https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43j8qm/firefox-will-give-you-a-fake-browsing-history-to-fool-advertisers
> Firefox Will Give You a Fake Browsing History to Fool Advertisers > > Using the 'Track THIS' tool opens up 100 tabs at a time that will make you > seem like a hypebeast, a filthy rich person, a doomsday prepper, or an > influencer. > Security through obscurity is out, security through tomfoolery is in. > > That’s the basic philosophy sold by Track THIS, “a new kind of incognito” > browsing project, which opens up 100 tabs crafted to fit a specific > character—a hypebeast, a filthy rich person, a doomsday prepper, or an > influencer. The idea is that your browsing history will be depersonalized and > poisoned, so advertisers won’t know how to target ads to you. It was > developed as a collaboration between mschf (pronounced "mischief") internet > studios and Mozilla's Firefox as a way of promoting Firefox Quantum, the > newest Firefox browser. > > “These trackers and these websites really commoditize you, and they don’t > really make you feel like a person,” Daniel Greenberg, director of strategy > and distribution for mschf, said in a phone call. “So we wanted to do > something visceral that makes the user feel like they’re in control again.” > > There are already ad blockers, which remove banner and pop-up ads from web > pages, and pixel blockers, which block internet-history tracking pixels used > by websites to sell you ads. I use an adblocker on Chrome, so it was pretty > much impossible for me to tell whether Track THIS was working or not. The > press release does note that if you’re an avid user of ad blockers, then this > tool is “not for you.” But Greenberg said Track THIS worked for him. > > “In my personal experience, I opened up the influencer one, and within the > next seven days, I was getting ads for stuff that had nothing to do with me > whatsoever,” Greenberg said. “I was getting ads for women’s clothing, I was > getting ads for makeup, I was getting ads for skincare—all these things I’ve > never looked at.” > > Just a warning—if you use Track THIS it may take several minutes for all 100 > tabs to load. (I used Chrome as my browser.) But when as it gradually loads, > it’s like taking a first-person journey through someone else’s consciousness. > > When I was a Hypebeast, I entered a whirlpool of Yeezys, Prada, Nike, and > Canada Goose. (VICE’s homepage is one of the sites opened with the hypebeast > option.) Then when I was filthy rich, I browsed CNN Business and Yahoo > Finance, went on Coinbase, and looked at the sites for Ezoo and Alexander > McQueen. When I was a doomsday prepper, I shopped for prepper kits, hazmat > suits, emergency kits, and ultra-powerful flashlights (four Motherboard links > are opened up, too.) And when I was an influencer, I looked at Glossier, > Trivago, Lululemon, Astrology Hub, and Sugarbear Hair—yes, the same product > whose promotion ignited the wild feud between Tati Westbrook and James > Charles. > > “I was always fascinated with the idea of taking on other personas through > ads,” Greenberg said. “So forgetting about the privacy aspect for a moment, I > always thought it was an interesting idea to pretend you’re someone else on > the internet.” > > Humans are empathetic creatures, and it’s naturally fun to feel like you’re > enter someone’s headspace. But there’s also something morbid about entering > other people’s heads as a mode of self-defense, as an effort to make yourself > ever-so-slightly less commoditizable to the companies that always, silently > watch you browse. -- Kim Holburn IT Network & Security Consultant T: +61 2 61402408 M: +61 404072753 mailto:[email protected] aim://kimholburn skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
