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A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

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Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#41

Post by IX-103 »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #25

> On the other side are companies that use cross-site tracking for things like website optimization and advertising, and are fighting for their industry's very survival. That includes small firms like Rosewell's, but also giants of the industry, like Facebook. The Rosewell guy may not be a saint, but omitting Google from the list as the ones standing to win from privacy features, through ga and the usage they have ov…

How does Google win? Their business is search -- advertising on other sites is more of a side gig for them, and from their own description of their privacy sandbox, even they would not be able to track people across sites.

The changes to the web platform necessary to protect user privacy will require reinventing the industry (which will naturally pick winners and losers).

I expect that Google will come out in the end doing well, but that's not because they have a competitive advantage here, but instead because these changes don't really affect their core business (at least no where near as much as the proliferation of paywalls and app-ification have).

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#42

Post by IX-103 »

otterley wrote: post #26

In this story: engineers can't come to a conclusion because they are trying to solve a political problem instead of an engineering problem.

Better summary: Browser companies try to implement X individually. Browser developers get together and try to standardize a way to do X. Other people come and complain why they aren't doing Y or Z instead. Eventually all the extra people are talking so loudly that no one can work on X.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#45

Post by reayn »

tomc1985 wrote: post #29
allturtles wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, politeness is racist now?

I don't think that politeness is inherently racist, but it has been used as a tool of racial suppression, and as a way of keeping itinerants in line https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2006/sept...

...

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#46

Post by pentagrama »

> One of Google's proposed standards — Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC for short — would eliminate the ability for advertisers to track specific users' web behavior with cookies.

No, Floc will not "eliminate the ability for advertisers to track specific users with cookies", the phase out of third party cookies on Chrome will do that, Google needs something to replace the current tracking method for his ad business and is trying to push Floc to do that. But this are two separate things that OP seems to mix up, Google needs something to keep tracking and is painting the notion that third party cookies can not be phased out without implement Floc before, and is not the case.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#47

Post by rdsnsca »

IX-103 wrote: post #41
tannhaeuser wrote: post #25

> On the other side are companies that use cross-site tracking for things like website optimization and advertising, and are fighting for their industry's very survival. That includes small firms like Rosewell's, but also giants of the industry, like Facebook. The Rosewell guy may not be a saint, but omitting Google from the list as the ones standing to win from privacy features, through ga and the usage they have ov…

How does Google win? Their business is search -- advertising on other sites is more of a side gig for them, and from their own description of their privacy sandbox, even they would not be able to track people across sites. The changes to the web platform necessary to protect user privacy will require reinventing the industry (which will naturally pick winners and losers). I expect that Google will come out in the end…

Googles business is advertising.. take away their ad revenue and see what happens to them.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#48

Post by lumost »

I used to be of the mind that ad tech et. al. weren’t really hurting anyone, and that the more extreme examples of privacy offenses were simple edge cases.

That is until I switched to iOS and was given the option to hide my true email address, tell an app not to track me, and otherwise get visibility into just how much my data is getting sniffed for stupid reasons that have nothing to do with the service I’m using.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#49

Post by dhosek »

>companies that use cross-site tracking for things like website optimization

OK, I was hoping someone already addressed this, but apparently not. What "website optimization" requires cross-site tracking? Is there any real application for cross-site tracking besides advertising? I honestly would like to know.

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