New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: If I disable JavaScript, am I worth less to advertisers?
Ask HN: If I disable JavaScript, am I worth less to advertisers?
4 by chrischapman | 1 comments on Hacker News.
The question was prompted by this HN post today (Browser Fingerprinting Without JavaScript)[1]. The article suggests I could still be tracked so I started wondering about the effects of JavaScript (JS) on advertisers. Hypothesis: Tracking primarily benefits advertisers. Adverts are primarily delivered in the browser by JS. By disabling JS, my value to advertisers is diminished. As data collectors can't sell my data at a profit, they should stop collecting my data. Is that hypothesis valid? My own motivation for disabling JavaScript was simply to avoid experimental DHTML stuff (like wierd mouse effects) back in the day - not privacy or tracking - but I'm still really happy with that choice - I get to browse a quieter web. But has it made me less worth while to track? If it was just me as a NoJS user, advertisers wouldn't bother about it. But imagine if Halloween was the start of an annual 'NoJS Week' during which everyone disabled JS. Would worldwide advertising spend drop and if so, by how much? 1%? 10%? 90%? And what kind of drop would we see in sales? 1. As a tracked human, do I have an advertising value? 2. Is my advertising value less than someone who enables JS? 3. Do advertisers measure this? 4. Are there just too few NoJS users for this to matter? 5. If I disable JS, am I still worth tracking? [1]https://ift.tt/3CuHo27
4 by chrischapman | 1 comments on Hacker News.
The question was prompted by this HN post today (Browser Fingerprinting Without JavaScript)[1]. The article suggests I could still be tracked so I started wondering about the effects of JavaScript (JS) on advertisers. Hypothesis: Tracking primarily benefits advertisers. Adverts are primarily delivered in the browser by JS. By disabling JS, my value to advertisers is diminished. As data collectors can't sell my data at a profit, they should stop collecting my data. Is that hypothesis valid? My own motivation for disabling JavaScript was simply to avoid experimental DHTML stuff (like wierd mouse effects) back in the day - not privacy or tracking - but I'm still really happy with that choice - I get to browse a quieter web. But has it made me less worth while to track? If it was just me as a NoJS user, advertisers wouldn't bother about it. But imagine if Halloween was the start of an annual 'NoJS Week' during which everyone disabled JS. Would worldwide advertising spend drop and if so, by how much? 1%? 10%? 90%? And what kind of drop would we see in sales? 1. As a tracked human, do I have an advertising value? 2. Is my advertising value less than someone who enables JS? 3. Do advertisers measure this? 4. Are there just too few NoJS users for this to matter? 5. If I disable JS, am I still worth tracking? [1]https://ift.tt/3CuHo27
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