As online advertising becomes ever more ubiquitous and unsanctioned, AdNauseam works to complete the cycle by automating ad clicks universally and blindly on behalf of its users. Built atop uBlock Origin, AdNauseam quietly clicks on every blocked ad, registering a visit on ad networks’ databases. As the collected data gathered shows an omnivorous click-stream, user tracking, targeting and surveillance become futile (that’s the theory anyway).

So this works similarly to the Firefox extension TrackMeNot, and the AdNauseum website also links to a paper that explains further how the obfuscating should be effective.

Note though this extension is not in the Google Chrome store, so you need to install it separately along with whatever risks that can entail. I see the extension is open source on Github so it is possible to examine the code if you wish.

See https://lifehacker.com/confuse-google-ads-with-this-chrome-extension-1846337139

#technology #browsers #trackers #privacy #adnauseum

  • GadgeteerZAOP
    link
    23 years ago

    They do explain that a bit more in the article and if I remember correctly at the end they linked to a more detailed study about that.