[PLUG-TALK] Website tracking

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 02:12:27PM -0800, Russell Senior wrote:
> https://www.eff.org/issues/do-not-track

A useful essay, but dated - I've noticed a recent upsurge
of aggressive tracking and countermeasures.

I used to read the Times of India website, an interesting
view of the world from the world's largest English-speaking
nation.  Over the last few months, the ToI ads have grown
increasingly aggressive, with pages formatted to be 
difficult to read without including the splatter of ads. 

A week ago, ToI changed their site again.  Now, the content
appears for about half a second, then is replaced with a
blank white page - even on a "burner" laptop with ad
blocking disabled.  Jerks.  Times of India gets no more
of my precious time.

India trains some of the world's best programmers.  I can
imagine a coding war between ToI and advertiser hirelings
on one side, and EFF/free-software privacy advocates on
the other.  I hope the latter win.  It is lucky for me
(if not 1.4 billion Indians) that this battle is, for
now, mostly "over there".

It will be a global battle soon.  The tree of liberty will
soon be fertilized with the blood of many more patriots
and tyrants (paraphasing Jefferson). 

How should we prepare for ourselves and our systems for
this?

- besides tearing down statues of Jefferson, an activity
that bothers me, but that radical young Tom (not old Tom)
would likely participate in enthusiastically?

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com