2026-03-16 16:24 UTC
Replies (11)
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@HodgesC@mas.to 2026-03-16 16:48
@rndeon @pluralistic Now I wonder if anyone has ever assessed the emissions savings from script- and ad-blocking
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@jeanmimi@mamot.fr 2026-03-16 17:09
@rndeon @pluralistic dns blocking is good when not done by state.
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@curiousicae@tech.lgbt 2026-03-16 17:54
@rndeon AdNauseum allows you to load the ads without displaying them to make companies waste money on unviewed-but-paid ads. Not the same, but its a start, I think? @pluralistic
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@pheonix@hachyderm.io 2026-03-16 19:13
@rndeon @pluralistic Author here, thanks so much for reading! I was just as blown away when I first dug into this and had the same reaction. What is wild is that the logical fix for this, something called Server-to-Server (S2S) auctions like prebid server already exists. It offloads the compute and saves massive amounts of bandwidth. But because of certain data-matching limitations between servers, ad-tech prefers to hijack our browsers to keep revenue high. To your point about messing with the bids, it is a brilliant thought! But currently, the client just collects the bids...the final clearing price is validated server-side by the primary ad server AFAIK. Spoofing the bid might just break the iframe or serve you a cheap fallback ad if they've built contingency measures(which I'm sure they have). Dropping the requests entirely with an ad blocker is an incredibly effective and sane response! But I'm always open to hearing from smart people. Thank you for sharing 🙏✨
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@disorderlyf@todon.eu 2026-03-16 20:07
@rndeon @pluralistic Imagine expecting people to give you almost as much bandwidth as the cap Discord is willing to give you if you pay them $5/month for a single message for the privilege of reading the text they want to display to you.
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@v1rulenc3@infosec.exchange 2026-03-16 20:31
@rndeon @pluralistic I am of the mind that I should have control over all things calculated by my computer, so why not decide the ad auction as I wish, if the work is to be passed to me anyways? What an odd thing.
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@jbhughes@flipboard.social 2026-03-16 22:02
@rndeon @pluralistic In my 1980s computer company we used to fantasize about a machine instruction with the code HCF to send to the computers of miscreants who screwed up the network. It means Halt and Catch Fire.
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@clanger9@mastodon.online 2026-03-16 23:09
Surely this means there's an opportunity here to mess with their revenue streams? I'm thinking: drive down income for the host, drive up costs for the advertiser. That kind of thing. 😈
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@Maverynthia@dragon.style 2026-03-24 13:05
@rndeon @pluralistic Also a people in a lot of countries have metered connections. So they can "run out of internet" and this just slurps all of that up. So people are paying for garbage. It's theft really.
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@maco@wandering.shop 2026-03-24 13:28
@rndeon @pluralistic pushing ad auction calculations on-device was supposed to be Google’s solution to privacy concerns. It was part of the plan to kill 3rd party cookies in Chrome. I used to work in ad-tech when this was being designed. The UK regulators were concerned it would be a monopolistic practice for Google and required evidence that this wasn’t hurting other ad-tech companies. I don’t know what the results showed, but Google backed out of killing 3rd party cookies.
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@Brokar@mastodon.social 2026-03-24 13:39
@rndeon @pluralistic That's why the NoScript plugin is your best friend. Available for almost every modern browser. And i personally skip/ignore websites which do not give at least a minimum of information without scripts. I still remember the times when scripts were used for web page functionality, like menus and stuff, tables, rollovers, not for ads or data hijacking, phishing and cookie consent banners.