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Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

vivaldi.com

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Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#241

Post by mateo411 »

Jonsvt wrote: post #218
tomc1985 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for big game hunting but taking down Google would be a gutpunch to every Gmail user ever

I think this is one of the big misinformation being propagated. That somehow you would not be able to get GMail or other services if Google is not allowed to collect information. The reality is that Google did just fine before they did surveillance-based ads and they can do just fine when they stop doing them as well. There are other ad systems and Google can do just fine using normal ads. That being said, there are…

What was Google's business model before they sold ads?

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#242

Post by raxxorrax »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #174
blooalien wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So will Facebook (and several others) if you take no steps of your own to block them. It's an escalating war of cat and mouse. You'll block them, they'll find a new way around it, you'll block them some more, they'll find another way. Eventually the only answer will be to shut down the Internet because it's become just too broken to use anymore.

The simpler answer is to just ban it. The law doesn't need to be technically detailed or envision every single technological adaptation: it just needs to be sufficient for a judge to be able to recognise it when a prosecutor describes it and a defence lawyer attempts to pull the wool over their eyes. It needs to be focused on outcomes. Once banned, Google and Facebook will submit. They will attempt to lobby against t…

I think banning it is the wrong approach. Data ownership should be regulated that personal info belongs to the person it is about. Companies need to pay for it if they want to store it over a certain time period. They also have to face large fines when they leak personal info.

Imagine how quickly companies would only save minimal personalized data.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#243

Post by Jonsvt »

jefftk wrote: post #238
Jonsvt wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting read. Clearly you are struggling with your choice.

> Clearly you are struggling with your choice What in the post gives you that impression? (I'm not)

I guess the start of it gave that impression in particular. It is great you are giving so much of your salary to charity, but the fact that is the first thing you write as an explanation of why you do what you do does send a signal.

I also have a feeling you are trying to explain to yourself why the things Google is doing is not bad. So you twist things a bit here and there to make your point.

In any case, you are not in a position, I assume, to influence what Google does. Google is on a path that a lot of us do not like. We do not like being tracked and we do not like profiles being built on us. We want that to stop. You try to convince us it is not so bad, but the feeling I get is that you are just as much trying to convince yourself, but obviously I am not you, so this is just based on a feeling.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#244

Post by Jonsvt »

jefftk wrote: post #239
Jonsvt wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to read : https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-ge... Really, FLOC is for me the ultimate betrayal. The browser is not supposed to make an ad profile based on the browsing history. It is just wrong.

I'm not sure which part of the post you're referring to when you say that FLoC isn't more private than the status quo; is it the "FLoC will expose your data. More than ever." section? That has "Now every website will get to see an ID that was generated from your behaviour on every other website", but this is not what Chrome has said: "Websites can exclude a page from the FLoC calculation by setting a Permissions-Poli…

Suddenly the tracking includes all sites and pages. That is not an improvement. Having an opt out or even an opt in is not the solution here. We have all seen how that works.

The tracking just has to stop. Google can generate plenty of revenue without tracking us. They were in fact making plenty before they moved from context sensitive ads to surveillance-based ads.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#245

Post by Jonsvt »

pasabagi wrote: post #237
burnaway wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We have lost this argument in the past so what are we talking about" is a dangerous attitude in this context. Helping the 'average citizen' understand the extent of surveillance and facing the consequences is an ongoing process. Public awareness is still very low about these issues, but the norms are changing - many, including myself are working hard on framing the issue in a way that reaches wider audiences. We can…

I just feel like when you have a problem like this, where the interests of business and state are aligned (data collection is useful for both), taking a principled stance allows people to marginalize you. Obviously, people don't like invasive data collection. People don't like wars either. People generally have the kind of common sense that institutions and businesses lack. My feeling is that you don't win fights lik…

I do not understand where you get the impression that the interest of business and state are aligned when it comes to data collection. I would say that in a lot of cases, it is rather the opposite. You seem to assume that the state always has access to the data collected. That is likely not true. There are laws that limit state´s use of data without cause. That seems to be missing for Big Tech, which is why we need regulation.

A few years ago the Norwegian Spy Chief was taking questions from the media. He actually pointed out that we should be more worried about the data collection of private companies than that of the Norwegian state. Their data collection was regulated and small in scope. Big tech data collection is seemingly neither.

Data collected by Big Tech can be misused by others. In many ways this is a significant security risk. Not just from data breaches, but also that people can be manipulated in groups. This is a significant problem and the easiest way to resolve it is to stop the tracking and ban surveillance-based ads.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#246

Post by Jonsvt »

mateo411 wrote: post #241
Jonsvt wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is one of the big misinformation being propagated. That somehow you would not be able to get GMail or other services if Google is not allowed to collect information. The reality is that Google did just fine before they did surveillance-based ads and they can do just fine when they stop doing them as well. There are other ad systems and Google can do just fine using normal ads. That being said, there are…

What was Google's business model before they sold ads?

Google started as a search engine. Their results were accurate and there were no ads. Gradually they started doing ads on search results, related to the search itself. This was better than what many of the competitors at the time were doing, which was for paid searches to be at the top.

Gradually Google became more and more an ad company. In 2007 they bought DoubleClick that was one of the leading ad companies on the Internet. This was part of them moving towards providing ads not only on search results, but on sites as well. At the time most ads were site or context sensitive.

So Google has been making money off ads for a long time. More or less from the beginning. The big change, however, was the move to surveillance-based ads, where the ads depends not on the site or page you are viewing, but on the person viewing the ad. That is where it went all wrong.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#247

Post by btdmaster »

lmkg wrote: post #169
LegitShady wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google analytics tells you the interest of your audience. how do you think it does this without correlating you to a profile they've built?

Googe Analytics consultant here (not Google employee). 1. Google Analytics' primary identity signal is a first-party cookie. this is not shared between domains. There is no technical way to link identity between domains with different cookie values. 1a. Google Analytics has built-in library functions to allow site owners to share first-party cookie values between a whitelisted set of domains. This effectively lets on…

Interesting insight. Their privacy policy suggests they are able to do this however[1]:

"When you’re not signed in to a Google Account, we store the information we collect with unique identifiers tied to the browser, application, or device you’re using."

What is stopping, legally, them from taking e.g. HTTP Headers from independent connections and linking them together through fingerprinting? Maybe this is not implemented in Google Analytics, but that is certainly not the only connection made to Google on most websites (see e.g. gstatic and Firebase). Since there is practically no technical barrier, it seems that the vague privacy policy leads to the only question being what the 'unique identifiers' are exactly.

[1] https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en#infocollect

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#248

Post by pasabagi »

Jonsvt wrote: post #245
pasabagi wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just feel like when you have a problem like this, where the interests of business and state are aligned (data collection is useful for both), taking a principled stance allows people to marginalize you. Obviously, people don't like invasive data collection. People don't like wars either. People generally have the kind of common sense that institutions and businesses lack. My feeling is that you don't win fights lik…

I do not understand where you get the impression that the interest of business and state are aligned when it comes to data collection. I would say that in a lot of cases, it is rather the opposite. You seem to assume that the state always has access to the data collected. That is likely not true. There are laws that limit state´s use of data without cause. That seems to be missing for Big Tech, which is why we need r…

Well, a state is the entity that has sovereignty in a given country. So in principle, it always has access to all of the resources of that country, even though in practice it's bound by all sorts of laws and customs. Also in practice, these laws and customs tend to have exceptions in exigent circumstances.

Personally, I think dividing between the state and business is simplistic. Most businesses and most states have a symbiotic and codependent relationship, that is more or less explicit depending on the country you're talking about, but that's by the by. In practice, states generally have access to collected data through subpeonas.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#249

Post by jefftk »

Jonsvt wrote: post #244
jefftk wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure which part of the post you're referring to when you say that FLoC isn't more private than the status quo; is it the "FLoC will expose your data. More than ever." section? That has "Now every website will get to see an ID that was generated from your behaviour on every other website", but this is not what Chrome has said: "Websites can exclude a page from the FLoC calculation by setting a Permissions-Poli…

Suddenly the tracking includes all sites and pages. That is not an improvement. Having an opt out or even an opt in is not the solution here. We have all seen how that works. The tracking just has to stop. Google can generate plenty of revenue without tracking us. They were in fact making plenty before they moved from context sensitive ads to surveillance-based ads.

> the tracking includes all sites and pages

But it doesn't! They are proposing, in the stable version, to include only pages that opt in by calling the FLoC API.

For the origin trial in particular, to avoid a chicken-and-egg issue, they are also including pages that have ads. Since ads today make extensive use of third-party cookies for cross-site tracking, This is still not anything like "all sites and pages".

(Still speaking only for myself)

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#250

Post by Jonsvt »

pasabagi wrote: post #248
Jonsvt wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand where you get the impression that the interest of business and state are aligned when it comes to data collection. I would say that in a lot of cases, it is rather the opposite. You seem to assume that the state always has access to the data collected. That is likely not true. There are laws that limit state´s use of data without cause. That seems to be missing for Big Tech, which is why we need r…

Well, a state is the entity that has sovereignty in a given country. So in principle, it always has access to all of the resources of that country, even though in practice it's bound by all sorts of laws and customs. Also in practice, these laws and customs tend to have exceptions in exigent circumstances. Personally, I think dividing between the state and business is simplistic. Most businesses and most states have…

I do not know which country you come from and maybe what you describe is correct in your country. I can say that it is not in my countries, Norway and Iceland and this has not been my experience running an international company either.

In any case, I think mixing the two is not helpful in any shape or form. What we need is to regulate what private companies can do. I think that is enough scope for this particular discussion and I think this is such an important matter that it needs to be addressed.

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