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by 0x0 3932 days ago
I guess one of the "benefits" of serving ads from a third party site is that you can cookie the user on the thirdparty domain, and build a profile as the user moves between participant sites. ("Re-targeting"). Serving ads from a first party domain likely loses this information since there won't be a shared cookie? Also it might complicate installation (you'd need to install some server side software that fetches ad content from the ad network, and probably some custom development to integrate it without being caught by a one-line rule in adblock?)

Also! With more and more ads running javascript based animations, you really don't want shady ad-network-provided JS running in the context of your main site. (XSS)

1 comments

Can't you set a cookie then re-direct to the PNG/JPG back on your own server?

Aynway, I've seen some domains shifting some crucial images like a play button into ad containers/folders just to come around ad blocker. Easy to adjust within ad blockers though.

Not sure what you mean; if you mean to point an <img src> at a third party domain that responds with a 301 redirect together with a Set-Cookie then that won't really work because 1. you are pointing to a third party domain which the OP already suggested is blocked so the client never loads it and 2. you would need a complicated image hosting system on the first party domain for no good reason and 3. the first party domain image host won't see the cookie and can't pick an ad that matches the user's profile ("retargeting"). Did you mean something else?