Why does ATS Use tracking add.doubleclick?

So i'v been using ghostery for a while now.

For those of you who don't know what ghostery is.

Ghostery tracks over 1,400 trackers and gives you a roll-call of the ad networks, behavioral data providers, web publishers, and other companies interested in your activity.

So while having ATS open This pops up.
n4403ad.doubleclick.net...

Now I don't mind coockies, I prefer sites not having them, but since I do my fair share of webdevelopment I know these are often cricital in making stuff work.

I wouldn't be on ATS if I wasn't somewhat paranoid. When I started browsing... I got more then one page of people asking what It was and more importently how to get rid of it.

When looking at the wikipedia there is this paragraph that really makes me wonder...

DoubleClick is often linked with the controversy over spyware because browser HTTP cookies are set to track users as they travel from website to website and record which commercial advertisements they view and select while browsing.[7]
DoubleClick has also been criticized for misleading users by offering an opt-out option that is insufficiently effective. According to a San Francisco IT consulting group, although the opt-out option affects cookies, DoubleClick does not allow users to opt out of IP address-based tracking.[8]
DoubleClick with MSN were shown serving malware via drive-by download exploits by a group of attackers for some time in December 2010.[9]

Its one thing to take my info while browsing your website, I do not like that fact ATS took the liberty to make this decision on my behalf. So this add what you wanna call it will be following me around the web no matter where i go.

I would like some response to this,

But sadly its just not ATS. Its being used by all the major companies.

Much of regards.

You are misinformed.

Originally posted by Senduko
Now I don't mind coockies, I prefer sites not having them, but since I do my fair share of webdevelopment I know these are often cricital in making stuff work.

It doesn't seem like you're familiar with how cookies work.

DoubleClick is often linked with the controversy over spyware

Cookies are not spyware. Wikipedia contains lots and lots of bad information.

DoubleClick has also been criticized for misleading users by offering an opt-out option that is insufficiently effective.

Any opt-out is technically silly. Can you explain how an ad network would know you've opted out of their cookies, without setting a cookie?

DoubleClick does not allow users to opt out of IP address-based tracking.

It's been a long, long time since an IP was ever considered personally identifiable information.

DoubleClick with MSN were shown serving malware via drive-by download exploits by a group of attackers for some time in December 2010.[9]

(3.5 years old!) That was because DoubleClick was working with RightMedia, a real-time ad bidding platform that allowed anyone with a credit cart to initiate an ad campaign. Attackers were using stolen credit cards to target legitimate seeming to sites like MSN by using a high real-time bid that fit the impression profile of MSN on the DoubleClick network. After a few hours, the banner ads would be replaced with those containing malicious code.
1) DoubleClick no longer accepts real-time bidding platforms that don't constantly scan ads through one of the trusted vendors for doing so.
2) RightMedia (now YieldManager platform) now has a three-level authenticity check for new advertisers.
(we got hit with malicious ads via RightMedia at the time, and dropped them completely)

Its one thing to take my info while browsing your website,

No one is taking your info.

I do not like that fact ATS took the liberty to make this decision on my behalf.

It's clearly spelled out in our Privacy Policy clearly linked at the bottom of every page.

So this add what you wanna call it will be following me around the web no matter where i go.

You're misinformed. That's not how it works.



Also...


The Above Network (owners of ATS) are members of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and are on record as signing their code of ethics. We also clearly display the Ad Choices link on every page, and only use networks that comply with the policies of the Ad Choices initiative, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau.


And...


In the past, I've personally created ad serving technologies. So I know very well how it all works, and the horrible amount of misinformation about cookies and ad targeting being perpetuated by the "anti-bad-ware" industry. Ghostery among them.

Because I actually like this site and know it takes money to run, I click on a few ads here and there anyway just in case there paid links I don't mind taking a minute of my time to earn someone 0.01 pence... Everyone should click a couple ads here and there every time you log on in my opinion and as for OP I think you got confused with like cookie catchers or something Like XSS...

Its one thing to take my info while browsing your website, I do not like that fact ATS took the liberty to make this decision on my behalf. So this add what you wanna call it will be following me around the web no matter where i go. I would like some response to this, But sadly its just not ATS. Its being used by all the major companies.

OP, if you do various "web development" and programming (depending on how proficient you are) ..to be told "you're misinformed or noone is doing this or that to you on the web" isn't a satisfactory answer, is it? ..especially not 3.5 years ago

but like the overlord says to you..

Any opt-out is technically silly. Can you explain how an ad network would know you've opted out of their cookies, without setting a cookie?

having *anything* to do with the scene is going to compromise you from the outset, in the same way ATS is subject to it all.. like you said, "all the major companies".. and we're just talking about 'software' here.. there's also certain 'hardware' changes many are still blissfully unaware of.. there's no avoiding it.. well, there is.. but that means avoiding the scene entirely ..i think i'll start painting again

reply to post by UNIT76


There is a great deal of misinformation being spread around about the "tracking" performed by online advertising networks. And it began about a decade ago when anti-virus scanners began calling any cookie a "potentially malicious tracking cookie." Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) was created in an effort to get more installs/sales of the scanning software from a slew of vendors.

Since the scaling-up of newspaper distribution, advertising has been the only means by which free (or very cheap) content can be subsidized in a way that continues the funding of such content. Today, there's an incalculable number of small to large independent websites with vital voices that are completely detached from mainstream media. These sites exist because of online advertising. Even those handful of altruistic sites that operate without ads owe their existence to an inexpensive infrastructure that was built because of all the other sites that do have online ads.

And now we have detestable people such as this cretan who simply don't like ads, and are in a position to disrupt and damage the independent web because of their personal short-sighted selfishness.

Do many ads suck? - absolutely

Does the online ad industry have a bad reputation? - yes (and a lot has been done to fix that)

Is there a viable alternative? - not yet

Would the independent web die without tracking? - most of it, yes


Over the past five years, ATS management has been active with the Interactive Advertising Bureau during their trips to Washington to lobby congress and senate members on behalf of the independent web. It was then that we discovered the majority of representatives who were pushing for "do not track" or some other form of severe limitations were receiving major portions of their funding from big media.

Why is this important?

Because big media will be the only party that benefits from a "do not track" or similar requirement/legislation. The websites that make up the independent web do not have the resources for their own advertising technology/department. That's why our only option is third-party ad networks, and the third-patry cookies (cookies from a different domain) necessary to manage the display of ads. Big media companies have the ability to either operate their own internet advertising team, or work with a large ad network such as DoubleClick for white-label real-time-bidding (DoubleClick manages the RTB, but the "tracking cookie" appears to originate with the publisher's domain, so it's a pseudo-first-party cookie).

Big media would like nothing more than to decimate the independent web so that they could get more traffic, without the inconvenient alternative content getting in the way of their corporate news strategy. Big media is definitely behind the efforts to perpetuate the "tracking cookie" misinformation, eliminate the independent web, and dominate online content of all types.

During my trips to DC to lobby against government intervention that would only serve "Big/Main Stream Media" I was shocked at the lack of knowledge the people in power possess about the industry they could destroy. I believe we've made lots of progress over the years but the fact remains most people just don't understand how the online ecosystem works.

That's the ad industry's fault right along with their utter failure to respond to the misinformation the "protection" software industry has pushed for the last ten years by educating consumers on how it really works and being completely transparent about what data is actually collected. That last bit would have had the added benefit of outing the crooks and limiting the malware to a great degree.

That aside, I agree with S.O., there seems to be a huge amount of "it won't hurt me so I'm all for sticking it to the advertisers". The reality is that it will hurt the entirety of the independent web, imagine an internet where only the biggest corporate congloms have the ability to publish content. Forget about the amazing little sites that give a voice to people who aren't "interesting enough" to be newsworthy, the little sites that give attention to the things the MSM passes over, and the independent sites that seek to keep the "big boys" honest.

Where does that leave the web? In the hands of Monsanto, GM, News Corp, Proctor and Gamble, FaceBook, Google, Yahoo (for now at least), AOL, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Big Pharma, and the rest of the huge corporations that already seem to control everything BUT the web.

Let that sink in...

The last place left in human society that is beyond the reach of those with the vast majority of the power and money is the independent internet or the "Long Tail" as it's known in the business. How convenient it would be if that went away, how wonderful for big media to never have to worry about competing with or being called out/exposed by us little guys ever again.

This is a bad move started with a snow job from the "protection industry" (anti malware software makers making cookies sound "evil" and intrusive), and is being pushed by BIG Media and Corporations who will finally have total control over the content of the internet, and some selfish people who simply hate advertising in spite of the fact that without it they'd be naked and smell bad.

Springer...

reply to post by Senduko


I'm pretty sure that Ghostery (via GhostRank if you have it enabled) tracks your info also. They also are in the add helping business, they help streamline adds to individual user types by tracking what you surf...but, I bet you didn't read that part of the terms of agreement? Maybe you didn't opt-in GhostRank, most do opt-in, cheers to you if you did not opt-in.

edit - no service is free. Even when it is free, you still end up paying something. And with ATS ad thingie - the Bellagio adds are getting to me. Maybe I do need a Vegas vacation.