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This is a Call to Arms! Last evening I read an interesting article, and thought that I had some valuable insights to offer as a comment.
Instead I found myself stopped dead by a combination of Disqus and reCaptcha.
I typed a comment, then Disqus demanded that I authenticate myself. Fine. I chose Twitter, and it did its thing, then Disqus demanded that I give a username, e-mail address, and password. I typed those in, and Disqus told me that an account already existed for that address.
When I guessed the old password that matched the log-in, I discovered that Disqus had lost the comment that I had created seven or eight steps earlier. I gave up.
I decided to write the site operators. Their contact page won't let you see an e-mail address until you answer a reCaptcha challenge. I had to refresh THAT a dozen times before I could even try to read the words.
OK, from this day forward, if your site insists on either Disqus or reCaptcha, you will never see a comment from me! Let's start a revolution!
Surely we can come up with something better than this?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday September 05 2014, @05:21PM
That's not true though. It's my choice to selectively run snippets of Javascript. Ghostery isn't interfering with other businesses by delivering a tool that allows me to make choices.
According to that logic, SonicBlue was actually stealing commercials and interfering in the business of the cable companies with their commercial skip technology. I don't believe that, and neither do most people.
How are the actions of ABP and NoScript considered not interfering with other businesses in exactly the same way? The only real difference at all is that Ghostery gives you reports, different UI, and the ability to selectively block different scripts.
Nobody is interfering with any business just by delivering tools and features that people want. Perhaps the businesses being blocked should concentrate on delivering what the customer really wants. In this case, the customer is Big Advertising which is getting what it wants. Considering the end user is the one making the choice to use the technology, perhaps, just perhaps, they might want to start delivering what *we* want.
It sounds like you have a little bit of cognitive dissonance going on just because Ghostery may be collecting the same information. That actually doesn't bother me since the business model of Ghostery is centered around giving *me* what I *want*. They find new companies all the time making trackers, beacons, and widgets and *inform* me about them and allow me to make a choice to disable them completely and forever. Ghostery works for me and not the advertisers. Don't underestimate or ignore that fact.
As for the need, I'm not insanely fanatical about disabling Javascript everywhere. Web technologies are just interfaces and I don't have a religious need to roll the Internet back to a pure document markup language devoid of any actual features. Javascript, or client-side languages, are not the enemy. Since I live in a practical world where we need to get stuff done, I *selectively* use Javascript. That's *why* Ghostery and DoNotTrackMe are needed. I don't want to nuke Javascript from orbit, but instead, surgically remove it.
If you don't like Ghostery that's fine, but your attacks against it seem hypocritical.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.