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Ask HN: Refusing all cookies, still targeted by ads. How?

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Re: Ask HN: Refusing all cookies, still targeted by ads. How?

#51

Post by BiteCode_dev »

jerf wrote: post #14

Cookies was a simple concept that politicians could glom on to and legislate around, but, yes, they're quite unimportant in the grand scale of things. In the end, you've got two things to work with: Things you can convince the browser to actively identify itself with, and the things you can track regardless. Cookies are in the first category, but they are not alone. You can get things as simple as presenting an entir…

GPRD doesn't target just cookies, but tracking in general, which must be known and consented.

So basically what OP says is that most sites are just not following the European laws.

Re: Ask HN: Refusing all cookies, still targeted by ads. How?

#52

Post by Aeolos »

leonidasv wrote: post #27

Recently, I discovered that SwiftKey keyboard (I assume) was leaking tracking data from Incognito on Android. I would open an Incognito tab in Chrome, the keyboard would show up in "anonymous" mode, but products I searched for still turned into ads in Facebook/Instagram and AdSense in a couple of minutes. I assume it was SwiftKey since it was the only piece of software that had access to those keywords besides Chrome…

Chrome is tracking you by default. Check out chrome://settings/adPrivacy on the desktop - not sure if you have any control over this on the mobile version.

Re: Ask HN: Refusing all cookies, still targeted by ads. How?

#53

Post by dndn1 »

jefftk wrote: post #42

> maybe the simple answer is that refusing cookies doesn't actually do anything? I agree with all the other comments that are saying this is probably fingerprinting, but you can check whether refusing cookies is doing anything. Two ways: 1. On a page where you refused all cookies but are seeing targeted ads, open developer tools and go into the "Application" tab. Open up Storage > Cookies. Do you see anything listed?…

The truth about cookie behaviour can be found, as it's a browser-driven feature (unlike fingerprinting). But at least some analysis of the cookies will be needed, as I think essential cookies under some definition/interpretation are permitted?

Now what exactly that means I'm not sure. But the first thing my cookie banner does when someone declines the banner is.... create a cookie. But I guess we can argue that's essential for the user experience - to keep the banner out of the way on follow-up page views. Not a lawyer or privacy expert though.

Edit: above is behaviour I found with at least 2 cookie banners. I'm interested in suggestions if this isn't standard!

Re: Ask HN: Refusing all cookies, still targeted by ads. How?

#54

Post by mort96 »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #51
jerf wrote: post #14

Cookies was a simple concept that politicians could glom on to and legislate around, but, yes, they're quite unimportant in the grand scale of things. In the end, you've got two things to work with: Things you can convince the browser to actively identify itself with, and the things you can track regardless. Cookies are in the first category, but they are not alone. You can get things as simple as presenting an entir…

GPRD doesn't target just cookies, but tracking in general, which must be known and consented. So basically what OP says is that most sites are just not following the European laws.

Thank you! I find people repeating the "GDPR is stupid because there are other ways to track than using cookies" thing all the time and it's so frustrating. Misinformed comments like that usually end up at the very top of discussions like this.

Re: Ask HN: Refusing all cookies, still targeted by ads. How?

#55

Post by mort96 »

mabbo wrote: post #12

Fingerprinting. Everything about you that isn't identical to everyone else can be combined to guess who you likely are. Your exact browser version, OS, supported APIs, your IP address, your latency to Google servers... Anything that isn't a complete match to everyone else. You may have a new install, but your IP and latency match your old install. What are the odds you're not the same person? It's all probabilistic.…

But that's also a form of tracking. Are you saying it's a form of tracking which is exempt under the GDPR? Do you have a source on that?

Re: Ask HN: Refusing all cookies, still targeted by ads. How?

#57

Post by 2ICofafireteam »

digging wrote: post #33
gcoakes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite thing from that uniqueness website is that it shows cookies enabled as more common and thus more anonymizing. Not that they wouldn't just fingerprint you using those cookies if it was enabled. The other interesting thing is that it lists my plugins and "do not track" settings. They are both fairly unique. So, someone who attempts to anonimize themselves using plugins or browser features are just highlight…

Yes, I reduced my plugins count in firefox to slightly decrease my uniqueness. piling on additional tracking prevention addons means getting tracked more.

The absence of things can be as profound as their presence.

Re: Ask HN: Refusing all cookies, still targeted by ads. How?

#58

Post by mabbo »

mort96 wrote: post #55
mabbo wrote: post #12

Fingerprinting. Everything about you that isn't identical to everyone else can be combined to guess who you likely are. Your exact browser version, OS, supported APIs, your IP address, your latency to Google servers... Anything that isn't a complete match to everyone else. You may have a new install, but your IP and latency match your old install. What are the odds you're not the same person? It's all probabilistic.…

But that's also a form of tracking. Are you saying it's a form of tracking which is exempt under the GDPR? Do you have a source on that?

I doubt it's allowed under gdpr, but it's also hard to prove it's being done. Much of it can be done server side based purely on IP address.

Re: Ask HN: Refusing all cookies, still targeted by ads. How?

#59

Post by adrian_b »

gcoakes wrote: post #22
jerf wrote: post #14

Cookies was a simple concept that politicians could glom on to and legislate around, but, yes, they're quite unimportant in the grand scale of things. In the end, you've got two things to work with: Things you can convince the browser to actively identify itself with, and the things you can track regardless. Cookies are in the first category, but they are not alone. You can get things as simple as presenting an entir…

My favorite thing from that uniqueness website is that it shows cookies enabled as more common and thus more anonymizing. Not that they wouldn't just fingerprint you using those cookies if it was enabled. The other interesting thing is that it lists my plugins and "do not track" settings. They are both fairly unique. So, someone who attempts to anonimize themselves using plugins or browser features are just highlight…

I have also looked there and what makes me unique is that nobody else has the same list of installed fonts, which is not a surprise for me, because I have bought several commercial high-quality typefaces, while most people have only the fonts installed by the operating system and by popular office suites.

Besides the fonts, only 3% of the people recorded in their database have their monitors configured for 30-bit color.

Therefore it appears that taking good care of my eyes makes me easily identifiable, but there is no workaround for this, except for running the browser in a VM, where the characteristics of the hardware and whatever else is installed could be well hidden.

Re: Ask HN: Refusing all cookies, still targeted by ads. How?

#60

Post by papruapap »

mabbo wrote: post #12

Fingerprinting. Everything about you that isn't identical to everyone else can be combined to guess who you likely are. Your exact browser version, OS, supported APIs, your IP address, your latency to Google servers... Anything that isn't a complete match to everyone else. You may have a new install, but your IP and latency match your old install. What are the odds you're not the same person? It's all probabilistic.…

Chrome stopped reporting chrome version because of this iirc.
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