I've found it amusing that a few news sites disable their atrocious autoplaying videos (and often, the preview window that follows you when you scroll an article) when they detect ad blocking or tracking protection.
They're purposely giving me a better experience for blocking, rather than an inferior one.
But I guess the metrics must show or are being interpreted to show that most users prefer the obnoxiousness.
Most people aren’t looking to read the news- they’re bored and looking for entertainment. So they LOVE all this crap that autoplays, especially when it queues up more clickbaity crap that sounds more interesting than today’s headlines.
> But I guess the metrics must show or are being interpreted to show that most users prefer the obnoxiousness
I thought all the autoplaying video was because video ads pay more? It doesn't matter to the site if anyone actually watches the videos or not, as long as they count as an ad view and they get paid.
• CBS is being malicious, and it's intentionally refusing to play the video if they detect tracking protection. (It sounds like a lot of people on the thread are assuming it's this one, and it very well may be.)
• CBS is being lazy, and didn't bother to test with tracking protection and work through any technical issues (like implementing graceful fallbacks).
• CBS is being cautious, and knows they haven't tested tracking protection as much, so they're leaving "disable tracking protection" in as a troubleshooting step, since it certainly does reduce the number of variables.
• Firefox is being unreasonable, and makes it enough of a pain to implement a website that works with tracking protection that CBS doesn't want to play ball. As a simple example, if Firefox's tracking protection blocked all cookies, plenty of honest parts of the internet would break (so it works differently, apparently with a domain block list). It sounds like others have had trouble with blocked domains that are sometimes used for tracking and sometimes for legitimate non-tracking purposes (like force.com, apparently), but I don't have a good sense of how common that really is.
Anyone have enough experience with these things to know how likely/reasonable the different explanations are? (Or if there are other reasons that I missed.)
Firefox tracking protection doesn't block all cookies - just third party trackers on the disconnect.me basic list [1].
While all scenarios you listed are theoretically possible, basic due diligence suggests that there are pretty significant differences in their likelihoods of occurence. It is disingenuous to treat these as equally likely just to appear fair.
From the perspective of the website ff tracking protection is the same as an adblock user.
I think they are just distinguishing both cases because most ff users don't know that they are using an ad blocker.
My initial thought was this shows the anti-tracking measures aren’t working. But upon further consideration, I think you are correct.
The amount of friction this inflicts on the site and users makes this strategy non-viable for site operators. If any significant fraction of users start using browsers with similar capabilities, sites will be forced to change their practices, otherwise they will lose too many users.
I think the situation parallels the introduction of UAC in Windows. For the first year or so after its introduction, UAC triggered a huge number of annoying confirmation pop ups. Now they are much more rare, usually only when an app really needs to manipulate a system level thing.
This is a losing gesture. It used to be that installing an ad blocker was the weird tech thing to do, and it was their fault that the site broke. Now tracking protection is the browser default, and it's the sites that are weird.
It's a small distinction, but an important one. When stuff doesn't work, the default reaction is to blame whatever the weird tech thing is. In this case, CBS is moving from a position of being able to say, "well, you messed with your browser, and you broke it" to, "we're doing something odd, and it requires an instruction manual to make it work."
It's the same reason, for better or worse, that people were worried about secure boot for systems like Linux. When you hand someone something, and it doesn't work, and your response is, "well, you just have to mess with some config settings"... well, sometimes that works. There will be some people who do it. But now you're in "Linux territory". It's doable, but you have a prerequisite now to slightly educate people on tech literacy before you can ask them to do the thing you want. And none of your other competitors have that prerequisite.
If anyone is interested in CBS All Access, you can also buy it for the same price via Amazon Digital as an "Add-On Channel."
In essence you get CBS All Access's content but via the Amazon Digital Web-Site/Apps, it is a massive improvement in reliability and performance. CBS's actual streaming player and web-site is a hot mess.
I'm glad they're desperate enough to allow the word "Tracking" to be used in the instructions. This is why I think all "Ad Blockers" should rebrand as "Tracking Blockers". It would force a more honest terminology to be used. "Turn off your tracking blocker" is a much scarier request to make.
They basically are saying that though - you can disable tracking protection for a single domain using the icon to the left of the URL, but they are itead telling people to turn it off globally in the preferences.
I don't know, this sounds extremely specific to me. I mean, you'd think they'd know exactly whether or not their website works on Firefox, especially in these enlightened auto-update times.
Yes indeed. There era of entitlement is upon us - "unless CBS gives away all their free content without tracking and monetizing me, I'll illegally pirate their content - because in 2018 I'm entitled to CBS content without frills"
I believe subdomains on force.com are used for support portals by companies using Salesforce for customer contact. I've seen it used by Western Digital and a bunch of software or SaaS companies.
This kind of advice puts lay people at risk (if they see it).
Proliferation of such poor advice — which may just be copied and pasted by other sites as-is — could make lay people vulnerable to tracking outside of CBS properties too, since they may forget to turn it back on (or may not be even understand the need to have it on in the first place).
[1] Before browser based adblockers existed (late 1990s), we used to use filtering proxies like Privoxy (formerly Internet Junkbuster). Of course, at the time, text filtering was usually Perl regex instead of CSS selectors.
I'm not sure "demands" fits here, but it is funny to see. Similarly, they "demand" you disable ad blocking or enable popups [0]. So, clearly, this company suffers from idiocy more than malice.
[+] [-] anonymousab|7 years ago|reply
They're purposely giving me a better experience for blocking, rather than an inferior one.
But I guess the metrics must show or are being interpreted to show that most users prefer the obnoxiousness.
[+] [-] albertgoeswoof|7 years ago|reply
Most people aren’t looking to read the news- they’re bored and looking for entertainment. So they LOVE all this crap that autoplays, especially when it queues up more clickbaity crap that sounds more interesting than today’s headlines.
[+] [-] kalleboo|7 years ago|reply
I thought all the autoplaying video was because video ads pay more? It doesn't matter to the site if anyone actually watches the videos or not, as long as they count as an ad view and they get paid.
[+] [-] tomrod|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alangpierce|7 years ago|reply
• CBS is being malicious, and it's intentionally refusing to play the video if they detect tracking protection. (It sounds like a lot of people on the thread are assuming it's this one, and it very well may be.)
• CBS is being lazy, and didn't bother to test with tracking protection and work through any technical issues (like implementing graceful fallbacks).
• CBS is being cautious, and knows they haven't tested tracking protection as much, so they're leaving "disable tracking protection" in as a troubleshooting step, since it certainly does reduce the number of variables.
• Firefox is being unreasonable, and makes it enough of a pain to implement a website that works with tracking protection that CBS doesn't want to play ball. As a simple example, if Firefox's tracking protection blocked all cookies, plenty of honest parts of the internet would break (so it works differently, apparently with a domain block list). It sounds like others have had trouble with blocked domains that are sometimes used for tracking and sometimes for legitimate non-tracking purposes (like force.com, apparently), but I don't have a good sense of how common that really is.
Anyone have enough experience with these things to know how likely/reasonable the different explanations are? (Or if there are other reasons that I missed.)
[+] [-] msravi|7 years ago|reply
While all scenarios you listed are theoretically possible, basic due diligence suggests that there are pretty significant differences in their likelihoods of occurence. It is disingenuous to treat these as equally likely just to appear fair.
1. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection
[+] [-] lionradio|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hfdgiutdryg|7 years ago|reply
I found it humorous that they simply call it 'the hamburger', and that they confused vertical with horizontal.
[+] [-] dataqat|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] firethief|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prolikewh0a|7 years ago|reply
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[+] [-] homero|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josteink|7 years ago|reply
This is good news.
[+] [-] abtinf|7 years ago|reply
The amount of friction this inflicts on the site and users makes this strategy non-viable for site operators. If any significant fraction of users start using browsers with similar capabilities, sites will be forced to change their practices, otherwise they will lose too many users.
I think the situation parallels the introduction of UAC in Windows. For the first year or so after its introduction, UAC triggered a huge number of annoying confirmation pop ups. Now they are much more rare, usually only when an app really needs to manipulate a system level thing.
[+] [-] danShumway|7 years ago|reply
It's a small distinction, but an important one. When stuff doesn't work, the default reaction is to blame whatever the weird tech thing is. In this case, CBS is moving from a position of being able to say, "well, you messed with your browser, and you broke it" to, "we're doing something odd, and it requires an instruction manual to make it work."
It's the same reason, for better or worse, that people were worried about secure boot for systems like Linux. When you hand someone something, and it doesn't work, and your response is, "well, you just have to mess with some config settings"... well, sometimes that works. There will be some people who do it. But now you're in "Linux territory". It's doable, but you have a prerequisite now to slightly educate people on tech literacy before you can ask them to do the thing you want. And none of your other competitors have that prerequisite.
[+] [-] unstatusthequo|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Someone1234|7 years ago|reply
In essence you get CBS All Access's content but via the Amazon Digital Web-Site/Apps, it is a massive improvement in reliability and performance. CBS's actual streaming player and web-site is a hot mess.
[+] [-] DanBC|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kgwxd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ubercow13|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcoates|7 years ago|reply
These extremely generic troubleshooting instructions have nothing to do with anything CBS all-access is or isn't doing.
Further down the page they tell you to clear your cache and history!
[+] [-] apk-d|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chris_wot|7 years ago|reply
What exactly are they tracking that Firefox is interfering with?
[+] [-] mankash666|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pfschell|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fencepost|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeoPanthera|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xfitm3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kgwxd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newscracker|7 years ago|reply
Proliferation of such poor advice — which may just be copied and pasted by other sites as-is — could make lay people vulnerable to tracking outside of CBS properties too, since they may forget to turn it back on (or may not be even understand the need to have it on in the first place).
[+] [-] amaccuish|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdkl95|7 years ago|reply
https://adblockplus.org/filters#elemhide
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Procedural-cosmetic-f...
[1] Before browser based adblockers existed (late 1990s), we used to use filtering proxies like Privoxy (formerly Internet Junkbuster). Of course, at the time, text filtering was usually Perl regex instead of CSS selectors.
[+] [-] thinkingemote|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leptoniscool|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnchristopher|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EpicEng|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joeyh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|7 years ago|reply
https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube
[+] [-] kodablah|7 years ago|reply
0 - https://cbsi.secure.force.com/CBSi/ViewArticle_allaccess?aId...
[+] [-] sctb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rolltack|7 years ago|reply