Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

Post by coldpie » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

Spooks wrote: post #86

driverdan wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their executive compensation rates are way too high Just because they're a non-profit doesn't mean execs should be paid far below market rates.

I agree, I never understood that argument. We have a fairly large and wonderful kids hospital that looks for donations and some of my friends said they wouldn't donate because their CEO makes 500k and he should donate his money instead. I had to explain you want to recruit great talent, and that 500k is less than he could make some place else.

Post by Proziam » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #213

glyxbaer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I moved into IT almost 10-15 years ago, Google was one of the companies that I adored (in a kind of naive way, but nevertheless..). Working at that company has always been a dream of mine. They had the reputation for hiring the best of the best engineers, with great benefits and work culture. Meanwhile I'd hate to apply for them. Everything they do in terms of tracking, etc. has become so vile and almost evil th…

Well, I'm an ex employee. Actually nothing has changed inside the company. "Tracking" as you put it isn't perceived as evil, it never has been, and for good reasons. The only thing that's changed is people's perception of the company and - very recent post 2016 political issues aside - that was mostly driven by a sustained campaign by an angry media industry that wanted money (see: link taxes). Firstly, if tracking u…

Post by admax88q » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

sildur wrote: post #181

clSTophEjUdRanu wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Linking that browser ID to a personal account is trivial as soon as someone logs in to any Google service. Wat? You mean to tell me they can identify you if you log into their service? Am I missing something here? Who cares?

I care. I care that I even if I log off, even if I use a vpn, even if I go into incognito mode, they still can associate my requests with the account I initially logged in.

Post by coldpie » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #229

kevlarr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donations go to Mozilla "the non-profit organization" rather than Mozilla "the corporation". Mozilla (the corporation) has the typical/bad corporate structures and ridiculous executive compensations. Mozilla (the corporation) had the layoffs. Mozilla (the corporation) bought Pocket with money that comes from deals with search engines. That being said, though... > Donate to smaller developers of software you use, it'l…

That still doesn't answer why should I donate to Mozilla the non-profit? What do they do with my donations? According to another post they don't use them to fund Firefox or presumably any project run by the corporation side. As I see it if I wanted my donations to go to political or other activism there's more direct and better organizations to donate to with less middle management involved.

Post by rvnx » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

masswerk wrote: post #141

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it because Google's webapps will have their own a/b tests which use experimental features only available in Chrome perhaps? I mean personally I think they should do client-side feature detection and be back to being standards compliant and not creepy. The only reason why I'd consider such a flag is because they optimize the payload server-side to return a certain a/b test, but even with that they could do the defa…

Isn't this what cookies are for?