Have we been betrayed?

[WursWaldo]

Rule #1 of internet browsing: Block everything.

I do not care if 'every one does it' when it comes to cookies or data mining. SCREW YOU. I vistit sites like Nexus for the free content. That isn't an open invitation to implant tracking cookies or ping my PC. Find another way to fund your site because I'm not a resource you can exploit. I will do everything in my power to prevent any site I visit from doing that. Seriously, aside from a few generic browser cookies and one for log in what business does Nexus or any other site have in pinging or tracking? Go ahead and try and justify it. :laugh:

[DoctorKaizeld]

 

Go ahead and try and justify it.

okay, how would the Nexus earn money then? do you want every website to block content unless you're a subscriber? do you want to lose all the 'free' content because now you have to pay for every single website to view them?

 

either way the Nexus has made it clear they dont track you, and i believe they have said they dont ping either. i dont even have adblock turned on for the site as well i also paid the 2 dollars to remove all the ads for life. i may end up paying for a premium account but honestly aside from gaining access to their faster servers i have no reason to do so. it's not like i need a faster server, most mods take a matter of seconds to download.

[WursWaldo]

 

Go ahead and try and justify it.

okay, how would the Nexus earn money then? do you want every website to block content unless you're a subscriber? do you want to lose all the 'free' content because now you have to pay for every single website to view them?

 

either way the Nexus has made it clear they dont track you, and i believe they have said they dont ping either. i dont even have adblock turned on for the site as well i also paid the 2 dollars to remove all the ads for life. i may end up paying for a premium account but honestly aside from gaining access to their faster servers i have no reason to do so. it's not like i need a faster server, most mods take a matter of seconds to download.

You're contradicting yourself. On one hand you ask how Nexus can make money without pinging and tracking; then you state Nexus doesn't do either. Mkay, where is the money coming from?

Dark0ne is on record stating “Nexus is self sufficient. It always has been.” He said that in an on line interview concerning the Zenimax-Bethesda/Steam monetized modding scheme and his involvement with it; that he later debunked here publicly after it didn't work out. Prior to that he was all in, going as far as to be a service provider for monetized modding.

I do not care where the funds to run Nexus come from, as long as it doesn’t come from me unwillingly or unknowingly. $2.00 US to stop ads or AdBlock for free; I'll opt for free.

Tin foil hat emoticons and ‘It’s a trap’ cuteness aside; if it doesn’t matter that sites ping and data mine, then it doesn’t matter if I stop them from doing it. If Nexus is ‘not doing it’, then Nexus has no reason to complain about me stopping them from ‘not doing it’ to me. According to Nexus it’s not happening in the first place; so why the fuss about someone stopping them? That makes no sense, but I’m being logical in an illogical internet situation.

There are too many inconsistencies about what is being said and what actually happens, and I really do not care. I'm here for free mods; the operative word being free. That means not paying for them or having my info mined or my browsing habits sold without my consent.

[DoctorKaizeld]

 

You're contradicting yourself. On one hand you ask how Nexus can make money without pinging and tracking; then you state Nexus doesn't do either. Mkay, where is the money coming from?

sorry i'll take the hit, i meant to include ads to that.

 

 

Dark0ne is on record stating “Nexus is self sufficient. It always has been.”

because of ads and people who pay for premium and supporter. they use the ads that they have to cover the costs.

 

 

I do not care where the funds to run Nexus come from, as long as it doesn’t come from me unwillingly or unknowingly. $2.00 US to stop ads or AdBlock for free; I'll opt for free.

that's fine, but two dollar USD is not a lot to ask for and removes ads for life. adblock though gets the Nexus no money and that reduces their income which they need to stay a float.

 

 

Tin foil hat emoticons and ‘It’s a trap’ cuteness aside; if it doesn’t matter that sites ping and data mine, then it doesn’t matter if I stop them from doing it. If Nexus is ‘not doing it’, then Nexus has no reason to complain about me stopping them from ‘not doing it’ to me. According to Nexus it’s not happening in the first place; so why the fuss about someone stopping them? That makes no sense, but I’m being logical in an illogical internet situation.

to be honest the cookie thing doesnt really matter to me... i find them often invasive and would rather see side bar ads (no animated ones mind you) over them for the site to gain money. also the ability to remove the ads for a low price is quite reasonable and very respectable. that is something i would like carried over to other sites that use ads.

 

 

There are too many inconsistencies about what is being said and what actually happens, and I really do not care. I'm here for free mods; the operative word being free. That means not paying for them or having my info mined or my browsing habits sold without my consent.

you give your consent when you sign onto a website... there's usually a TOS at the bottom of the page that says this in all it's fancy lawyer speech.

 

also im on the fence for selling mods... in one hand some people really do deserve something for their mods (like the massive overhaul mods such as Better Vampires) as they take a lot of work. as long as there's a donation system it's fine for me. though it should be mention nothing is free and you cant demand people give you stuff they worked hard on give it to you for free. if they want to give it freely then that should be their choice and you need to get over it.

[sunshinenbrick]

It is really all about choice... and there is darn great lack of that about these days.

 

'Damned if you do, damned if you don't'

[DoctorKaizeld]

 

It is really all about choice... and there is darn great lack of that about these days.

agreed

[HeyYou]

I would be interested to see the sites balance sheet....... Currently, we have no information about how well the site is/is not doing. Dark0ne may be raking in a hundred grand a year in salary for all we know.

[DrakeTheDragon]

There seems to be some misinformation/misconception afloat about what cookies and tracking is used to and who does which one of it.

 

 

First of all, cookies. They "can" be used for tracking, yes, but commonly they're rather only used for "identifying" you when communicating with the website. Every framework I know uses cookies to authenticate their login systems. Disallow cookies, and they can't store that you've logged in, as they basically don't know that you are you when communicating with their servers. Your IP, for example, alone is no reliable way to do that at all.

 

Even the browsers' "session" info is stored inside a cookie, the session cookie, which is usually deleted when you close the browser. But the only thing stored inside this cookie is a random unique ID, "your" temporary identification token, so the server on the other hand can check if there's already a temporary session data folder "for you" on their end and they can store and read data stored in your browser's session or not. In this folder then, for example, they store that you're already logged in, most of your user preferences, or browser-specific customizations you've done. It's just a hand-shake token required for certain functions of the website. Disallow it and you loose the functions, nothing else.

 

Ads, however, are a completely different beast in this regard. Those 3rd party providers, the Nexus has absolutely no control over or even insight into by the way, much less so a say in what they do, may install cookies on your system, because the web store they link you to when you click on one of the advertised products requires this in order to be able to pay them back for the referenced customer.

 

But sometimes they go beyond that and use a cookie of their own to be able to connect views and clicks of and on different ads of their's shown to you together into a "user profile". Again the cookies themselves are only used as identification tokens, to identify you as you to them. But the tracking they do is of course used for way more specific means and intentions.

 

 

I'm programming these systems myself, so I'm not just talking nonsense here but from insight knowledge of what this stuff, usually, actually does and how it works behind the scenes.

 

 

So next up, the oh-so-horrible tracking. Well, first off, every single ad you see on a website when coming from a 3rd party ad provider has already tracked the fact that you've seen it, a so-called "ad impression", taking place the very instant its url is called inside the Iframe you see. The links contained inside this ad then usually contain a parameter connecting the click on them with the "impression id" of said ad, so they can already say which ad impression had led to a click and on what product.

 

Bound to your ad impression they usually also collect data about your platform, your browser, your IP, the time it was shown to you, etc., in other words just about everything your browser automatically and always already broadcasts to every single server the url of which is called in any way. So at the end of the day what they collect, especially when using a cookie on your side to identify you as a user and not only your 1 individual ad impression, is what ads they showed you and when, which of them you clicked and on which products, and along with that some additional information to re-identify "you" in case their tracking cookie on your end expires or something along that line.

 

Depending on how many websites you visit that cooperate with them they can of course also track part of your browsing habits, but what they definitely are interested in, the legit ones at least, is going by the ads shown to you where your personal interests lie, so in future they can immediately serve you the kind of ads you're more interested in and more likely to click on product to visit their shop pages and go browsing. It's called "retargeting" the advertised contents, like more personalized products better fitting your own individual interests, and the gist of it is to just provide a better service to you, to make your online experience more pleasant, and, of course, no doubt about it, also earn "them" more money from you being more likely to buy something they show you.

 

Again you can prevent these identification cookies by disallowing/blocking, and again you'll only loose out on their service based on these. They will loose out as well, of course, but they're already forced "by law" to comply with regulations where they enable you to do just that. This isn't a service they can just silently shove down your throat and forget about it, they need your consent, and can't do anything against your denial of it either.

 

The tracking done by the ads, however, I haven't seen any way, technical or law-instated, to prevent them from doing "that". The only thing you can do is use one of the many "private" browsing options available nowadays, where your browser does "not" so openly and happily broadcast just about every info it got about you to every website you visit.

 

 

End of the line, you can always "opt out" of the user tracking based features they provide to you as well as disallow/disable them from tracking you beyond a single impression and what was clicked on it.

Along the same line you can also always opt out of the cookie-based or personalized browsing features a website like the Nexus is providing you with, or, in this case better fitting, the entire IPBoard framework and all forums or websites based on it or similar platforms are providing you with. But don't be disappointed when it means many of the site's functionalities and features, like as explained a basic login and user account system for example, will not be available to you any longer then either.

 

It's up to you to decide what you want and what you can get along with. It shouldn't cost the Nexus any income from ad impressions when you block their cookies. These ad providers are "forced" by law to offer you this option and to comply with your denial of it. But if you block the Nexus' own cookies, better be prepared to also loose out on the many cookie-based features for a personalized browsing experience. Again, it's entirely up to you in the end. But please also live with the consequences of your decisions, preferably without throwing a fit at the wrong parties.

[sunshinenbrick]

I wonder if its possible to have a plugin that say, showed where you're info was going... like a sort of reverse tracker?

 

Being in advertising I fully understand why all of these things are part and parcel of the free Internet, but if we are having to become increasingly transparent with our data then it only seems fair for it to work both ways.

 

Maybe what the European Court of Justice ruled today, will open things up a little.

[DrakeTheDragon]

I wonder if its possible to have a plugin that say, showed where you're info was going... like a sort of reverse tracker?

 

Being in advertising I fully understand why all of these things are part and parcel of the free Internet, but if we are having to become increasingly transparent with our data then it only seems fair for it to work both ways.

Well, all the browser info is automatically going to every url your browser opens, be it directly in the address bar or indirectly by the site's HTML it displays, for example in Script Tags' "src"-attributes or even Img Tags as well (so-called "tracking pixels" then, as you won't see them when they're 1x1 pixels in size and only contain transparent background). So in order to see "that" simple plugins like FireFox' "Tamper Data" and/or the Developer Toolbar/Browser Inspect features will already suffice.

 

The cookies, however, are usually "domain-based" anyways, and in every browser I know you can easily obtain a list of all cookies a page you're on currently uses/stores on your PC, which domain they are from/for/used by, and what's stored inside them, usually just a simple string, as nothing else can be stored inside them anyways. Sometimes, however, said string is a serialized array of multiple parts of information (simply speaking a whole list of things), not rarely also encoded (Base64, etc.) or even encrypted for security reasons, so you can't immediately "read" it at all. But like I said, they're mostly only used to store simple identification data like unique ids or tokens (random letters, numbers, and or signs), anyways.

 

So there you go.