Collateral damage to advertisers? Sounds like a feature, not a bug.
This is an excessive approach that risks collateral damage to 3rd parties who are not involved.
I have no issues with blocking ads (internet is unusable without ublock origin + Pihole), but actually simulating clicks is IMO not the right approach.
Bo7a@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
RogueBanana@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
I still don’t get why you think it’s not the right approach. Seems perfectly fine to me.
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Because this will cause problems for independent website operators.
Blocking ads is one thing, but this risks fucking up their digital advertising accounts.
Mondez@lemdro.id 4 weeks ago
Isn’t that the point, to fuck up digital advertising accounts so the data is unreliable and can’t be used?
joshchandra@midwest.social 4 weeks ago
This is a legit criticism at first, but AdNauseam allows ethical ads so anyone using good, safe stuff should not get affected. There is an entire section in AN’s documentation about not clicking on this specific ad group.
As for the vast majority of the rest who don’t use ethical, non-tracking ads: let 'em have it! ⚔ AdNauseam users (and users of any similar tools; I don’t know what else is out there) must first hold a fundamental view that the tracking world is extremely violating, of which ads are a subset. Long gone are the glory days when ads were funny, appealing, and well-made, and didn’t track people; ad companies gather data on us and if they get hacked, that info flies out in the open: all without our knowledge or true consent. Is that something you’re fine with? Additionally, more and more ads are proving to be entire scams, or otherwise shams that did not deliver, that have harmed consumers who legitimately click through.
The long-term goal is to teach those who use malicious ads that this is an unacceptable, unsustainable practice and that they need to market in better ways if they wanna keep doing this (again, going back to the pre-Internet glory days when Coca-Cola, etc. ran awesome TV ads and when there was no or nearly no account-tracking—or just any semblance of it).
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Good to hear.
No of course I am not down with tracking BS.
But I do use some smaller niche sites (for some of them I have subs or patron) and I would not want them to be hit (no clue what ad providers they use).