Recent increase in ads / spyware

[Ozymandias]

Hi,

 

When I go to https://www.bridgebase.com/v3/ (with Firefox), uMatrix shows that these elements are received when loading the page:

 

uMatrix screenshots (4)

 

The list of elements and domains has increased a lot, very recently.

 

Can someone from BBO confirm that all these new ads and spyware elements are indeed part of the legitimate login page please?

 

Thanks and regards,

Ozymandias

[mycroft]

So, CasaleMedia, DoubleClick and a few ad networks I haven't heard of (but there are millions, and I'm not in the ad business). As well, of course, as Cloudflare and other web-stability companies that are effectively impossible to not use if you are hosting a site of any size and want it to stay up.

 

Like every other page on the net.

 

None of that - at least not unless the ad networks have had another of their perennial breaches - involves spyware. Very intrusive tracking, I will grant - again, like every other page on the net. No Facebook, though.

 

Last I checked, Bridge Base Online was a commercial company, selling bridge players to ad networks free bridge at the cost of seeing some ads, like TV was for most of its life.

 

And the ads (but likely not the tracking) go away for the cost of $0.25 a day, $1 a week or $3 a month.

 

I used to say that as long as it doesn't flash at me, I don't care what you show me. Now, I don't even care if it flashes at me - it's what they don't show me that's the problem. But again, if you're in the ad-supported website business, that's what you (and your users) sign up for.

[Ozymandias]

Thanks for your reply.

 

The 3rd-party elements are back to normal now, by which I mean { clean.gg, consensu.org, hostedprebid.com, google-analytics.com, googletagmanager.com, quantserve.com }.

 

But, for a few hours yesterday, there were a lot more than usual. That's what I was worried about.

 

Regards,

Ozymandias