Discussion
More than half of all internet users have installed an ad-blocker; Doc Searls calls it the largest consumer boycott in history.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/10/17/mercenary-spyware/#discover-tech
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@pluralistic The ad blocker built into Vivaldi is the best EVER!
@pluralistic I use a pi-hole at home, everyone gets an ad blocker.
It's harder to do it on my android phone away from home, chrome being hobbled in that regard. I use proton vpn when away from home if I'm worried, or the duck duck go browser.
@tjbutt58 @pluralistic an option is to use an adblocking DNs like nextdns.io or alike
Not an 100% solution, but another brick to throw ... uhm ... in the wall
Vivaldi on Android offers tracker and ad blocking as well.
That may be a large proportion for a consumer boycott, but my reaction is still "only half?!"
That's an eerily similar proportion of the population to those who use contraceptives, which just goes to show, we know when we're getting fucked, but only half of us take measures to be safe.
@pluralistic I have not installed an 'ad blocker', I have installed a 'privacy protector'. The only ads that I block are ones that affect my privacy. Amazingly that seems to be almost all of them!
As large as that boycott is, everyone - yes, *everyone* - should block *every* "programmatic" ad, because the entire system is so insecure that failing to do so could result in the total compromise of any or all of your digital devices.
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That's the inescapable conclusion of Citizen Lab's latest blockbuster investigative report, "Exposing AdFection," which reveals how the largest ad-tech companies in the world, including Google and Facebook, allowed themselves to be hijacked by a "mercenary spyware" company that used the ad system to locate targeted individuals and serve "zero-click malware" that took over their computers and phones without them having to take *any* action:
https://citizenlab.ca/research/how-discover-tech-turned-targeted-ads-into-a-pipeline-for-spyware/
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These tech giants amassed detailed surveillance dossiers on virtually every internet user, and they've assigned each of us unique, persistent identifiers, like a Social Security Number for spying. These companies *also* allow advertisers - or anyone pretending to be an advertiser - to serve blobs of code (which is all an ad is) to anyone based on those identifiers.
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This allowed an Israeli spyware company called Discover-Tech (which masquerades as an ad-tech company) to sell totalitarian governments and sleazy corporate mercenaries the ability to pluck individual internet users out of the billions who log in every day and then serve "malicious ads" (that is, blobs of arbitrary code) to those targeted users.
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Install Fedizen
Get the full app experience
@pluralistic So who *does* actually buy something as a result of seeing an unsolicited advertisement?
I've never got anyone to admit to doing this.