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Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting

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Re: Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting

#51

Post by xigoi »

AndroTux wrote: post #48
turblety wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, do not use Vivaldi or any other closed source, secret codebase browser. Can you imagine signing into your bank with a closed source browser.

This argument lacks for the average consumer. Heavily. Do you compile every update of Firefox yourself (and this assumes that you have read every line of code that changed during updates)? Especially when on Windows or macOS, you just download the version that is distributed by mozilla.org on their website. There is no guarantee that they're using the actual sources to build. They could just as well add in a little p…

I download the version from my distribution's package manager, which is compiled by independent volunteers.

Re: Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting

#52

Post by jeroenhd »

Zetobal wrote: post #20

It's getting to the point were I am really questioning the characters of people that still work at Google. I mean some of the people implementing and designing this shit must be right here. Is it really just the money?

I can see the point here. Ad companies will track your browsing history. Google doesn't want to rely on cookies and fingerprints and probably wants to nuke tracking capabilities as well, but doing so in their browser while they still sell ads would be regulatory suicide.

Providing an open API for advertisers that doesn't require endless digital stalking is the only way Google will ever be able to enforce stricter anti tracking features. Their announcement that they were working on ending third party cookie tracking was met with threats of lawsuits and antitrust.

A locally classified list of topics that can be spoofed by the user agent is an excellent privacy measure. Nobody wants ads, but I'd rather have Chrome enable site isolation than the current status quo.

Honestly, I don't see the problem here. Your browsing history isn't submitted to Google according to the spec. There are aboit 8 bits of entropy for fingerprinting, but who cares when WebGPU and the canvas APIs provide ten times that already.

The privacy invasion argument seems to be "but it's based on my browsing history" which is exactly how all major advertisers have been doing it for the last ten years.

If this gets cancelled, Google isn't going to implement any anti tracking features in Chrome. They legally can't because of advertisers as scummy as them. They can choose between dropping their main source of income (lol), leaving Microsoft in charge of Chromium and killing Chrome (lol), do nothing against the current atate of the web amd tracking, or work with advertisers in a way that doesn't get them sued to hell over antitrust.

Re: Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting

#54

Post by benterix »

johnchristopher wrote: post #28
ht85 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The popup is absolutely disgusting. I would love to think this would backfire and push more people towards Firefox but their target is obviously not HN readers, they know what they are doing.

> I would love to think this would backfire and push more people towards Firefox but their target is obviously not HN readers, they know what they are doing. I am gonna make a generalization but HN readers is not the demographic pushing for Firefox usage and when they do it's usually for the wrong reason: "performance".

Which is false BTW, unless you are using some Google services optimized for Chrome, such as Google Sheets.

Re: Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting

#55

Post by izacus »

dgan wrote: post #37
bbor wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of them think they’re supporting the free and open internet. I can promise you that many ad engineers take privacy very seriously, and from their perspective, google is leading the charge on less invasive Display ad tech. I seriously doubt the people in this thread will agree with any of that, but I thought I’d answer the question. Of course, the money helps too - Google just recently laid off thousands of worke…

On another spectrum, RuZZians invading Ukraine right now are really thinking they are "liberating" it.

Yeah, please don't compare ads with actual murdering, raping and civilan massacres.

Re: Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting

#57

Post by stareatgoats »

jtriangle wrote: post #10
samspenc wrote: post #3

Related tweet from Paul Graham: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1699021936573940154 "If you go to chrome://settings/adPrivacy you can turn off the spyware that got inserted into the latest version of Chrome." And I found PaulG's tweet from this earlier Hacker News discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392517

Or you could... use any other chromium based browser that doesn't do this. Might I suggest Vivaldi? It's nice, lots of built in features that you probably are running extensions for currently.

Yeah, I like Vivaldi too. It's been a string of largely pleasant surprises since I started using it a few months back, along the lines of "I had no idea I needed this until now". The only downside has been the occasional crash, perhaps because I've gone overboard with workspaces relative to the specs of my old PC.

Re: Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting

#58

Post by matheusmoreira »

the_gipsy wrote: post #8

And there is no end in sight. For the love of God, please switch to Firefox.

There is an end in sight: Firefox's. Mozilla has billion dollars and is cutting back on Firefox software development to focus on paying executives and pushing agendas.

Re: Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting

#59

Post by jeroenhd »

petargyurov wrote: post #35

Is this is a privacy win for anyone using a non-Chrome/ium browser? Given the majority of the population use Chrome, will most websites stop relying on cookies and instead use the Topics API? Though I suppose cookies will always be a fallback option if the website detects that the browser doesn't support the Topics API...

You can feed websites fake topics to mislead them, or even allow the user to pick their interests if they do want ads. That's a lot easier than sending your browser through random websites to shake off trackers and analysers.

Cookies are hard because other browsers do isolation based on top-level domains. Fingerprinting is the only way to track non-Chrome browsers.

Google wants to do cookie isolation as well, but ad companies threatened to sue them over it, so they can't for now, not until there's a viable alternative.

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