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Verizon wants a piece of Google's ad business

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Re: Verizon wants a piece of Google's ad business

#41

Post by rayiner »

Framing this as "who gets this pot of advertising money?" is the honest way to frame it. Privacy is just a proxy war between companies seeking advertising revenues.

But who gets the advertising revenue isn't the relevant policy concern. The government shouldn't care whether Google gets that revenue or someone else. The relevant policy concerns are what level of privacy protections do people want, and what practical choices do people have to protect their privacy. There is so little competition in either the market for ISPs or the market for search services that it doesn't make sense to leave privacy up to market mechanisms in either case.

Google has evolved far beyond just showing you an ad in response to a search. It tracks you throughout the Internet, leveraging its massive affiliate network. It's the default search engine on both mobile platforms. It's got more than 50% browser market share. Even if you don't go to Google.com or gmail.com, it's nearly impossible to avoid emailing someone with a gmail address, texting someone with an Android phone, visiting a Google affiliate website, etc. Pointing to the possibility of using Google alternatives is as ridiculous and self serving as pointing to satellite as broadband competition.

Re: Verizon wants a piece of Google's ad business

#42

Post by guelo »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #7
zeta0134 wrote: post #2

So, if I recall correctly, that "tracking supercookie" they're mentining in that account has to be injected in the headers of any request / response, right? Doesn't this mean it's easily defeated by HTTPS? Or am I misunderstanding how that works?

Since tracking would be done in cooperation with the website you are connecting to, they could transmit something OOB to associate your current IP with their advertising identifier, even if you use HTTPS.

This. The network itself becomes the inescapable tracking supercookie. They would provide web publishers a JavaScript snippet that took the user's IP address and returned the targeted ad. And Verizon can tie each IP adress not only to its previous browsing history but also their name, address, credit reports, even contacts that they slurp up using their bloatware phone apps.

Re: Verizon wants a piece of Google's ad business

#43

Post by username223 »

zeta0134 wrote: post #2

So, if I recall correctly, that "tracking supercookie" they're mentining in that account has to be injected in the headers of any request / response, right? Doesn't this mean it's easily defeated by HTTPS? Or am I misunderstanding how that works?

You're right, but the article may be confusing two things: First, ISPs tried injecting a header ("supercookie") into HTTP requests, which won't work over HTTPS unless they MITM certificates (not easy). Second, because they provide the last-mile connection, they know your MAC address, connecting location, and billing information, and can see every host you contact. That's a whole lot of surveillance capital.

Re: Verizon wants a piece of Google's ad business

#44

Post by ksk »

awalton wrote: post #35
rayiner wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google isn't the destination. Google's top services (search and YouTube) are just means for finding and getting to what we really want, which is the content (website, video, etc.).

> Google isn't the destination. It is the destination, no matter how you try to reframe it. Google's just a destination that collects links to help you to get to other destinations, and pays for its service by showing ads. You can completely shut Google out of your life - block all DNS connections to Google's services, switch to Bing, turn on AdBlock, etc. If your ISP is Verizon or peers with them, and your content e…

>If your ISP is Verizon or peers with them, and your content exists on the other side of their network, there's absolutely nothing you can do to avoid them - they own the road

You can avoid their tracking by using a VPN.

Re: Verizon wants a piece of Google's ad business

#45

Post by [deleted] »

awalton wrote: post #35
rayiner wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google isn't the destination. Google's top services (search and YouTube) are just means for finding and getting to what we really want, which is the content (website, video, etc.).

> Google isn't the destination. It is the destination, no matter how you try to reframe it. Google's just a destination that collects links to help you to get to other destinations, and pays for its service by showing ads. You can completely shut Google out of your life - block all DNS connections to Google's services, switch to Bing, turn on AdBlock, etc. If your ISP is Verizon or peers with them, and your content e…

[deleted]

Re: Verizon wants a piece of Google's ad business

#47

Post by ajmurmann »

newsat13 wrote: post #25
awalton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe someone can help me understand the distinction between these two. Verizon is the pipe we move data over - it's the road. "Google" is the service at the other end of the pipe - it's our destination. Verizon is unhappy with being the pipe, despite that literally being the business they signed up to be in. They have decided that the destinations make more money than they can ever squeeze out of being the road se…

Google also started as a search engine to help me find my way to my real destination. Instead it has snuck in and started tracking where I am going, what I am doing there, why I am there and what not. If Google is allowed to change business models radically (and very profitably), why not Verizon. To be clear, I am just pointing out that singling out Verizon/Comcast does not get to the root of the problem. We need bla…

Privacy is only one of many problems that arise from ISPs deciding to provide other services. They can easily mess with anyone whose business model uses the Internet. You are right that privacy is a larger problem and we need to get stronger privacy rights. But we also need to strictly enforced that ISPs are only allowed to sell transport of bits to consumers. No selling of content, no selling of priority access for content products or any other shenanigans.

Re: Verizon wants a piece of Google's ad business

#48

Post by nostrademons »

Pica_soO wrote: post #3

I wonder, if Verizon would step into Googles game, could we get actually good infrastructure, when the empire retaliates?

They tried this with Google Fiber. Problem is that municipal governments are in Verizon's pocket. To build any infrastructure requires the permission of the local government, who are cozy with entrenched infrastructure providers. So we, as consumers, continue to get fucked, while existing infrastructure providers continue to enjoy a substandard monopoly.

Re: Verizon wants a piece of Google's ad business

#49

Post by jacques_chester »

rayiner wrote: post #41

Framing this as "who gets this pot of advertising money?" is the honest way to frame it. Privacy is just a proxy war between companies seeking advertising revenues. But who gets the advertising revenue isn't the relevant policy concern. The government shouldn't care whether Google gets that revenue or someone else. The relevant policy concerns are what level of privacy protections do people want, and what practical c…

The differences are:

1. If Google tracks me, they have maybe 50-70% coverage of my whereabouts. My ISP gets 100%.

2. I mistrust Telcos more than Google, based on historical example.

Google hasn't quite remained true to "Don't Be Evil" (dollars are corrosive, billions of dollars doubly so), but at least they sorta try.

Re: Verizon wants a piece of Google's ad business

#50

Post by matt4077 »

newsat13 wrote: post #25
awalton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe someone can help me understand the distinction between these two. Verizon is the pipe we move data over - it's the road. "Google" is the service at the other end of the pipe - it's our destination. Verizon is unhappy with being the pipe, despite that literally being the business they signed up to be in. They have decided that the destinations make more money than they can ever squeeze out of being the road se…

Google also started as a search engine to help me find my way to my real destination. Instead it has snuck in and started tracking where I am going, what I am doing there, why I am there and what not. If Google is allowed to change business models radically (and very profitably), why not Verizon. To be clear, I am just pointing out that singling out Verizon/Comcast does not get to the root of the problem. We need bla…

I think the difference boils down to (a) trust and (b) power. Maybe also (c) competence.

(a) Many have criticised google over the years, especially it's slogan of "Do no evil". But the fact of the matter remains that, by and large, they have always convinced people with superior services, and been very careful not to through their weight around to force people to do business with them. They may actually be terribly evil, but their interests and those of consumers just happened to be aligned, most of the time. One example: they have never tried to block ad-blocking extensions from chrome, although it those are somewhat threatening to their business model. And despite conspiracy theories saying the opposite, it appears to me as if their search rankings are, to this day, not influenced by ad spending.

Providers, on the other hand, have a long history of anticompetitive behaviour and have proven that they are extracting the profits of being dominant whenever they can (proven by the much-better offers that suddenly materialised when Google Fibre came to some cities).

(b) Power: I'd argue that even for consumers, it's easier to largely avoid using google, than it is to avoid providers. It's almost a truism if you accept that there is tacit collusion in many areas where only two or three providers exist, i. e. they do not seem to be aggressively competing with each other.

Almost more importantly, at least in this crowd, may be how afraid people are of the end of net neutrality. We have all seen how cool ideas (sometimes) managed to grow into something extremely useful (or fun, or beautiful). At least I am horrified of a future where this becomes impossible, because the pipe companies want to extract every penny they can, and they do it by requiring everyone, everywhere to pay them. This isn't about the money. It's about retaining the slightly anarchic dynamism of an internet where a good idea, some technical expertise and $4 for a domain registration may be enough to change the world.

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