Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Android launches yet another way to spy on users with “Privacy Sandbox” beta

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 156 posts

Re: Android launches yet another way to spy on users with “Privacy Sandbox” beta

#11

Post by AlexandrB »

Spivak wrote: post #8
duringmath wrote: post #2

I don't know why the Ars Google guy is so hostile toward the company but good grief! Every other outlet "google releasing their version of Apple's ATT" Ars Technica guy "Google will watch you while you sleep"

Can it do the thing that ATT does where I can globally or on a per app basis say do not track and have it honored under threat of getting the banhammer from the Play Store? Because I really don’t care about advertisers having a new cool way to track me, I care that I can force them off by policy and the sandbox seems to not have that feature.

No.

> On Android, the Privacy Sandbox tracking is in addition to all the usual individual tracking methods; it's not being pitched as an alternative to anything. The Privacy Sandbox on Android is toothless, and Google has no plans to reduce tracking on Android.

Re: Android launches yet another way to spy on users with “Privacy Sandbox” beta

#12

Post by nhchris »

izacus wrote: post #4
duringmath wrote: post #2

I don't know why the Ars Google guy is so hostile toward the company but good grief! Every other outlet "google releasing their version of Apple's ATT" Ars Technica guy "Google will watch you while you sleep"

Yeah, ArsTechnica really has an anti-Google hardon, it's kinda a pattern where they always choose the worst possible hit piece title when it goes anything in relation to that company. When others do similar things they tend to be much more neutral. But such is the way of modern digital media - do you think "Google creates a new Privacy Sandbox feature for Android" would bring the same type of clicks, comments and adv…

"Google creates a new Privacy Sandbox feature for Android" deceptively implies it improves privacy, when it does just the opposite.

Journalists should pick apart lies, not parrot them.

Re: Android launches yet another way to spy on users with “Privacy Sandbox” beta

#13

Post by jqpabc123 »

nargas wrote: post #5

What can you expect from an ad company ? Not tracking you would mean hurting their own business.

The really crazy part --- it doesn't have to be this way.

Google could easily switch to context sensitive ads but they don't because advertisers pay extra for "personalized".

Personally, I doubt anyone can really justify the added expense. The entire process is opaque to make any comparison difficult if not impossible. Just because I bought pet supplies last week, does it really make sense for pets supply ads to follow me all over the internet --- even on unrelated web sites?

Re: Android launches yet another way to spy on users with “Privacy Sandbox” beta

#14

Post by cma »

throwaway2056 wrote: post #3
duringmath wrote: post #2

I don't know why the Ars Google guy is so hostile toward the company but good grief! Every other outlet "google releasing their version of Apple's ATT" Ars Technica guy "Google will watch you while you sleep"

Sure the criticism about Privacy Sandbox is valid. News journalists should dog food Firefox (to encourage end users) and then avoid Chrome. (i.e) they make sure the webpages work great with Firefox. Usually everything works better with Chrome. The reason for the give would be sorry... Our livelihood depends on tracking/ads etc. Oh BTW, I (as a journalist ) am all for privacy but my corporate overlord (CondeNast incas…

I've never had problems on the Ars site using Firefox.

Re: Android launches yet another way to spy on users with “Privacy Sandbox” beta

#16

Post by DHPersonal »

causi wrote: post #7
izacus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, ArsTechnica really has an anti-Google hardon, it's kinda a pattern where they always choose the worst possible hit piece title when it goes anything in relation to that company. When others do similar things they tend to be much more neutral. But such is the way of modern digital media - do you think "Google creates a new Privacy Sandbox feature for Android" would bring the same type of clicks, comments and adv…

Anti-Google is what gets the pageviews. Ars has been sliding toward clickbait for a long time now.

But Privacy Sandbox seems legitimately bad. How is pointing that out clickbait? It's okay to criticize a technology company, even — or perhaps especially — if it is the manufacturer of a device one uses.

Re: Android launches yet another way to spy on users with “Privacy Sandbox” beta

#17

Post by shakna »

bno1 wrote: post #10

I don't really get the point of the article. You can opt out of the privacy sandbox and block interests you don't want apps to see. The biggest change seems to be that chrome cand feed data into this system through an Android API, but doesn't this already happen through telemetry, analytics scripts and fingerprinting? You can also just not use chrome.

You can only opt out, once you know that it exists. To know that it exists, you first need to come across something such as the article.

Re: Android launches yet another way to spy on users with “Privacy Sandbox” beta

#18

Post by jacooper »

duringmath wrote: post #2

I don't know why the Ars Google guy is so hostile toward the company but good grief! Every other outlet "google releasing their version of Apple's ATT" Ars Technica guy "Google will watch you while you sleep"

Because it doesn't actually improve privacy?
Post reply on HN