Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny • Hacker News Board

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#201

Post by toomim » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:28 AM UTC

patcon wrote: post #158

madrox wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically an ad hominem argument. There is no room to discuss Sandbox on its merits with this stance. Yet we're debating this on an article whose every Sandbox criticism comes from other industry professionals who are just as worthy of being considered a malicious adversary. I make no statement that Project Sandbox should not be scrutinized -- merely that it's better than third party cookies -- and I don't be…

> This is basically an ad hominem argument. There is no room to discuss Sandbox on its merits with this stance. I respectfully disagree and defend the position you're replying to. I take issue with your provocation because I fear that asserting too much focus on a still-frame snapshot without looking at the full motion, that seems misguided. Politics constitute the motion around any spec snapshot. Focussing only on t…

The solution isn't to (a) ignore the technical proposal and ignore the context, or (b) to ignore the context, and only focus on the technical proposal.

The problem is that nobody is bringing these two together. Don't just focus on context without reading the actual proposal. Your comment says nothing about the technical proposal.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#202

Post by underslung » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #134

danudey wrote: post #80

Earlier 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…

[I work at Google, not on chrome] The current text of the whitepaper is "The combined state of these variations is non-identifying, since it is based on a 13-bit low entropy value (see above). These are transmitted using the "X-Client-Data" HTTP header, which contains a list of active variations"[0]. The X-Client-Data header is still described as non-identifying. You're reaching for controversy where there is none. I…

It's about consistency and intent -- these observations do not extend to conspiracy tier thinking.

What is the primary purpose of the X-Client-Data header if not for some unplanned future-proofing?

Masquerading about it does not add to credibility

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#203

Post by Blikkentrekker » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #160

ogre_codes wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope no one is saying Privacy Sandbox is worse than third party cookies Sort of like saying: "I hope no one is saying having a tracker in your car is worse than having a guy following you around." Sure, it's better. But it's not good either.

Of course it isn't good. This is HN, and we want the web advertising industry to go away. However, that's not going to be the outcome. Antitrust scrutiny in this case means making it more fair to third party advertisers...the people who will be hit most by third party cookie disabling. As much as we want to hate on Google, articles like this won't make them move toward more privacy.

Nothing is free however.

If advertisers can't violate one's privacy, that simply means they will pay less to the websites one uses, and that will lead to its quality deteriorating, or even more extreme content filters to appease advertisers and remain afloat.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#204

Post by underslung » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #194

local_dev wrote: post #51

Earlier 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…

Does Netflix with its recommendation engine also "psychologically manipulate" you into watching movies you like?

..yes.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#205

Post by underslung » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:52 AM UTC

tylerhou wrote: post #188

ttt0 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really cool, but didn't you guys got sued for tracking people even after they opted out? https://www.cnet.com/news/google-sued-for-allegedly-tracking... If I remember correctly you were also tracking logged out users. Are you still doing that or how do I opt out if I don't have an account? Do I have to install Chrome?

Everything below is my opinion, or information to the best of my personal knowledge. I don't speak for Google. That lawsuit alleges that Google was tracking people (with analytics) during incognito mode, which is different from opting out of ad personalization. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23552967 for HN discussion on the topic. If you use Firefox, you can install https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox…

fwiw I do not work at Google and I believe opting out of ad-tracking (via your Google account) is independent of general data analytics.

The stronger fingerprinting technology becomes (whether browser and/or network based) the more irrelevant a Google account will be for PII tracking.

[this is my opinion, take with grain of salt]

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#206

Post by underwater » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #142

I hope no one is saying Privacy Sandbox is worse than third party cookies, or is trusting this article to form an opinion about it. Web advertising was a $319 billion dollar industry in 2019. Does anyone wonder who may be lobbying their government to scrutinize Google and offer themselves for interviews for articles like this? Does anyone think the result of beating up Project Sandbox will be more radical privacy pro…

Removing third party cookies benefits the end users as a side effect.

But you could argue that advertisers are people too, and that Google are using their monopoly to reduce competition and drive up prices for a segment of the population.

Is there a rule that says if antitrust benefits one segment of people and hurts another the it's OK?

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#207

Post by esperent » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

JohnTHaller wrote: post #200

esperent wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still use Firefox 68 on Android since that's the last version to support extensions. It works well, for now.

The current stable version of Firefox on Android works just fine with uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Ghostery, HTTPS Everywhere, etc.

> etc.

No, pretty much just those. There are very few extensions available on new builds of mobile Firefox.

I got excited when the blog team announced that the were more available on the nightly buil, but after jumping through loads of hoops I found out there's just a couple of new ones and most extensions are still unavailable.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#208

Post by esperent » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

dralley wrote: post #138

gcblkjaidfj wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have 20 extensions that were "approved" by mozilla more than a year ago! All the others are banned forever. You can install uBlock, but not uMatrix. Many many extensions are banned just because they reviewed ONE extension that they preferred for a certain usecase. For example, for OLED phone night reading, there's the most installed at the time extension "Dark Background and Light text" that offered many customiz…

> You have 20 extensions that were "approved" by mozilla more than a year ago! All the others are banned forever. This is a ridiculous lie, Mozilla has said repeatedly that more extensions are being enabled as support for more extension APIs are added, and it has been true. Several of my extensions which were previously disabled have come back online after updates.

I checked this three days ago after reading the Mozilla blig post, and literally none of the extensions I wanted (except the ones already available on stable) were available. The list of available extensions, even on nightly, is very small.

Perhaps it will grow but I'll wait to see that before I believe it.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#209

Post by esperent » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

dralley wrote: post #140

gcblkjaidfj wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine the kind of Stupids that are steering mozilla, but they definitely want people to move to chrome. They disabled many loved extensions by power users for absolutely no reason at all! after those power users spend years bending to all their capricious changes. moving to webextension? done. moving to a new mobile UI? done. But, they still want you to move to chrome no matter what. We should take firefox…

>They disabled many loved extensions by power users for absolutely no reason at all! The reasons were stated repeatedly. They rewrote the mobile browser engine, which broke extension API support since all of the internal APIs changed, and they didn't have the resources to support both browsers simultaneously for a long period of time, so they prioritized the most-used extensions first and will enable more extensions…

> so they prioritized the most-used extensions first and will enable more extensions as the APIs are hooked back up underneath.

We've been waiting nearly a year and a half so far for them to enable extensions on the new engine.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#210

Post by esperent » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

deathlight wrote: post #178

gcblkjaidfj wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine the kind of Stupids that are steering mozilla, but they definitely want people to move to chrome. They disabled many loved extensions by power users for absolutely no reason at all! after those power users spend years bending to all their capricious changes. moving to webextension? done. moving to a new mobile UI? done. But, they still want you to move to chrome no matter what. We should take firefox…

They made a workaround for power users: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extensio... One needs to make a mozilla account to complete the last steps and that's where I've been holding off. Mostly out of laziness and also from lack of necessity since I just moved on to other browsers in the mean time.

I tried this. Hardly any extensions are available beyond the ones already available on the stable build.