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

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

#271

Post by josefx »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #58
geofft wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux kernel development survives because its biggest users develop it. It's certainly possible for a browser to survive that way, but Konqueror doesn't seem to be terribly successful.

It's also worth thinking that many of those big users are also the very adtech companies people are hating on here, but for some reason it's fine to fund kernels and not web browsers with ads.

It would be interesting to know if Google engineers regularly commit kernel patches breaking Microsoft's Azure integration while pushing people to Google cloud.

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

#273

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #223
visarga wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming people won't create great things without ad profit. I submit Open Source and Wikipedia as evidence to the contrary. Not making a profit on the original creative act might lead to larger profits for society overall and indirect advantages to the original creators. And usually content created for profit is quite untrustworthy, I prefer content created out of passion. It's the ad based content creators w…

> You're assuming people won't create great things without ad profit. I submit Open Source and Wikipedia as evidence to the contrary. Not making a profit on the original creative act might lead to larger profits for society overall and indirect advantages to the original creators. Both examples you listed are products that are feasibly created by the many small contributors. Many products cannot feasibly be created i…

> securing the income they need to feed themselves.

I have a feeling that to some extent this part is made unnecessarily hard due to how the capitalistic economy insists on employing all available resources in “productive” pursuits of producing even more content...

Perhaps not “content” all the time. But surely a lot of resources are spent towards wasteful, if not directly anti-productive, ends. Trading those for more leisure time might very well be a boon for economy

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

#274

Post by mat7447 »

tadfisher wrote: post #238
dmix wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want web advertising to go away. The issue here is excessively intrusive tracking, not the ads themselves. Otherwise how are Youtube creators, newspapers, Firefox, etc going to operate with out it? Companies adding multiple megabytes of JS tools is probably another issue entirely as they often involve a variety of crap like 2-3 ad publishers, content recommendation services (chum), 5 different analytics and a…

> Just like "defund the police" is a stupid self-alienating stance to stake, so is expecting web ads to end. Don't go there, please. At the very least it reveals you don't understand what "defined the police" means, and at worst you're insulting those who are living in constant fear and daily trauma. There are better analogies to use.

I like defund the state.

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

#275

Post by bigiain »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #264
onion2k wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of money one can sell an advert for to the advertiser is of course related to expected return value for the advertiser of that ad. The value something provides is relative to other things you might buy instead. If I have an ad budget of $1m, and I can't spend it on targeted ads then I'm going to spend it on the next best thing - if that's non-targeted ads then websites will still get my $1m.

You strangely assume that the advertisement budget will remain constant in a world where advertisement is less effective. The very reason that adverts are then worth less, is because advertisement budgets will go down, given that advertisements provide less return for their money.

There’s a close enough to fixed amount of money people have to spend. Advertising doesn’t make them spend more (or less) of their budget, it just trys to convince people to buy your widgets instead of mine. When I need a phone, or a pair of sneakers, or a bottle of vodka - I’m going to buy one. Your flashy ad may convince me to buy your brand, but it’s not like I’d choose to not buy anything just because nobody advertised it to me. That even works of discretionary spending and impulse buys - I have a limited “uncommitted budget”, so maybe your ads could convince me to buy a new set of golf clubs instead of taking a trip to Vegas, but it’s all the same money that gets spent.

Even if you fully believe that privacy invasive targeted advertising is “the most effective” advertising, if it goes away the second best form of advertising will then become “the most effective” and will eat the lions share of the advertising spend. Or perhaps the market will dictate that instead of “targeted ads”, the most effective strategy will be to split the old google/Facebook ad spend across a combination of older (or newer) ad forms.

Toyota still want to sell Corollas. TAG still want to sell watches. So long as there’s a form of advertising that’s better than not advertising at all, the aggregate of all competitive sales teams will work out how to soak up all my budget somehow. Something will still me the most effective advertising. They’ll still spend their money to get more of that.

(If it turns out to be billboards or movie product placements or something, that’ll suck for web people who’s only possible way to sell advertising is banner ads, but that’s a different argue,ent...)

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

#276

Post by bostik »

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.

> This is HN, and we want the web advertising industry to go away.

Not go away. Just have their ability to invade privacy spayed and neutered. If it makes the industry smaller in aggregate, I'll take that as a beneficial side effect.

I wrote the following, as a comment on HN, more than 5 years ago. https://bostik.iki.fi/aivoituksia/random/no-stalking.html

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

#278

Post by robin_reala »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #163
Aerroon wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then ask them to delete it all. You, like most people, probably won't ask - because it's extremely convenient to have Google store all of this data. But if you think the upside isn't worth the risk, just ask and they will destroy it all for you. You don't even have to claim you live in the EU or California or somewhere else with at data protection law. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7660719

To be specific, that only gets Google to delete personal data associated with an account, not any shadow profiles they’ve built up.

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

#279

Post by Yizahi »

imtringued wrote: post #252
theshrike79 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? You do know that Google is a web advertising company first? If they're proposing something, you can be damned sure that it was vetted first by people who know how to use it for ad tracking - because that's literally their…

Google can probably track you without cookies if you use Google Chrome. If they remove alternative methods of tracking they end up eliminating competitors.

Which would be great. Minus one surveillance corporation in the world - the better for humans in general. Then we either split and regulate Google by government if we are lucky, or it stays as a surveillance monopoly, but there will be less surveillance anyway.

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

#280

Post by kergonath »

lopis wrote: post #246
theshrike79 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? You do know that Google is a web advertising company first? If they're proposing something, you can be damned sure that it was vetted first by people who know how to use it for ad tracking - because that's literally their…

> Chrome will never: ban 3rd party cookies It will ban 3rd party cookies the moment Google decides it's time to kill off most of their competition. They have Chrome installed on most people's computers and smartphones so they hold tremendous power to dictate the direction of the web, while they keep tracking people through the browser, with a user login, basically cookie-less.

I thought that was addressed with “They're not going to shoot themselves in the foot without a plan”. I’d bet they would ban 3rd party cookies the microsecond after they made sure they had a proved workaround.
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