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Ask HN: If I disable JavaScript, am I worth less to advertisers?

by chrischapman on 10/30/21, 1:07 PM with 10 comments

The question was prompted by this HN post today (Browser Fingerprinting Without JavaScript)[1]. The article suggests I could still be tracked so I started wondering about the effects of JavaScript (JS) on advertisers.

Hypothesis: Tracking primarily benefits advertisers. Adverts are primarily delivered in the browser by JS. By disabling JS, my value to advertisers is diminished. As data collectors can't sell my data at a profit, they should stop collecting my data.

Is that hypothesis valid?

My own motivation for disabling JavaScript was simply to avoid experimental DHTML stuff (like wierd mouse effects) back in the day - not privacy or tracking - but I'm still really happy with that choice - I get to browse a quieter web. But has it made me less worth while to track?

If it was just me as a NoJS user, advertisers wouldn't bother about it. But imagine if Halloween was the start of an annual 'NoJS Week' during which everyone disabled JS. Would worldwide advertising spend drop and if so, by how much? 1%? 10%? 90%? And what kind of drop would we see in sales?

1. As a tracked human, do I have an advertising value? 2. Is my advertising value less than someone who enables JS? 3. Do advertisers measure this? 4. Are there just too few NoJS users for this to matter? 5. If I disable JS, am I still worth tracking?

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29042791

  • by jqpabc123 on 10/30/21, 2:02 PM

    Sure, you would probably be worth less to advertisers.

    But the web would probably worth a lot less to you because so many web sites will be broken.

  • by southerntofu on 10/30/21, 1:13 PM

    > 2. Is my advertising value less than someone who enables JS?

    Definitely. Because they have less information about you, and also because most websites don't even know how to display advertisement to people like us who don't use JS :)

    > 4. Are there just too few NoJS users for this to matter?

    I believe so. I'm no insider to this *** industry, but i believe they currently don't employ much noscript-proof fingerprinting. That's why they are currently moving to a model of serving their scripts from 1st party domain (via CNAME) to defeat 3rd-party origin blocking. If more and more people disabled JS, they would certainly care more to track us.

    All in all, if you want a tracking-proof protocol, you should check out Gemini. If you want a tracking-proof web browser, you should check out the Tor Browser. If you're like me and would like some form of modern web minus client side scripting and without any tracking venue, i guess all we can do now is cry :)

  • by austincheney on 10/30/21, 3:17 PM

    I never got onto the nojs movement because back in the day cookies and http headers were enough to track you, so why bother. Tracking you to death with a mountain of js is just a combination of sloppy and superfluous.

    I would prefer a peer to peer experience for online content opposed to the webs client/server model. Then there are no third parties tracking you.

  • by L3viathan on 10/30/21, 4:25 PM

    > DHTML

    Now there's a word I haven't heard for a decade...