Archive of entries posted on 9th September 2016

Oh, and about that cookies notice…

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Harvey mentioned earlier about fixing the annoying popups. When he first mentioned it last week, some of you asked about the cookie notice. He didn’t ignore you, but he left it to me to address. So, here’s the address:

1050 Carl Griffin Drive
Savannah, GA 31045

Maybe he meant for me to explain what that cookie notice was all about. 

EUCookieNotice

Hmm. Okay. Here’s the deal.

All Websites attempt to deliver cookies. And, unless you’ve dug down deep and tweaked some settings or installed plugins and configured them certain ways, you’re going to have a cookie or two from IMAO. And from every other Website.

Some Websites also use a newer thing called Local Storage, which is another way of saying a different type of cookie. That’s a whole discussion in and of itself.

That cookie notice? Well, it’s designed for our friends in the EU. We do have a few readers there, and the EU, being the EU and all, wants Websites to issue a cookie notice. Now, the people that wrote that regulation don’t know jack squat about cookies, browsers, servers, or anything at all, based on other EU regs I’ve seen. But, it’s a notice that they want.

I thought about ignoring it, but then the thought struck me: why not? I mean, we are putting a cookie on your computer or tablet or phone. Several, in fact. The Website itself puts cookies, images, scripts, and all kinds of stuff. Just like every other Website. Unless you have caching turned off. It’s on by default, so if you didn’t change the settings, you’re getting them, from us and from everyone. It’s how the Web works.

Each ad, even if you have an ad blocker running, is trying to put cookies there. And, odds are, you’re getting the cookies, just the scripts that serve the actual ads are blocked.

Oh, and then there’s Google. We use Google Analytics to count visits to the Website. More visits means higher potential ad revenue. Capitalism! Anyway, Google puts cookies because Google.

There’s probable more, but you get the idea.

But the EU Cookie Notice? We’re simply letting you know. EU wants us to do that. I don’t care what EU wants. But, you? You deserve to know. We love and respect you that much. Or something.

Fixed That Stupid Pop-up Ad Problem

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You talked, I listened. I dumped ZEDO as an advertiser, so no more pop-up ads.

As for what’s left, I’ll quote from a recent email to me from Basil, who I asked to double-check that the offending script had, indeed, gone the way of the Norwegian Blue:

“I’ve turned off AdBlock Plus and everything is working great. I’m wondering if there’s now some way to coax people to turn off ad-blockers. The remaining scripts that AdBlock Plus catches aren’t obtrusive and don’t slow the page much for me. The scripts that slow the page (total load time around 10 seconds) aren’t ads but standard WordPress scripts. Not much that can be done about that.”

So, I know you guys are busy and have better things to do than mess with your browser settings, but if you could white-list IMAO on your ad-blocker (if you have one), I’d take it as a kindness.

Anyway, you no longer have to be ashamed to tell people to go read something on IMAO.

Except for, you know, the fact that we keep making fun of Trump.

But that’s only because IMAO is NOT in the pocket of Big Hair, Big Comb, or Small Hand.

Whether we’re secretly in the pocket of Big Pantsuit, well, good luck getting answers on THAT from the DoJ!