German freemail sites trick Firefox and Chrome users into removing AdBlock(gebloggendings.wordpress.com) |
German freemail sites trick Firefox and Chrome users into removing AdBlock(gebloggendings.wordpress.com) |
1&1 (aka 1and1.com)
GMX
WEB.DE
InterNetX
united-domains
Sedo
mail.com
Fasthosts
affilinet
Arsys[1] http://www.digitalfaq.com/editorials/websites-blogs/hostgato...
http://chromespot.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/screen_quot...
By getting the user accustomed to seeing browser warnings and info there, you make it impossible for them to distinguish a legit browser warning from a fake one crafted by an unscrupulous site owner.
Browser warnings and notifications should significantly overlap the browser chrome (embedded in the address bar for example) so that no web page can make something that looks like it.
edit: image link
it belongs to 1&1[1] one of the bigger internet companies in germany.
it's really odd that no one ever shot them down. they are famous for tricking users into shady 2 year contracts, if they wanted to upgrade their 12 mb mailbox.
they also upgraded the freemail to 500mb if and only if you would install their browser toolbar, which would change the mail server etc. now it's 1gb with toolbar i think.
they tried to force my mum into a contract, because she clicked on a banner while logging(for free xxx mb click here style banners). then promptly closed the account should she not pay.
the result was her saying fuck it i'll use gmail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%261_Internet
http://www.teltarif.de/web-de-freemail-speichererweiterung/n...
Actually it's quite easy to just enter some address and order some useless premium services "in behalf" of other people - this actually happened to a member of my family. According to consumer protection organizations this seems to be their business model [3,4].
Note that those links are in German: [1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web.de#Kritik [2] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmx.de#Kritik [3] http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/digital/Glueckwunsch-Abz... [4] http://www.verbraucherzentrale-niedersachsen.de/link1811119A...
In my opinion using ad blockers is borderline piracy. Refusing the content creator his revenue by blocking his ads is little different than downloading music, books... without rewarding the creator. On top of that most of the quality content this days is on websites that have decent ads.
I am not trying to start a dispute if piracy is good or bad just wanted to express an opinion on ad blockers that many seem to miss.
One of the providers, web.de, also sends it’s users emails with advertisements which cannot be disabled or marked as spam.
What they pull is still shady, but the text seemed a bit sensationalist at that point.
Is it libelous against browser makers, though? They spoof the browser's info bar and I believe they style the landing page to look like an internal browser page.
Incidentally, I remember reading before that Germany had the largest percentage of users using AdBlock, so it makes sense that the pushback is starting here.
But I doubt any of them will do that because, security be damed, it messes with the minimalist fashion.
But I think the best place for it would be between the tab bar and the location bar.
The GMX website is disrupted by a plugin
(orginal: Die GMX Website wird durch ein Plugin gestört)
They also faked press articles: http://www.browsersicherheit.info/pressestimmen.html (two websites are related to "1&1"-company and they other one is "Bild")
webpages at http://browsersicherheit.info/ seems to be removed.
http://web.archive.org/web/20140226224721/http://www.browser... says that adblock "Filters page content"
Such a shame...
This kind of social engineering approach to removing an extension is not significantly different from a browser exploit that achieves the same result.
I'm amazed they don't just social people to download toolbar claiming to fix the "security compromises".
But I agree that it takes discipline (germans are good at that :o). Gmail, on the other hand, cannot be trusted either. While web.de is evil, google is evil too, but google is bigger and google is not an european company. All of the data is used abroad thus circumventing civilized laws.
The real problem is this: these companies offer a service and everybody expects free services online. Of course the companies have to make money. Ask yourself: would you pay for an email account (I do)? If not, you have to accept ads. Or googles snooping in your data and selling your profile to everyone who pays. There is no free beer online. At least web.de shows us how ugly it gets, if things have to look like they were free.
This is not intended to excuse the primitive tricks we.de uses. But if you have a solution, post it here and I'll get rich.
You should really read Google's privacy policy:
http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
So, no, they don't sell your profile.
I do agree with your point: if you don't want advertisements. Pay for the service. E.g. Google Apps for domains allows you to disable adds in Google apps. And since you can bring your own domain, you can move to some other service if you are not happy with them.
I've been on a crusade to try to make people switch to, well, whatever but not that.
I think it was one of the first ones around here and people got used to it and the status quo, most don't even know or care about how bad they've got it.
Though, GMX has done some shady business over the years and their servers are in Germany. They would be better off with some other email provider...
I noticed as a mail.com user was trying to email me and the message was being rejected, saw the spamhaus listing in my logs. Asked the sender, and they said that their messages to gmail were going into spam too.
I emailed postmaster@, support@, sysadmin@ etc. to try and inform them, as well as trying two contact forms; never heard anything back and it took several more days for the listing to disappear.
Once upon a time I agreed with you... now I view all online ads as threats.
Unfortunately, marketing companies have gotten greedy and the degree to which they fingerprint and track us as we surf the web has gotten completely out of hand. This is an industry that cannot even follow their own watered-down initiatives like DoNotTrack.
And because ad networks use layers of affiliates, sites typically have no visibility nor control over what their visitors are being served. That's why you end up with a marketing company like Evidon buying Ghostery - just so they can help companies monitor the garbage on their own pages![3]
And to top it off, ads are now a common attack vector for viruses and malware that not even the big companies can control:
1. Just last week, Youtube was serving banking malware via its online ads. [1]
2. Last month Yahoo got a lot of attention serving Bitcoin malware via online ads on their site. [2]
I know that online publishing is important, and we need a strong press. But publishing desperately needs to find a new business model because online ads are a failed experiment and it's time to stick a fork in them.
[1]: http://labs.bromium.com/2014/02/21/the-wild-wild-web-youtube...
[2]: http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/05/tech/yahoo-malware-attack/inde...
My point it: people mostly hated ads since they were invented. Be it by not looking at them on the street, changing channels on tv or installing AdBlock on your computer, they do their best to avoid them.
I agree that people hate ads and people also hate paying for things that can get for free(piracy).
You guys are missing my point of ad blockers being borderline piracy and mainly try to justify your reason for using them.
Die out, go away, and let us get back to the point where the motivation to publish something on the 'net stems from the desire to share knowledge. To hell with the cacophonous status quo of doing the bare minimum to trick people into giving you their attention in order to fill their head with garbage for a fraction of a penny. And if hosting honest content using central servers costs too much to be sustainable, then let that dead-end approach leave us and make room for decentralized software to deliver information.
I am in favor of a great coordinated blackout campaign by the large content providers. Dont want to see ads? Fine, pay a dollar via Paypal to see the site - or go away.
Anti-piracy main reasoning is that if it's too expensive(too many ads in your case) just don't buy it. The 2nd main reason is lack of availability(in ad blocker case - lack of sites with less ads that give you same content).
This flag is checked by default.
More Info: https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads
Now, I'm sure that you took care to guarantee that your ads won't track me, or try to invade my computer, right? Because if you didn't, it's blocked and you can whine and call me bad names the entire day, it won't change a thing.
By the way, I never saw adblockers blocking properly applied, safe to load ads. Maybe they do, I don't use them for quite a long time (I use other tech).
However, I think it's also important to recognize that by similarly-strong analogy, advertisements in general are inherently a sort of mental manipulation or brainwashing.
Now, I'm not saying that mental manipulation is inherently a bad or evil thing. When I'm writing this post, I hope that those reading it will become in some way more mentally accepting of my point of view. But I think we don't look enough at how susceptible we are to advertising, and how much advertising depends on exploiting cognitive biases or implying untruths that are not explicitly stated.
We (humans) are really bad at not being affected by advertising, even if we know we're being advertised to, and even if we know the ad is deceptive. When sites depend on ad revenue, they're saying "We're offering this content for free, but in exchange we want to be able to bias/prime your brain so that when you see Product X, even far in the future, you are more likely to desire it." That's a very powerful thing, and while it's certainly necessary for many business models today, I think we should think of this as a "necessary evil."
There are sites where I disable ad-blocking, often in response to a genuine plea on the part of the website. If it's a site I particularly care about and feel that I trust, then I allow ads as a way of helping them out. But if ad-blocking is piracy, then ads themselves are brainwashing -- exploiting failings in human cognition to unconsciously guide people into actions or purchases that may or may not be optimal for them -- and with the subject having limited defenses against it once infected.
I would not go that far and claim all ads are brainwashing and manipulative. Going this route it means all communication is manipulative as there is an intention behind every word.
There is not.
But if the advertising industry starts to act like one huge criminal enterprise without any limits to the kind of deceptive practices they use I'm forced to defend myself.
I see no reason to be fair to those who deceive me whenever they can.
But beyond that, this is pretty irrelevant to the topic at hand. However you feel about ad blockers, tricking people into turning them off is still completely unacceptable.
With retargeting ads this days it becomes easier to show relevant and targeted ads.
Actually most HN-ers are leaving huge money on the table right now for not using the highest ROI ad channel - retargeting.
Someone has said that they do not view advertising. They have modified their browser to avoid ads.
A marketer choses to ignore that person's choice and choses to use tricky technical means to ignore that person's wishes in order to show an ad.
How is that in any way beneficial to the product being advertised?
I am ad tolerant (don't run ad blockers etc) but behaviour like that fills me with rage. It is exactly the same kind of attitude that said it is fine to spew email to anyone whether they want it or not.
Marketers need a code of conduct to say that this behaviour is unacceptable.
but the default position of most people is to disregard someone's position. There is a stunningly vast portion of the population that actively assumes that everyone believes the same as they do, even if they know otherwise.
"I can't focus with the tv on" "Yes you can." turns tv louder
marketers ignoring stated positions for money is a symptom of the greater disease of people ignoring others positions.
it isn't. But the clients of the advertisers cannot really have a say in this - the measurements of ad effectiveness tend to be done with impressions. They are optimizing for a metric that doesn't completely align with the goals of advertising
(There's also the alternative of targeting the scripts that do this; an anti-anti-adblock! Reminds me of the arms race between malware attempting to prevent itself from reverse-engineering via detecting debuggers and such, and the opponents coming up with anti-anti-debugging, leading to anti-anti-anti, and so forth...)
Anyway, the point is that you could probably easily check for adblock by checking the image size of something within a div named "advert".
Even many older people. When I was doing my PhD, many of my German colleagues were using GMX addresses privately.
No room for abuse there. /s :)
I think one issue with many ads is the matter of power disparity. Those who are more trained in marketing and advertising skills know how to present material in a way that is pleasing to an audience. The average person doesn't have this knowledge or a good sense of all the techniques that are being used on them -- or even if they do they are still susceptible. This means that it's far easier for "attackers" to "attack" than for "defenders" to "defend" (using the words here with an acknowledgment that not all "attacks" are a bad thing; a lot is simply communication). With further advances in data mining and with large amounts of funds being put into advertising, those who are advertising are becoming more adept at knowing what mental buttons to press to get the desired response, while the general populace is not getting better at withstanding it.
It's also a question of scale, and being paid to advertise. For example, I enjoy traditional wet shaving, and there are a few blogs I follow that have reviews of shaving creams, DE razors, etc. I have learned to trust these reviews and while they act as ads for these products (they do manipulate me into being more likely to buy those products) I trust that these reviews are more "genuine" and reliable. When there are more sponsored reviews or payments from third-party ad companies, then the appearance of endorsement (and trusted recommendation) is there but without the same fine control by the content provider. Maybe it's a utopian naive vision, but "I recommend this product because I've used it and like it" seems different in substance from "I recommend this product because the makers of the product have paid me to say that I recommend it."
1. Rewording press releases from industry/government. The actual writers of this content are being paid by industry/government, and the content itself is essentially an ad.
2. Soap opera designed to provoke fear or controversy, both "political" and not (see #1)
3. Emotional tourism fluff pieces to steal attention (see my original comment)
4. Pumping the latest startup fad (see #1)
5. Self-important circle jerks about the 'knowledge economy' and other superiority-assured deck chair distractions on the USSG (see #1)
6. Rewording of actual information that was not created by a journalist to be "more accessible", with the end result being a distorted oversimplification. This is essentially a subcase of #3 where the emotion is superficial "understanding".
7. Direct copying ("excerpts") of other 'professional journalism' with a link back, ad infinitum.
So no, I'm not terribly worried about losing something we don't actually have.
The occasional story that has genuine public interest (eg the hard facts about NSA) would be reported by concerned parties anyway. I doubt many of those ad views are paying the actual reporter, Snowden, who acted out of moral imperative. And while I'm happy the journalist middlemen are working to keep public attention on this subject, this is only necessary from being in a zero sum game with the above. These middlemen are actually delaying, redacting, and muddling specific technical facts on the current state of NSA's malevolence that would be quite nice for us to know.
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2010/08/...
Even if you trusted such things, google will still do targeted ads. If DEA want to find drug users, all they have to do is ask google and they will use users emails to locate them.
Uh... what would you prefer they do instead?
1. Here is a lawful search warrant signed affidavit and approved by a judge _or_
2. Here you go, the data on kefka. Thanks for asking.
Targeted ads can be anything from a DEA honeypot that advertise cheap drugs, to quick guide for easy tax evasion made by the IRS. It might be ads targeted at people with specific sexual preferences. Any search-able trait imaginable that Google can target is exploitable, and the policy document is an official intent to do so.
sorry, my mistake. They use it themselves (or let it slip accidentally to foreign secret services) :o).
In many ways, Web ads are worse than TV ads because they often aren't switching between ads and content -- they are experienced at the same time. Most Webpages with ads aren't a commercial and then the content, it's the content with the commercials at the periphery of your vision. This means that without adblocking, the user cannot make the choice to read the content undistracted by commercials as they can with TV.
A closer analogy would be if TV shows came with commercials playing (sometimes with sound or popups) along all the borders of a TV show, and it was considered piracy to put a piece of cardboard over that ad-filled border. Muting is no different.
Is it piracy when crackers remove part of the software that secures it as that annoys people and they only want to use the functionality?
Then you will be getting into the DRM war that many others are fighting and are losing.
Personally, I don't see a reason why ads HAVE to be manipulative or misleading. What if it was in my own interest to see them?
Consider that I'm blocking them because I perceive them as a threat, and the fact that they can't stop me creates an incentive to reform in a positive way.
There's no reason ads can't be mutually beneficial. A company around town is looking for a programmer? Here's my resume guys! Future shop is having a clearance sale on HDD's? Let me get my coat!
You should install adblock! Increase that incentive! Why suffer ads? join me and push them towards being useful!
Or, perchance, is it the right of every website viewer to consume the website in the way they deem most fit?
(Exception: imgur is showing some ads that launch the ap store. These ads are really freaking annoying and it feels like a bug.)
That's why I use Adblock. It doesn't matter what you're showing me. I don't want it. Ever. This goes for offline, too. I don't watch TV except Netflix, partially because of ads. I don't listen to the radio, just my mp3 player.
What are you losing by me using Adblock?
It may be a coincidence, or it may not... but I've done research on ads distribution, and Netflix, by itself, represented over 10% of all "ad impressions". All of them. For every ten eyeballs ogling an ad, at least one of them was that insufferable red rectangle (I'm sick of it by now).
So it may be, or it may be not, but you are a Netflix customer. Maybe you were dragged in by the onslaught of banners. Maybe someone you know was, and convinced you to buy. Hard to say.
My argument is not that advertising is all around bad and nobody likes it - in fact I know plenty of people enjoy clever advertising, and probably many people are fine with using advertising as a deciding factor when making purchases.
But I don't. I'd rather no advertising influence me consciously or especially unconsciously. I regard most ads as an attempt by a marketing agent to subvert my rationality when I'm buying a product or service. Of course there's no way to get away from it altogether, and nobody is an entirely rational actor to start with. But I'd like to keep things as best as I can.
Additionally, I find even unobtrusive ads distracting. I've found that even seemingly small changes in day-to-day tasks can have an impact on my ability to sustain concentration, think clearly, and keep going to the end of the day. As another example of this, try going one week without listening to the radio on the way to work. That made a large noticeable difference in my workday. I've also found that watching TV, any TV, tends to disrupt my focus a little even hours after watching. So based on my personal experience, I've come to the conclusion that ads also have an effect on my concentration throughout the day, albeit a relatively smaller one.
Of course YMMV and they really might not influence you at all.
Most of the big sites have CPM deals so they get paid for every visitor no matter of clicks or not.
And yes I hate intrusive ads as well and I don't watch TV channels with ads(I mostly watch football and HBO about 1-3 times a week).
If I see an ad for a tool relevant to me, the chance that it's just a repackaged version of an open-source tool I'm already familiar with is almost 100%
> new conferences
I would never go to a conference, especially one that needs to run ads.
> new competition
If they're a threat, I'll hear about them through news or word-of-mouth. Otherwise, just another waste of time.
Your industry only exists for purposes of brainwashing. All other purported uses are better and more honestly served through other means.
So, storing all e-mails encrypted is not really feasible if you want to have such features as well [1]. It's a trade-off - convenience or security (I am sure someone will site Benjamin Franklin now ;)).
[1] Yes, I know that there is work on indexing encrypted data.
But anyway, what you are talking about could still be optional: if you wanted to search and be somewhat private you'd have to download the emails with a local client via IMAP - and if you really need search via web interface, you would toggle the option to store the emails unencrypted for that purpose.
You can disable interest-based ads:
https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads
Also, if you have a paid Google Apps account, you can disable ads in Google apps.
Personally, I'd like to see targeted ads more than 'random' ads. Of course, I don't like to be profiled. So, I use Ghostery, an ad blocker, and paid e-mail.
is this really happening? can you give some evidence that google is willy nilly giving private data away like that?
The NSA only has the legal obligation to obtain warrents for US Citizens not for anyone else. The NSA is unlikely to get involved in civil legal disputes but yes, it can go in and ask for Kafka's data from Google if he is living in, say, Germany.
But on the other hand I've not seen evidence that Google simply sells information on specific individuals or otherwise gives it away without that legal mandate.
The problem here is that Google's data on us belongs to Google. They can do anything they want to that data: take a crap on it, process it for better ad targeting, analyze social media trends and figure out who we associate with, and/or give it to people like the FBI/CIA/NSA.
Or, Google was hacked. That's also well within the realm of possibility as well. But I think governmental "persuasion techniques" like http://xkcd.com/538/ work much better.
Just look at the stories of Qwest former CEO. He said no.
Edit: I'll add an explanation. Uberspace ist a german hoster. It follows a pay what you want model (minimum: 1€) and practices data avoidance. For example, you can open an account and test it for a month, and then send money for that account to keep him, but you are never asked for your name.
I just use it for mails right now, but I could also host a webpage or something there. It's a full server.
The mailsystem has a nicely working roundcube-webinterface, one can of course also use IMAP. Without a custom domain the mailadress will look not very nice (but still work), but supporting a custom domain is very easy. It should ideally stay with a different domain registrar.
The whole administration interface is great - minimal on the webpage (though many things are possible to do there), and everything more complicated works via ssh.
you can host there, use ssh to do what ruby, node, python, php, perl, or what ever you wish, that does not need SU privileges, as it is a shared hosting model.
I am a customer for 24 month+ and am so unbelievable happy with these guys.
You have a question for their "support" at midnight (it is only these five guys and the do support themselves) and sometimes you get your answer at 2 o clock, because one of the guys was awake and just answered you.
These guys are nerds - and next to their business hosting wanted to build the perfect hosting for fellow nerds. Mission accomplished imho.
I'm also using uberspace, nice to see another uberspace-user here :)
In addition if you inbox becomes larger than a specific size (1 GB is think) they will autoarchive your whole inbox to a folder... not nice if you have smart mail mailboxes
I've fixed my comment now.
Hetzner: One of the bigger provider for hosting in Germany. They have their own datacenters in Bavaria. Manitu: Smaller, they also have their own datacenter. schokokeks.org: Small service run by a few techies. I'm sure there are a few of this type, I just happen to know somebody who is very happy with them.
