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, 6 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
I just learned that nearly every site running ads has a standardized ads.txt file that helpfully shows you how badly it murders your privacy. The file is a whitelist of all authorized resellers for programmatic advertising. For example, bostonglobe.com/ads.txt
That aolcloud.net domain doesn't even appear to exist. If you snag it, please give me a 5% finders fee on your ad scam.
The most majestic example I've found so far is Huffington Post, with 488 lines. Post your best finds here! huffpost.com/ads.txt
You can tell who runs the casino
I think I'm going to create a 10TB pinboard.in/ads.txt file, run a banner ad, and see how much of the internet I can crash.
Horrors of this thing aside, this is a handy way to create a map of the ad swamp. The file exists in order to prevent certain types of ad fraud, so that the less shady players in this space pretty much all have to have one and keep it up to date. If only I weren't so lazy!
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