“Yet another example of the 'badtech industrial complex' protecting its river of gold,” as one researcher told The Register. It’s a dangerous game to play, given the tectonic shifts rumbling through the US, Europe and Australia around privacy and those employing the tactic are laughing in the face of advertisers talking up the need to rebuild trust. Maybe privacy regulators are already wise to the ruse, but it appears that for now adtech, brands and publishers are getting away with it.

However, one ad blocking firm, NextDNS, says it can solve the problem. A post by co-founder, Romain Cointepas, dives into detail on CNAME cloaking. Cointepas fingers some of those allegedly facilitating it, including some big names, as well as the publishers and brands that are allowing it (from some of the biggest news publishers to the world's second largest retailer, he states).

"There is not a more ideal situation for a third-party tracker that wants to fingerprint you than being able to execute their own script from a subdomain of the website itself," says Cointepas. 

Get his full take here. For some, it should make for interesting reading.