much they are being taken
| advantage of. Consent matters, but in the end it's what
| we all believe should be tolerated from an ethical
| standpoint. Personally I see many issues with data
| collection and data sharing, even if not malicious, but
| that give the opportunity to be abused by others with a
| grudge or agenda I might not support. Not just banking
| information, but location data, purchasing history, and
| more. I'm not saying every has enemies out there but if
| anyone wanted to cause harm with that information they
| could.
| charcircuit wrote:
| The purpose isn't to spy on you. It's to track the
| performance of an ad shown to you on tiktok.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Which collects data on you and creates a profile. Whether
| it's _currently_ used to increment an impression counter
| doesn 't mean it can't be used for something more nefarious
| down the line.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Collecting data about what you did is not necessarily
| spying. If a game keeps tracks of my wins. That's not
| spying even though it's collecting data on what I did.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| My point is that it's collecting way more data than the
| single bit it needs in order to tell "yes this ad has
| been seen, increment the counter".
| charcircuit wrote:
| It's not just about telling if an ad has been seen, but
| what a user does on your site after clicking on the ad.
| Do they immediately bounce? Do they buy something?
|
| You want to be able to see that you are actually getting
| a positive return from the money you are spending on ads.
| jjj123 wrote:
| It's still spying even if there's a rational reason for
| it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _This needs to be criminalized_
|
| Literally criminalised? As in you'll throw people in jail for
| putting up a pixel? Made illegal, sure.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Wouldn't be a bad idea to be honest
|
| If they're acting so antagonistically against GDPR maybe ,
| for some of the most egregious cases, throwing some people
| in jail will do the trick
|
| I mean, whoever does the whole song and dance for rejecting
| cookies that shows a loading gif and takes a while does
| deserve it
|
| And if you think I'm exaggerating, guess who has the best
| info now on the Ukraine war? Tiktok.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If they 're acting so antagonistically against GDPR
| maybe throwing some people in jail will do the trick_
|
| This is how you get a legal code like America's, where a
| cop and prosecutor can put almost anyone in jail with the
| flimsiest excuse.
|
| I understand the impulse. But the solution to bad
| enforcement isn't ratcheting up penalties. It's
| increasing enforcement.
| raverbashing wrote:
| You are correct.
|
| Usually what I find is that the American companies/people
| usually try to follow the "bare" letter of the law, where
| Europeans need to follow the spirit, as this is how it is
| "usually" enforced.
|
| And while the former might let you get away with "one
| weird trick" the latter usually leaves more margin to
| interpretation which can be both a blessing and a curse.
| badrabbit wrote:
| Yes. Make the law clear and lock up CEOs just as you would
| common stalkers.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Considering this _is_ already illegal, at least under the
| GDPR and plenty of companies still do so, maybe jail isn 't
| that bad of an idea after all?
| dehrmann wrote:
| Good luck with that. The list of companies to avoid is pretty
| long.
| dave5104 wrote:
| All you need to do is unplug your modem and you're good to
| go.
| Skunkleton wrote:
| Don't drive into a mall parking lot, or use visa card, or
| ....
| Nextgrid wrote:
| If only it was that easy. The supermarket near me has a
| "data collection" notice about some tracking BS and to ask
| an associate for details and to opt-out (yes, as if the
| minimum-wage teenager would know anything about it, and how
| would the opt-out even work).
| dzmien wrote:
| The teenager making minimum wage would almost certainly
| summon a manager.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Credit card companies sell your data, too. You basically
| have to use cash and not have a cell phone.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Your list of companies is too short. Throw out the market
| leaders who spend on brand and cheat somewhere else in the
| chain and look for a smaller company.
| gtirloni wrote:
| Why are smaller companies any better in this regard?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Well in this case data is collected and sent to various third-
| parties even without you willingly entering any data on the
| website manually.
| uhtred wrote:
| Using a browser add on like Privacy Badger should block that.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Just in general look at those cookie consent dialogs at any site
| living on advertising or using it and really see the insanity of
| number of partners... That should show that we might actually
| need to burn it all down...
| tills13 wrote:
| Would you be willing to pay for the content you get for free
| from sites like YouTube, Reddit, and HackerNews?
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Youtube at least puts a price on this: $12/mo. $18 for a
| family of 5.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| I'm sure that this doesn't remove tracking and makes you
| more valuable to their ad partners.
| laurent92 wrote:
| If you pay, you still get tracked. PS: And now they have your
| name, address, email and CC on file.
| XorNot wrote:
| Also an important data point: (1) you have disposable
| income and (2) you are _willing_ to pay.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| I'd be willing to pay the 5 cents a month or whatever it
| works out to be
| motoxpro wrote:
| If you're talking Facebook in the US, it will be ~40$, I
| would think it would be around the same for Youtube.
|
| https://www.adexchanger.com/investment/google-reveals-
| youtub...
| Moru wrote:
| Just install uBlock on your friends and families browsers. Most
| people seems fine with being tracked if that means they get
| "offers" they don't want to miss. I however detest anything
| connected to advertisement to the level that I frequently hang
| up when our own sales people call me because I directly spot a
| salesperson, even before I recognize the voice... Quite
| embarrasing sometimes :-)
|
| So I install uBlock, uMatrix and Pi-hole everywhere. Also help
| customers do the same with sane defaults so they get rid of
| most stuff without burning their whole browser.
|
| And as an advertiser we don't have to pay for the people that
| didn't want to see our ads in the first place, win win loose
| :-)
| PaulBGD_ wrote:
| Specifically, uBlock Origin
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I'm no ads expert but my guess would be they run ads on TikTok
| and have the pixel on UberEats to figure out the conversion rate
| on those ads.
| qeternity wrote:
| This is the answer. I am surprised it's not routed through
| another pixel manager though.
| mosen wrote:
| They're loading GTM at the top, so it was possibly triggered
| through that.
| samwillis wrote:
| This is it and is how the online advertising industry has
| worked for over 25 years.
|
| In its simplest form the pixel is used to attribute an ad
| view/click to a conversion event. At the beginning of the
| online ad industry that's all it did, advertisers for the first
| time had the ability to directly, in real time, see the
| effectiveness of their ads. The economic value and GDP
| generated due to this innovation is immeasurable, the internet
| economy is literally built on it.
|
| At the beginning there was no profile building, combining with
| PII and data gathered from social media or even your gmail
| emails (yes the content of your emails). And it was magical!
|
| It's the innovations since that have moved the entire industry
| through a grey area into the blank where the way they operate
| is questionable at best.
|
| The point is, this tracking pixel on its own is incredible what
| it unlocks. It's the way that data is then used that we have to
| call into question.
|
| Personally the simplest form of attribution to me is fine. It
| works and I don't believe it's invasive if they aren't then
| combining it with pii and profile data. Sadly that time has
| passed and all advertising networks now rely so heavily of
| ML/AI that it's impossible to manage them, as an advertiser, in
| the way you used to. Hopefully regulation will push the
| industry back to where it was.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| > It's the innovations since that ...
|
| Nice illustration of how "innovation" != "progress"
| judge2020 wrote:
| Innovation is simply building something better. (Societal)
| progress is subjective, which is why you could probably run
| a survey and any respondents with marketing degrees would
| likely indeed call this "progress" towards a better-
| understood society..
| kmeisthax wrote:
| This is also why even Apple and Mozilla (companies with a
| vested interest in harming the ad ecosystem) are pushing for
| various privacy-preserving ad attribution technologies.
| Nobody objects to UberEats knowing that their Tiktok ads are
| working or not - they object to Tiktok cross-referencing the
| data from UberEats and everywhere else to build an interest
| profile on them.
| xico wrote:
| As a user I have the complete opposite objections: I do not
| see why I would have Uber run JavaScript on my machine just
| for them to know how well their campaigns are working,
| while I totally want advertisement that is highly targeted
| to me.
| matsemann wrote:
| They don't have to run some weird JS, it's often just a
| 1px img with some query params loaded at the confirmation
| screen. In itself nothing annoying, the problem is how
| that data is combined with other data and profiling
| users.
| kshdeo wrote:
| If they know how their campaigns are doing -> they can
| target better and earn more money and in turn give you
| more discounts. So it's just good karma to let them run
| the tiny js script which does no more harm than 100 other
| services running on your machine, which you never used
| either.
| jahewson wrote:
| That's not really how it works though. Uber would never
| allow TikTok to take and sell Uber's own data, that's just
| bad business. Secondly the only data that TikTok would have
| access to in such a scenario would be whatever campaign
| data Uber send them in the conversion request, which again,
| is not licensed for reuse. All anyone cares about is
| knowing how many conversions occurred and which targeted
| "audience" those users were in. Oftentimes it's the
| advertiser who is bringing those with them - say, a list of
| emails or phone numbers they want to target. Again, the ad
| platform is not just taking that data for themselves,
| because they would not have customers for very long if they
| did that.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Just FYI, Mozilla's commitment to privacy is smoke and
| mirrors. You need to install uBlock Origin and opt-out of
| Mozilla's telemetry and similar BS to get any meaningful
| privacy in Firefox.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| How does including telemetry for a product make a
| commitment to privacy from _unrelated companies '
| tracking_ "smoke and mirrors"? There's a difference
| between the privacy I expect from a direct service
| provider and from various random agents seeking to build
| a profile on me.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Your argument is literally exactly the same argument
| Facebook uses to justify all its spying. It's not a solid
| ideological base to build upon. I don't want ANYONE
| spying on ANYTHING that I'm doing, even if they think
| it's for my own good and it's not crossing a line.
|
| > How does including interest-based tracking for a
| product make a commitment to privacy from unrelated
| companies' tracking "smoke and mirrors"? There's a
| difference between the privacy I expect from a direct
| service provider and from various random agents seeking
| to build a profile on me.
| jefftk wrote:
| How does Mozilla have a vested interest in harming the ad
| ecosystem?
| chinathrow wrote:
| > This is it and is how the online advertising industry has
| worked for over 25 years.
|
| Rotten to the core.
| pc86 wrote:
| If you have a better way to do it people will literally
| never stop throwing money at you.
| B-Con wrote:
| This was my first thought.
|
| How is this not everyone's first thought?
| omegalulw wrote:
| My first thought was that most people use TikTok on mobile,
| whats the point of this (if the ad takes them to play
| store/app store or to the Uber eats app). Then I realized
| that this is probably aimed at tracking for new signups, they
| probably send them to the app stores with a redirect to their
| site in the middle. TikTok probably doesnt forward them the
| user identifier hence the tiktok pixel on their page, so they
| can see the effectiveness of the ad on some TikTok ads
| dashboard.
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| This is it but only half the equation. Yes, the pixel lets
| advertisers track their return on ad spend (through tracking
| conversions), but it's also a targeting mechanism (ie you can
| tell ad platforms you will pay $X / conversion, versus paying
| per impression or per click).
| dustymcp wrote:
| Yes this is a pixel to track audiences and retarget them when
| they are browsing tik tok, same goes for google, facebook and
| any other ads exchange.
| yashap wrote:
| It's definitely this - details here:
| https://www.tiktokforbusinesseurope.com/resources/install-ti...
| dvt wrote:
| As someone that has spent a sizable amount of my career in ad
| products, the outrage here is kind of (sadly) funny. A conversion
| pixel? Hah, if you only had an _idea_ of what the Facebook data
| faucet looked like in 2007-2017, your hairs would stand.
|
| Pretty sure they were breaking all kinds of PII laws.
| tentacleuno wrote:
| The amount of client-side JavaScript code that inconspicuous
| Like button loads is unnerving.
| arkitaip wrote:
| "I don't know why you are upset that I'm stabbing you when I've
| been poisoning your all these years ha ha ha".
| wy35 wrote:
| Not really accurate analogy. More like "you're only finding
| out today that I've been poisoning you the entire time?"
| mtgx wrote:
| In other words, victim blaming.
| refulgentis wrote:
| No. Lol.
| bhch wrote:
| pedantic
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| droptablemain wrote:
| dralley wrote:
| What happened in 2017?
| [deleted]
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| I would guess that's when the Cambridge Analytics thing
| became well known, where they were using Facebook's
| network/data graphs to compile their own compiled and
| targeted data.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| GDPR maybe
| amelius wrote:
| What does it say about TikTok's tracking pixels in
| UberEats?
| briandilley wrote:
| Nothing. Because TikTok didn't put the tracking pixel
| there, UberEats did. It's from an advertising campaign
| that UberEats is running on TikTok. The need to related
| "conversions" (ie: people ordering/buying shit) on their
| system with whichever ad they were given on the TikTok
| side.
| paulcole wrote:
| What PII laws are there in the US?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/privacy-laws # California State
| summary
| [deleted]
| 1_player wrote:
| > As someone that has spent a sizable amount of my career in ad
| products, the outrage here is kind of (sadly) funny
|
| Imagine gloating and being proud of such a career.
| matt-attack wrote:
| I didn't get the sense that he/she was gloating. Just citing
| their expertise.
| Bud wrote:
| Nobody gloated, and in fact, the commenter did not even
| indicate they were proud of their career.
|
| Stop projecting.
| refulgentis wrote:
| Ads are fine
| starsep wrote:
| Ads themselves might be fine to you (I disagree). Breaking
| privacy laws, spying on users, and dark patterns to trick
| user into "consent" is not.
| pc86 wrote:
| And one need have the other so I can't imagine what
| exactly it is you're talking about in the context of a
| reply to the statement "Ads are fine."
| timando wrote:
| Ads targeted based on the content they are placed next to
| don't need to track anybody. While they might be annoying
| (i.e. take up space / time) they don't have any privacy
| concerns.
| tonymet wrote:
| it allows uber eats to build custom audiences and track
| conversion rates . welcome to ad tech ca 1998
| boring_twenties wrote:
| I don't get this. Nothing about tiktok in the Network debugger,
| nor in uBlock or NoScript for that matter.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I bet it's loaded by Google Tag Manager which acts as a
| "dropper" to load further malware. If you block that (which I
| assume you do if you have uBlock Origin) you don't get to see
| the rest.
| rosndo wrote:
| cmoog wrote:
| rosndo wrote:
| Minor49er wrote:
| Maybe OP just noticed this particular connection and was
| genuinely surprised
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| As one can see from comments on HN, it bothers some website
| developers when these basic tactics are openly discussed. The
| user gets no choice over whether her data is shared, or with whom
| it is shared. The expectation appears to be that no one will ever
| complain, whether for the first time or on a consistent basis.
| Perhaps there is a belief that if a certain amount of time passes
| without any complaints, this signifies a common "ad tech"
| practice is acceptable to the general population, and passes any
| sort of ethical, regulatory or legal analysis. A sort of
| "waiver". Silence equals acceptance.
|
| "Everyone else was doing it, so therefore we in particular are
| not guilty of any wrongdoing." Perhaps some folks think that is a
| good defense.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > As one can see from comments on HN, it bothers some website
| developers when these basic tactics are openly discussed.
|
| no in this case i think this post has everything to do with OP
| believing that this pixel tracking by a non-American/non-
| Western firm (in this case Chinese) is somehow less kosher
| compared to tracking by Silicon Valley social media
| platforms/firms (who, as others have pointed out, use exactly
| the same tools/strategies).
| topaz0 wrote:
| That may have been the case for the original poster, but the
| discussion has been about tracking generally.
| dionian wrote:
| Stuff like this is why I try to use umatrix style filtering
| wherever possible
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