this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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This whole thread is a whole lot of hullabaloo about complaining about legality about the way YouTube is running ad block detection, and framing it as though it makes the entire concept of ad block detection illegal.
As much as you may hate YouTube and/or their ad block policies, this whole take is a dead end. Even if by the weird stretch he's making, the current system is illegal, there are plenty of ways for Google to detect and act on this without going anywhere remotely near that law. The best case scenario here is Google rewrites the way they're doing it and redeploys the same thing.
This might cost them like weeks of development time. But it doesn't stop Google from refusing to serve you video until you watch ads. This whole argument is receiving way more weight than it deserves because he's repeatedly flaunting credentials that don't change the reality of what Google could do here even if this argument held water.
You're missing the point/s
Immoral? For making you watch ads? How are ads immoral? You're using the service, you watch ads, it's not rocket surgery
Its immoral for the way its being done, not what was done.
Fuck that noise. Advertising as a whole is mostly immoral, we just got used to it.
Marketing in general is a reason we live in a consumer society.
The only reason marketing exist is to trick our brains into buying stuff we do not need.
I'd say ban all of it. The world would be better off.
Uh. It's not immoral to read the data they've served to you on the page they're visiting on their own website. I'm honestly genuinely curious what moral argument you could make, here
they are taking information from your browser without getting your permission first, to use that information against you.
They'd argue that you going to their page which you know is sustained by ads is consent enough to check whether you're using ad block. It's an implicit thing, like how when you go to a restaurant you're implying that you're going to pay the bill afterward. You can't eat and then leave saying, "well technically I never explicitly agreed to pay for this meal, it's your fault for not asking before serving me."
They're taking information from the page they served you and runs the code they wrote to read the page they served you to ensure what they served you is actually what you're seeing
You're accessing the site, you're continuing to use the site, you are implicitly agreeing to allow the code they run to modify the page you're on
I fail to see how it specifically being used to check that ads are displaying is any different from code running normally in your browser to change the page without refreshing the page entirely
More importantly and actually on subject: how is this immoral? What moral code are they breaking here? You can argue legal semantics, but legality is not morality. You made a moral argument. How is this immoral?
Google is tracking you on every website that has a "share to Google" icon.
Which means Google has your entire browser history, even if you use Firefox.
If it was just on their own websites, nobody would be complaining.
This is specifically about YouTube and YouTube specifically detecting adblock on YouTube.
Youtube makes money off of adblocked users.
They send your watch habit aggregate data profiles to the number crunchers at alphabet hq, to sell off.
They make fuckloads of money off the free video content theyre given as well as the nonstop data stream of demographics data. Thats why alphabet bought it in the first place.
The ads are just bonus cash. They dont want to miss an opportunity to score more money by selling ad space in their data profile mines.
They are being fully compensated by me logging in and feeding them either free labor as video content or free money as data profiles. They can easily keep the lights on off that alone. They dont need more free cash.
I am not obligated to sit dutifully with the volume up when ads play on my tv.
Nor am I obligated to allow ads to load within my browser.
They send the data they want me to display, down to every element on the page. It is fully within my rights to choose which elements are allowed to load on my computer.
And I wont be fuckin guilt tripped that the billion dollar company will make a fraction of another billion less dollars this quarter over my decisions to do so.
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the typical terms of service or privacy policy even mention that you, as a user, have the power to reject tracking cookies, tracking pixels, etc. via your browser configuration and third party tools? As far as I know, the YouTube ToS and Privacy Policy also mention these things. I just tried to read it but they seem to have broken it up into a sprawling multi-site multi-page document where I can't find the legalese to ctrl+f and pore over.
Can anyone find these documents, so I can read through them please?
Edit:
I found it: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en#intro
TOS are neither the law, nor are they vetted for legality by anyone working in law enforcement.
TOS very often contain straight up illegal clauses; they are largely meaningless.
Thats such an incoherent response.
If you think it had nothing to do with the convo, maybe you shouldnt be chiming in on adult conversations until you can follow them.
If a company is writing illegal requirements, there is no moral backing for following them. They arent allowed to ask it of you.
Go get your sippie and blankie. This conversation is too mature for you to handle.
Its cute that the salad guy thinks he can reason out a conversation.
Its not immoral to violate an illegal requirement. Especially when they are already fully paid in my data. Do you need an adult to explain that to you? Im not paid to tutor kids, but Im sure you can ask your mother to hire someone.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA