STOP
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Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
91–100 of 354 posts
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#92It is so annoying to see that HN and general media have collectively decided that Google and everything it does is evil, but honestly you have no idea how good you have it right now. Google is not abusing your user data like you are made to think. If you talk to a Google engineer, you would realise the countlesss number of measures they take to safeguard user's data - human access is next to impossible. Only machines…
My worry is that one day Google may decide that they are going to severely abuse my data. If they build up the idea over the years that they have your data then the jump to abusing it will be much smaller.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google's response to this allegation: https://9to5google.com/2020/02/06/google-chrome-x-client-dat... TL;DR, they claim that this header is sent to all Google-owned domains, and describes the feature flags that your browser has enabled, and it doesn't contain any PII. Oh wait They backpedalled on this by removing from the whitepaper their claim that the X-Client-Data field doesn't contain PII: https://vpnoverview.com…
> it doesn't contain any PII. Even if that was the case, this is a bullshit argument. They don't need any PII, it's just more fingerprinting. They already have all the personal information they'll ever need by using all the other means.
Surely fingerprinting is PII? It allows for mosaic identification.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it's time to recognize that the company simply need not exist in it's present form. If Google was required to spin off Chrome as an independent company, there would be no antitrust issue, and privacy protections Chrome made would not also include anti-privacy features designed to feed Google's ad business. The reality is, Google needs to be broken up. Every fine they get makes that clear.
How would chrome survive as a business?
That it seems unlikely a browser that is not Chrome, vertically integrated by Google, could survive financially, is a good sign it need to happen imo
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say that we have different definitions of 'abuse' in the case of Google. Of course, Google doesn't sell your data directly to anyone, allow anyone to get your metadata, or allow anyone to view your data. In that sense, I also completely trust Google to be good stewards of my data. That said, while I agree that Google does not 'abuse' my data by giving it to others in any form, Google absolutely does use my da…
PLEASE DON"T USE ANY GOOGLE PRODUCTS. Problem solved.
And I don't, but some people are more or less forced to use either Google or Microsoft products by their employers. I really wish the solution was as simple as that.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it doesn't contain any PII. Even if that was the case, this is a bullshit argument. They don't need any PII, it's just more fingerprinting. They already have all the personal information they'll ever need by using all the other means.
Surely fingerprinting is PII? It allows for mosaic identification.
I don't know, are fonts installed on your system PII? Because it can be used for fingerprinting. But I don't know the precise definition, so maybe you're right.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it's time to recognize that the company simply need not exist in it's present form. If Google was required to spin off Chrome as an independent company, there would be no antitrust issue, and privacy protections Chrome made would not also include anti-privacy features designed to feed Google's ad business. The reality is, Google needs to be broken up. Every fine they get makes that clear.
How would chrome survive as a business?
I guess ideally either Chrome or Firefox would be organized as a charitable trust with an endowment, its stated mission to service users of the web, and the EFF given a permanent seat on its board of directors.
How to get from here to there, I don't know.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#98Google's way of leveraging their browser dominance to use 3rd party cookies as a way to gain competitive advantage: Step 1: Implement a whole new browser functionality where Google alone can track people. Step 2: Eliminate 3rd party cookies so Google's competitors have to create increasingly unethical and invasive fingerprinting techniques to remain competitive. Step 3: Increase advertising rates since they are the o…
And Google is probably paying Mozilla so that they block those cookies too... I think that they might have paid them for other things too... like for blocking 99% of extensions on Firefox mobile (those are speculations, that are very probable).
I still use Firefox 68 on Android since that's the last version to support extensions. It works well, for now.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would chrome survive as a business?
How did Mozilla survive as a business? Why is Brave around?
>How did Mozilla survive as a business?
On one end by almost literally being an extension of Google. On the other end by constantly laying off engineers. A big problem people are just handwaving away is that browsers are incredibly complex nowadays and how do you fund development of a browser engine? If you think the "Linux" model would work, well browsers already have that - it's called Mozilla and there is never any good news about them.
Brave is also funded by Google - Brave doesn't develop a browser, they develop a skin around a browser engine that Google pays millions to develop and has decided to open source.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then the advertisers need to trust the first parties.
or the subdomain goes to an advertiser server.
Oh, I didn't realize a subdomain was not considered 3rd party. So soon we'll see adnetwork.mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com.
I think we should just make cookies only work when the domain matches exactly.