As much as I want google to have competitors, I can think of no argument that disabling third-party cookies is anti-user. It is inevitable that these cookies will be blocked. I'm all for the news industry coming up with a counter-proposal but trying to keep the current, bad system is not it.
Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
321–330 of 354 posts
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#322Time to accelerate the purge. To be honest, all I'll really miss are GMail spam filtering and Google Scholar.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
> probably How?
Chrome could provide an API that gives a GUID for that user, or that user session.
This exists and is used today in production. The feature is called "Google Signals." It can be used as a replacement for the identity signal (read: cookies) for Google Analytics and Google Ads.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#324I 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…
I think the argument that Google is trying to make is that Privacy Sandbox is better because it's our trusted friend Google that will control this information, not all these other organizations who don't have your best interests at heart. Which is hilarious, and not even original: governments and law enforcement have been making the same argument around privacy issues (to the sound of millions of rolling eyeballs) for decades.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#325I 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…
I actually like the idea of Privacy Sandbox. It appears to enable sites which depend on ad revenue to continue to exist while seeking to eliminate the usual problem with current adtech: third party tracking.
I wrote up a more nuanced version of this opinion here:
* Privacy Sandbox: Google's answer to privacy-conscious advertising -- https://dafoster.net/articles/2021/02/04/privacy-sandbox-goo...
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#326Is it possible that this is related to the recent Chromium sync changes?
If Privacy Sandbox adds APIs for tracking/advertising, it would be trivial for a Chromium rebuild to patch them out. If a user can use google sync with Chromium, it would be easy then to escape the tracking system. If you can only use sync with Chrome proper however, it becomes much more difficult.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#327Earlier 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.
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Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, I'll bite. I don't trust Google, and let's assume that they will always be a malicious adversary. Given that, why should I not be skeptical of their Privacy Sandbox initiative?
No one is saying you shouldn't be sceptical. What OP is saying is only that you should not form an opinion on the subject based off of what some pro-third-party-cookies advertising-people are saying. He is pointing out that this is clearly an attack from someone with a lot to loose, not saying "trust google".
They aren't wrong when they point out that it gives a massive information advantage to Google; but the pro-privacy solution is neither 3rd party cookies nor the "privacy" API. Both provide a means by which to uniquely identify and track the behaviour of a person.
Besides, it's not wrong to listen to the losers; you might learn about some unfair competition.
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#329This effort is similar to Chrome's previous implementation of a built-in ad blocker[1]. As before, the goal isn't to completely eliminate ads or tracking, rather it's to push the advertising industry in a direction that's more acceptable to users, with the understanding that that approach is likely better for the industry (and therefore Google) long-term.
In this case, Google wants to maintain the ability to target ads and detect click fraud, but eliminate server-side tracking as many users find the latter practice undesirable.
Given that these changes will affect the entire advertising industry, not just Google, it's unsurprising that their competitors would claim anti-trust. They have a point; Google undeniably _is_ using their control over the Chrome browser to make changes that directly impact their competitors. Google may genuinely believe these changes are good for the industry as a whole, but that might be hard to argue in court, particularly if competitors with particularly intrusive tracking mechanisms are disproportionately impacted.
This will be interesting to watch.
[1]: https://blog.chromium.org/2018/02/how-chromes-ad-filtering-w...
Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll add a third option: neither! Seriously, I've had 3rd party cookies disabled four years and almost nothing breaks. The last time I remember needing to enable them was some online homework system that came with a math textbook.
I feel like there are some misunderstandings in this thread. Let me summarize my understanding: Safari has effectively disabled third party cookies. Nothing broke. Chrome has announced that they will do the same in 2022. However, unlike Apple, Google doesn't want to cannibalize the ad industry so they decided to introduce this Privacy Sandbox which allows targeted advertising without sending a personal identifier to…
> But that was never really on the table.
I don't think there is a misunderstanding at all.
Fundamentally, Google—A company which has a history of over-reaching and lying about it—is implementing a solution which allows them to continue doing what Google does as best it can given the current atmosphere.
They could do what the other browser makers have done and just eliminate 3rd party cookies. They could make this feature opt in. The fact that people seem determined to assert Google must have this feature and we are all somehow better for it is absurd.
Edit: In retrospect there does seem to be a fundamental mis-understanding of sorts. If you fundamentally trust Google, I suppose this whole thing looks different with rose colored lenses on.