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Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

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Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#561

Post by M2Ys4U »

munificent wrote: post #482
reaperducer wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this is involuntary. You are choosing to use the product It's involuntary because it's not informed consent. Google doesn't tell people up front or in any meaningful way that this is happening. That's like saying "Oh, that steak was covered in the chef's experimental hot sauce that we didn't list on the menu? Well, too bad, you chose to come to this restaurant."

> It's involuntary because it's not informed consent. I think you're making an analogy that doesn't logically apply. "Informed consent" is a property of healthcare administration. When you're putting drugs into someone's blood stream or cutting them open while anaesthetized, yeah, you need to make damn sure you're doing the right thing for them. > the chef's experimental hot sauce that we didn't list on the menu? Lik…

>I think you're making an analogy that doesn't logically apply. "Informed consent" is a property of healthcare administration.

No, it is used in healthcare, but it is by no means exclusive to that domain.

And the European Union clearly has a different opinion when it comes to the use of personal data:

"Consent should be given by a clear affirmative act establishing a freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her, such as by a written statement, including by electronic means, or an oral statement. This could include ticking a box when visiting an internet website, choosing technical settings for information society services or another statement or conduct which clearly indicates in this context the data subject's acceptance of the proposed processing of his or her personal data. Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent. Consent should cover all processing activities carried out for the same purpose or purposes. When the processing has multiple purposes, consent should be given for all of them. If the data subject's consent is to be given following a request by electronic means, the request must be clear, concise and not unnecessarily disruptive to the use of the service for which it is provided."

Recital 32 of the GDPR

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#562

Post by koheripbal »

userbinator wrote: post #546

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,…

Are there really that many popular extensions not available on Firefox? I may be just one anecdote, but I think I'm pretty typical, and I've found the transition to Firefox to be quite pleasant, and uneventful.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#563

Post by derefr »

userbinator wrote: post #546

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,…

> Making sites that are usable in more browsers than the top 2 (or 1) will weaken the amount of control that Google has

You do realize/remember that Google is also a search-engine company, one that only stands to benefit (in terms of increased capability of advertising targeting) from a web that's simpler, and therefore more machine-legible.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#564

Post by m463 »

userbinator wrote: post #539
rvnx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They key in the wording is: "If usage statistics and crash reports are disabled, this number is chosen between 0 and 7999 (13 bits of entropy)." "If, statistics are disabled." In chrome://version you can see the active variations. It seems to be pretty big numbers to be significant, and so far haven't observed duplicates. Since this header is generated server-side, you have only to believe I guess ? Plus why Doublecl…

That's basically saying "even if you opt out, we'll still try to track you, just not as much." Very unpleasant, but then again I'm not surprised to see this attitude from Google.

Combine a few pieces of information like this and you get a decisively unique fingerprint.

For example identifying individuals at work behind the same ip address.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#565

Post by Eli_P »

munificent wrote: post #314
reaperducer wrote: post #46

I don't understand why Google and some other tech companies use their users as involuntary, unpaid guinea pigs. No consent. No opt-out. What's the motivation? Is it simple laziness because they don't want to deal with wetware? Is it afraid that if people knew what was happening they wouldn't be happy? Google has eighty brazillion employees it can test new features on.

Bias up front: I work at Google but am not speaking for Google. > involuntary, unpaid guinea pigs. I don't see how this is involuntary. You are choosing to use the product. If you choose to use the product, yes, you may be exposed to features that the product has. If you don't want to be exposed to those features, the way to opt out is to not use the product. > What's the motivation? It lets the company incrementally…

If I use a bunch of older Chromes from portableapps, are those affected by feature testing, provided I've disabled google update but I'm not behind a firewall?

In other words, is feature polling just hard-coded or it is bound to a specific installation?

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#566

Post by dropdrive »

userbinator wrote: post #546

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 has not given up. They wrote windows phone which every last user agrees has a better ux than droid and iOS. How many of you wrote apps?

Hell every single discussion here nobody even talks about Microsoft products bing translate, bing maps et al. Despite them all being too notch and clearly better than Google in areas of their own. Eg. Chinese , last I checked , was better in bing translate.

And yet apple maps update is a top story for the day. You prefer bring cool and then wonder what went wrong.

You personally badmouthed PowerShell once only to satisfy the herd.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#567

Post by sriku »

mabbo wrote: post #461
d1zzy wrote: post #362

TL;DR I think whoever posted that is trying to bury the UA anonymizing feature by derailing the discussion. What I'm seeing is an RFC for anonymizing parts of User-Agent in order to reduce UA based fingerprinting, which improves everyone's privacy, that's a good thing! Then I see someone comments how that could negatively impact existing websites or Chromium-derived browsers, comments which are totally fair and make…

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…

Much of such discussions demonize the company, but we need to look broader. Google is a public company and its shareholders, since they share the company, are also to be pointed out. Discouraging such behaviour is better done by the shareholders by dumping shares since Google could very well argue that if it didn't work to maximize ad revenue, it would not be operating according to fiduciary responsibility principles. (IANAL .. just thinking out loud)

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#568

Post by InterestBazinga »

rplnt wrote: post #460
bsharitt wrote: post #198

Everybody imagine going back 15 years and tell yourself that you're using a web browser made by the parent company of DoubleClick. Your 15 year ago self would think you're a moron (assuming that 15 years ago you were old enough to know what DoubleClick was).

I always believed that tech-savvy people using Google Chrome are morons. It's the perfect blend of Google being evil trying to force it to everyone, the browser being dumbed down to masses so much it's missing the most basic features, and I guess privacy concerns too when using browser from advertising company.

> DoubleClick

What browser would you recommend?

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#569

Post by eitland »

koheripbal wrote: post #562
userbinator wrote: post #546

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,…

Are there really that many popular extensions not available on Firefox? I may be just one anecdote, but I think I'm pretty typical, and I've found the transition to Firefox to be quite pleasant, and uneventful.

Firefox is really good.

My issue is with certain sites that typically either uses non standard Javascript apis that only work in blink or relies on non standard behavior of standard components (numeric form inputs was mentioned here yesterday).

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#570

Post by BoorishBears »

d1zzy wrote: post #464
lordlimecat wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>which improves everyone's privacy, that's a good thing! Except it does not affect Google, because Google has this install ID to use both for tracking and preventing ad-fraud. Which means Google competitors are terribly disadvantaged, as they cannot use that. Which not only reduces market diversity (contrary to TAG philosophy) but represents a significant conflict of interest for an organization proposing a major web…

> Except it does not affect Google, because Google has this install ID to use both for tracking and preventing ad-fraud. So when Apple releases a privacy feature, that doesn't affect them as a business, we praise the feature or we say "except it doesn't affect Apple" and somehow try to argue how the feature is less valuable because of that?

Of course we'd say "except it doesn't affect Apple"...

If there's a privacy gap, (and Apple is actively exploiting that gap)

When Apple patches it, (while leaving it open for themselves)

They'll get called out.

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