January 25, 2000
1:35 PM Subscribe
Net advertising behemoth DoubleClick has been quietly buying up marketing databases to allow it to match up your DoubleClick cookie with your name and address. Time to opt out.
The sad thing is that this is going to be the norm, rather than the exception. I'd like to see some sort of Opt-Out mandate, whereby you have to at least passively (by not clicking the opt-out) agree to being included in their marketing database. Of course, I'd also like to see some sort of swiss bank (in the old sense, before it meant evil nazi collaborator) ecommerce technology, where you could surf and shop with some measure of privacy.
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 3:20 PM on January 25, 2000
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 3:20 PM on January 25, 2000
How to permanently get around this on a PC or *nix box (thanks to a local webmaster list for the info):
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Opt out for real. Add
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
to your /etc/hosts or C:\windows\hosts file, and you'll never see another
doubleclick ad again.
(You'll see a broken image where the ad banner should be, and you'll be amazed at the number of sites who do use doucleclick, because it will be immediately obvious). Your web page loads will be much faster at any site that uses doubleclick, they will not profit from either your page views or your non-existent clickthroughs, and they will have no chance to forfeit
your privacy.
Screw DCLK.
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There always seems to be a way to get around this pesky things, eh? Today's Evhead lists some ways to opt out of accepting cookies by domain:
posted by mathowie at 2:49 PM on January 27, 2000
----------
Opt out for real. Add
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
to your /etc/hosts or C:\windows\hosts file, and you'll never see another
doubleclick ad again.
(You'll see a broken image where the ad banner should be, and you'll be amazed at the number of sites who do use doucleclick, because it will be immediately obvious). Your web page loads will be much faster at any site that uses doubleclick, they will not profit from either your page views or your non-existent clickthroughs, and they will have no chance to forfeit
your privacy.
Screw DCLK.
----------
There always seems to be a way to get around this pesky things, eh? Today's Evhead lists some ways to opt out of accepting cookies by domain:
posted by mathowie at 2:49 PM on January 27, 2000
The Center for Democracy & Technology offers a handy way to opt out by conveniently linking to companies (Doubleclick as well as many others) that allow you to opt out online. For the truly privacy-obsessed, the site also generates nifty form letters for those companies requiring that opt out requests be sent via snail mail.
posted by bobafet at 11:10 AM on February 2, 2000
posted by bobafet at 11:10 AM on February 2, 2000
I don't have a hosts file on my home PC. And at work, I noticed that editing the hosts file didn't stop all the DoubleClick ads, because they have a whole bunch of different server names. Guidescope to the rescue! Free software that will block ALL ads, user selectable, and it's smart enough to replace the ads with a clear GIF the same size, so page formatting isn't messed up. I've noticed pages load much faster without accessing the external ad servers. Oh, and it selectively blocks cookies, too, if you want. Works on all Windows and Linux, on both IE and Netscape browsers. Thanks to my tech buddy Josh for referring me to them.
posted by JParker at 9:21 PM on January 24, 2001
posted by JParker at 9:21 PM on January 24, 2001
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posted by mathowie at 1:39 PM on January 25, 2000