A script that shows a modal box or whatever when something fails to load as expected need not spy on you to function, but maybe I'm reading into a funny post more than I should be.

"No no, I'm not a thief, but me and my 1200 paying friends would like to take a look around your house, may we come in?"

This shit should be illegal.

You're technically correct (the best kind of correct).

It's trivial to attempt a connection to an ad server and detect the failure and display a dialog.

The problem is that (publishers don't want to acknowledge) there's no difference between advertising and malware.

Another finger on the monkey's paw curls are the ad blockers become illegal.

No.

... Land Shark

Someone with that many partners is disease ridden.

When I browse a website without the dialog I assume they’re not disclosing something they should be, but as a web developer that’s super against this my own websites are dialog free too.

It’s sad that we expect this behavior from “normal” websites.

Ok c'mon in, i thought you were maybe an intrusive ad

That's why I appreciate the few and far between sites that have a banner... That's just "we don't track or nuffin', see here what we do", so it's clear that they've considered, any potential scripts did load successfully, and they're hopefully not lying

But if I were browsing a website and that came up it would irritate me too. I’d probably end up blocking that message as well.

I just want to see the content damn it! 🤣

Site: We noticed you're using an ad blocker. Ads are how we pay for this site so it can be free for you

Me: I'm using an ad blocker because without it your site is a barely functional jumbled mess

Site: Please disable your ad blocker

Me: Also the last time I visited the site without a blocker my antivirus caught a malicious ad injection.

Site: 🤡

Site: We noticed you’re using an ad blocker. Ads are how we pay for this site so it can be free for you

"Ads are how we sell as much information about you as we possibly can so that it can be free for you. This sites content is the nectar in our fly trap. Get the fuck into our fly trap so we can extract as much from your humanity as we possibly can"

The DNS I use blocks advertising. I love it. Get bent.

ok ok ok ok look I use DNS level ad blockers, I'm big in favor of them, but this is the dumbest shit ever.

Running client side JavaScript that detects when an advertisement failed to load and then popping a request to disable your ad blocker is in no way, shape, or form "spying".

Don't get me wrong, plenty of sites absolutely spy on you, and the ads themselves definitely spy on you.

But being able to detect that ads didn't load? It's completely client side and is not spying 😂

That last line is just real bad logic.

Even without JavaScript, back in my day doing some basic CSS stuff could effectively* do this too.

*Background showed if image doesn't. Not hard to work around but did something if ad didn't load.

There was better technique using CSS but I ran small band websites for basically free tickets so I wasn't chasing riches. Just hosting cost. Single small ad was enough.

yep for websites that's literally just checking if their ad element exists in the DOM tree.

const myAdElementSelector = "#fuckingAd";
const myAdElement = document.querySelector(myAdElementSelector);
if (!myAdElement) return "yes user is using adblocker";

simple as.

or maybe not honestly i don't know i just wanted everyone to know i know javascript.

I have said it before and I'll way it again, an adblocker has gone from simply being a nuisance blocker to being an essential tool for not only privacy but also security.

My counterpoint to any website whining about you blocking their ads is this:

Untill website owners take full legal and financial responsibillity for any dammages the ads presented on their website causes my computer or property due to infected ads or an infected website, I won't even consider disabling my adblocker, I still probably won't, but I'll consider it.

This is created by someone who has no idea about websites, for an audience who has no idea about websites.

You don't need cookies, trackers or any personal data to detect an adblocker.

It's like accusing a store of spying for putting anti-theft gizmos on the merchandise.

2/10, should have used jQuery

or maybe not honestly I don't know I just wanted everyone to know I'm old enough to remember classic stackoverflow

Of course it's spying. Site dishes out an ad-link and observes if it gets loaded (can be done server side). That's the easiest way that comes to my mind. I'd say closely monitoring the behavior of your customers is spying. Especially as the customer does not know that/if he is being monitored in this way.

Putting "anti theft gizmos" in a store is also spying, at least if you mean cameras and not a locked cabinet for valuable goods.

The question is, if we agree that the other party has the right to spy on their users, and if/how the users have to be informed. Here stores have to announce video surveillance with a sign to anyone who enters.

It's far easier to do this all client side. It's it spotting to detect when a resource load fails and log to the console?

Spying implies that someone, or at least some process, is watching me and my behaviour. But there is more to it, because that just describes a site working.

The site is spying on you whether you block ads or not. And I've never once got malware from an ad - keep your software up to date people.

I think everyone who blocks ads does so for the same primary reason: they're fucking ANNOYING!

Unfortunately you then have to be ok with mooching off everyone else for free sites. I think the OP wants to avoid that by offering another explanation for blocking ads but if they searched their soul they'd come to the same conclusion!

"We value your privacy"

Yeah, to sell it.

but client side requires the client to cooperate. and the client is regularly not under your control.

I can't make sense of your second sentence.

Unless you're blocking Javascript, they have control to see what elements are loaded.

Correct

The client needs to "cooperate" to do anything, including showing whatever it is says "please don't block our ads :'("

I mean that merely observing behaviour is not spying, because that covers any interaction. So what makes this spying?

This is pretty much never done server-side. It would unnecessarily increase server load by requiring callbacks and/or polling. It's always done in JavaScript or, for really simple setups, CSS.

Nobody running ads is considering users who block JavaScript wholesale. Not only is it a trivially small percentage of users, but it's also a waste of time: those users aren't going to stop blocking JavaScript to display ads anyway. Instead, they'll just make it so the site fails to render at all if JavaScript is disabled.

You've presented a solution looking for a problem.

As for anti theft gizmos, they're talking about the alarm tags and ink packs that get attached to merchandise so it sets of an alarm when you try to leave with it, or the item is covered in ink when you forcibly remove the security tag. These are passive anti-theft security and do not constitute spying.

Even if we were talking about video cameras, it's unreasonable to call that "spying". In order for something to be spying you need an expectation of privacy, which is not present when you're inside a private business. It would be like calling a security who observes customers a spy. It's absurd.

We tested software at work once.

It would show who visited your website, their socials, their phone number, e-mail and company they work for. You could also open a video that would show their mouse movement and clicks.

All by clicking accept.

And all of this assumes they even show that accept button properly. With all the vibe coders, I wouldn't even trust the button to do anything at all.

The web is just fucked. Not leaking your fingerprint sounds like an impossible task to me.

There's rfid stuck to merchandise that makes an alarm go off when you exit without paying. Just like the HTML elements that are loaded or not loaded. No spying.

ublockorigin blocks the content and leaves them unable to see that you are using it.

Pretty sure you can still download it directly from their website.

Except they all are spying on us and we all know it.

Wait, you realize those have been used to spy on you before right? In store and even between stores in certain cases.

“We value your privacy” (as a commodity that we can legally sell with or without your permission. Do you want to download tracking cookies now or should we play coy?)

But I asked what makes this spying

I am saying we already know they are all spying. So while this humour might not quite fit, it's still just one step removed.

Meh

If they travel between stores you must have stolen something, they are removed at checkout.

I just don't believe that they will stop trying to track me, no matter how much i pay.

In fact, the more i pay, the more valuable i am.

Because the details of a rich sucker are very high value.

All the cumulative information just got fed into LLM models through data brokers that have a record of everything you every said, combined with everything else. So, not really meh, so much as an existential risk, as LLM's are not AI and won't stop failing, can be used for repression quite well if not entirely accurately.

Are you sure about that? I only use ublock origin and still get "can you not block our ads" popups sometimes

Depends on the product, some of them just uses stickers that are "deactivated"

Yeahhh that sucks that we've reached this point. I would actually consider paying some sites for my privacy. If they offer something that I value, then it's fair for them to be compensated somehow. However, if they offered that option, I still probably wouldn't trust it.

Even if the site itself fully intends to stand by their offer, can I trust the payment processor(s), bank(s), etc. involved in the transaction?

I'm not really a crypto guy, but I wish something like Monero (or whatever privacy-protecting alternative that might be "better" these days) could become more mainstream.

Update your filters, and/or couple it with uMatrix for extra fuckery.

Can't bitch about my use of an adblocker if I also block your fuckin' scripts.

Huh, really? Idk. I don't see any, like at all. I am on firefox, it works better with that browser I read tell.

"meh" to the sentiment that a meme/message/whatever doesn't need to be accurate as long as you agree with the sentiment. Lots of people believe a lot of utter lies because of that attitude.

Yep. It's also interesting to see teams have conversations about implementing these things without anyone mentioning how creepy it seems. I guess these things are just normalized now :/