this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
864 points (97.5% liked)
Technology
68495 readers
3608 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Couple of issues I'm wondering about...
First, wouldn't clicking on everything just make you easier to track?
Second, how much bandwidth would all this use?
the way it works is sending an HTTP request that registers as a "click" to the advertiser (thus costing them money), but then doesn't actually let the browser download any content and fetch the webpage, basically pi-holes the destination site and any attached tracking cookies. Combined with the fact that it does this to every ad, it would basically poison any click tracking.
edit: pedants
and before I get any more of you, this is just what I remember reading about adnauseam, do not take it as gospel, go look at AdNauseam's FAQ.
Thanks for doing your part to spread the truth in this sea of lies and FUD.
It's clear that most people these days are proud consumers with more money than sense. All they care about is looking good in front of their consumerist friends, and they base all of their actions and decisions around what will support that ideology.
As a kid, I thought useful idiots were rare. Now I see it's the exact opposite.
Yeah, I can't find an answer whether the "click" is behind some obfuscation, or if the "click every ad" is the obfuscation step itself by attempting to poison the data. The latter may work but yes, may actually increase tracking. Wish that answer wasn't so hard to find on their site.
Did you look at the FAQ?
https://github.com/dhowe/adnauseam/wiki/FAQ#how-does-adnauseam-click-ads
Thanks, I didn't see this, there was a different embedded FAQ that didn't have the specific Q & A below.
But, if anything, it seems to confirm the ad itself is just legitimately clicked from the user's IP address and hidden from the user, and that there is code execution protection, but not that there is any privacy protection? It's still very ambiguous.
Also wouldn't this be directing a ton of money to google? (or I guess any other ad provider)
In the short term, I would think so.
In the long run, it makes it less appealing for companies to advertise, because they would have larger costs while having less sales. That, in return, hurts Google as advertisers don't want to pay as much anymore. If 80% of all users used this extension, advertisers would have to pay more than ever, while having only 20% of all users can be reached (simplified, of course).
Or in short, it's designed to hurt the system as a whole, not specific companies.
The advertisers are paying for the opportunity either way. Clicks cost them more money than just displaying the ad. Useless clicks cost them money for nothing.
The advertisers could be paying based on interactions and/or their rates could be negotiated around interaction, so unless a sizeable number of people use this it would be giving money to Goog
No, because it devalues their click through, as no sales will result from those clicks.
It's kinda like printing money, there's more of it, but the overall value hasn't increased.