Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID • Hacker News Board

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#541

Post by svnpenn » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 12:59 AM UTC

cmroanirgo wrote: post #533

mabbo wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the concern is that this disarms Google's competitors while keeping them fully-armed. Ads are a business, and they are Google's business. They are how they make money. And like all businesses, they are competitive. Tracking is a way to make more money off online advertising. By removing tracking from their competitors while keeping it for themselves, Google stand to make a lot of money off this change. Their…

Just yesterday I had to disable anti fingerprinting I'd enabled in Firefox because despite having a solid IP and and existing cookies to login to Google, it's security system rejected me, even after answering security questions. Turn off fingerprinting and I could log in. So, this is a round about way of agreeing with the hidden dark patterns that Google are bringing to the web. It must stop.

I have to log into Gmail just to pass captchas. Every time I do it I die a little inside.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#542

Post by bamboozled » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #190

pdkl95 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is impressive doublespeak. > This ... header ... will not contain any personally identifiable information > a seed number which is randomly selected on first run ... chosen between 0 and 7999 (13 bits of entropy) They are not including any PII... while creating a new identifier for each installation. 13 bits of entropy probably isn't a unique identifier iff you only look at that header in isolation. Combined wit…

> > Experiments may be further limited by country (determined by your IP address) > They even admit to inspecting the IP address... I don't think that sentence admits what you say? Chrome could be determining which experiments to run client-side. Of course, when you visit a Google property, they needs must inspect your IP address to send a response to you, at a minimum. That goes for any site you might choose to visi…

So if you use a VPN service for example, they still know who you are because of this. I would say even if you’re visiting in private mode.

I see your point, but I also see how this will keep you identifiable.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#543

Post by UweSchmidt » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 1:06 AM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #515

euske wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a common strategy of big players at any industry. First, they do some dirty thing to gain a competitive edge when the industry is still new and unregulated. Later they develop an alternative way to achieve the same competitive edge, and then criticize other players for doing an old way, saying they should be "mature and responsible".

See also first world countries industrializing/modernizing & becoming rich/lifting people out of poverty using industrial techniques that pollute heavily, then "going green" and criticizing other players (India, China) for doing the same thing, saying they should be "mature and responsible".

Not really. "Going green" is a radical new concept for humanity that goes counter to all incentives and instincts and only recent developments have shown that painful measures are necessary. It was not a trick to get rich at other peoples expense.

India and China are suffering from their own pollution and have incentives to "go green" all by themselves, not because the West demands it.

Green technology is often high tech and tech that is accepted in Western markets and is helping to lift people out of poverty through market mechanism, not finger pointing.

Finally the first world got rich several generations ago. We are not related in any way, shape or form to any real or perceived sins of our grandfathers. Any such idea is old testament biblical theology.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#544

Post by nojvek » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

Well why does Chrome send this special header to only Google properties like YouTube and search and not the rest of the internet.

It really seems fishy and a lot of double speak. I really don’t trust Google here.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#545

Post by jorblumesea » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 1:22 AM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #515

euske wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a common strategy of big players at any industry. First, they do some dirty thing to gain a competitive edge when the industry is still new and unregulated. Later they develop an alternative way to achieve the same competitive edge, and then criticize other players for doing an old way, saying they should be "mature and responsible".

See also first world countries industrializing/modernizing & becoming rich/lifting people out of poverty using industrial techniques that pollute heavily, then "going green" and criticizing other players (India, China) for doing the same thing, saying they should be "mature and responsible".

"Going green" is a relatively new concept, even for Western countries. By 1960 the West was seriously polluting its environment, but also extremely affluent and highly developed. There was far more of a gap between the average American and someone in Asia or Africa compared to today. The West polluted the developing world in the same way it polluted the Hudson or Cuyahoga.

It's not really about pulling up the ladder, but a recognizing that growth doesn't have to mean completely destroying the planet. It's more about where the standards are set and what is socially acceptable or understood.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#546

Post by userbinator » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 1:25 AM UTC

As long as web developers continue to create (app-)sites that only work in the latest versions of Chrome(and Chromium-ish) browsers, giving users little effective choice over what browsers they can use, this sort of abusive behaviour will continue. The sort of "feature-racing" that Google engages in is ultimately harmful for the open web. Mozilla struggles to keep up, Opera surrendered a while ago, and more recently, Microsoft seems to have already given up completely.

I feel like it's time we "hold the Web back" again. Leave behind the increasingly-walled-garden of "modern" appsites and their reliance on hostile browsers, and popularise simple HTML and CSS, with forms for interactivity, maybe even just a little JavaScript where absolutely necessary. Something that is usable with a browser like Dillo or Netsurf, or even one of the text-based ones. Making sites that are usable in more browsers than the top 2 (or 1) will weaken the amount of control that Google has, by allowing more browsers to appear and gain userbases.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#547

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 1:30 AM UTC

jabedude wrote: post #476

xfs wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First I thought reading /etc/machine-id would be expected if Chrome uses D-bus or pulseaudio libraries which depend on D-bus, and /etc/machine-id is part of D-bus. But no, they really use it for tracking purposes. And in a sick twist they have this comment for it: std::string BrowserDMTokenStorageLinux::InitClientId() { // The client ID is derived from /etc/machine-id // (https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/…

That really is a cynical comment. It almost bothers me more than this header.

[deleted]

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#548

Post by mortehu » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

xfs wrote: post #320

carlsborg wrote: post #82

If you strace chrome on linux it also picks up /etc/machine-id (or it did back when I looked), which is a 32 byte randomly generated string which uniquely identifies you and on some systems is used as the DHCP ID across reboots.

First I thought reading /etc/machine-id would be expected if Chrome uses D-bus or pulseaudio libraries which depend on D-bus, and /etc/machine-id is part of D-bus. But no, they really use it for tracking purposes. And in a sick twist they have this comment for it: std::string BrowserDMTokenStorageLinux::InitClientId() { // The client ID is derived from /etc/machine-id // (https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/…

"Tracking purposes" is such a weasel word, when we're really talking about device management in an enterprise setting, and this code only gets activated if the root/administrator user has installed a token file on your computer.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#549

Post by rvnx » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #537

dessant wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're still missing the point. Google transmits personal data to their servers without user consent. The value of x-client-data is personal data, because it is associated with an IP address during transit, due to how HTTP requests work. The nature of the data, what is being done with it on the server, and the location of the server are all irrelevant in this instance, the only important part is that personal…

> The value of x-client-data is personal data, because it is associated with an IP address during transit, due to how HTTP requests work. This is not correct. The x-client-data is not personal data. x-client-data associated with an IP address is personal data. As soon as you separate the client-data from the IP, the client data stops being personal data. IOW, the tuple (x-client-data, IP) is personal data. But x-clie…

The Chrome whitepaper is written in a way to make you believe there is only 8000 possibilities.

But read carefully what they say; they say there is only 8000 possibilities if the crash reporting functionality is disabled (not by default).

Otherwise the marker is a huge differentiator (I haven't seen any duplicates personally)

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#550

Post by chatmasta » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 1:33 AM UTC

akersten wrote: post #527

chatmasta wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a cut-and-dry case of getting caught in monopolistic behavior. The code is right there. The Chrome codebase has special features for Google’s own web properties. I hope all these AGs suing google have some good tech advisors. It’s hard to keep track of all the nefarious things google has been up to over the past decade.

> This seems like a cut-and-dry case of getting caught in monopolistic behavior. The code is right there. ??? Is "Darn, their browser only gets to track me on their own websites; if Google were playing fairly, they'd send the tracking header to all websites so I can be tracked more and have less privacy" the argument you're making here? And it's debatable that this header is actually serving a tracking purpose at all…

All I’m saying is the optics are not good. This is the kind of code you could show a jury. A high schooler who took “intro to CS” could understand what it’s doing.

It’s literally a conditional attached to a list of strings comprised solely of google advertising domains and hosts that distribute scripts from those domains.

When you’re talking about anti-trust, it doesn’t look good. Will this be a nail in the coffin? Unlikely. Will it help Google with its legal trouble? Definitely not.