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Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

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Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#111

Post by marcus0x62 »

tgv wrote: post #39
alexvitkov wrote: post #24

> Tracking technology can arguably benefit us as well. For example, it could be helpful if an online store reminds you every three months you need a new toothbrush, or that this time last year you bought a birthday card for your mum. fuck off

It's against the guidelines to be dismissive, but there really is no other response. Especially when you left read the follow-up sentence: > Offloading cognitive effort, such as reminders like these, is a great way automation can assist humanity. Does that pass for journalism? I really don't want to read the rest of the article.

> Does that pass for journalism?

I think it passes for a press release disguised as a news article.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#112

Post by lenkite »

latexr wrote: post #90
HeckFeck wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't regret it and you won't miss anything. Who cares if Chrome is 2% faster on some obscure CSS parsing test? At least you aren't participating in your own psychological manipulation and are resisting WEI.

> and you won't miss anything. I would very much miss AppleScript support. It’s the number one reason I (and many users of my tools) don’t touch Firefox. Fortunately, Webkit browsers (Safari, Orion) have got that covered. Unfortunately, Chromium browsers are a more common choice.

Isn't AppleScript effectively dead ? Apple disbanded the Mac Automation team back in 2016 and even fired the product manager AFAIK. At some point in time, it will be removed from the macOS stack and very few people will even notice.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#113

Post by shadowgovt »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #35
Vinnl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. They will also do so if you keep the feature on. Third-party cookies in Chrome won't be blocked for the near-term future at least. Unless you switch browsers - e.g. Firefox has blocked third-party cookies for a while now.

There's an option in the settings to block third-party cookies. Does that no do what it says?

Yes. You can also disable the new Google topics system.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#115

Post by xg15 »

tgv wrote: post #39
alexvitkov wrote: post #24

> Tracking technology can arguably benefit us as well. For example, it could be helpful if an online store reminds you every three months you need a new toothbrush, or that this time last year you bought a birthday card for your mum. fuck off

It's against the guidelines to be dismissive, but there really is no other response. Especially when you left read the follow-up sentence: > Offloading cognitive effort, such as reminders like these, is a great way automation can assist humanity. Does that pass for journalism? I really don't want to read the rest of the article.

It's actually worth reading the article to the end, because otherwise you'd be missing the amazing final paragraph:

> Lastly, it’s good to remember nothing truly comes for free. Software costs money to develop. If you’re not paying towards that, then it’s likely you – or your data – are the product. We need to revolutionise how we think about our own data and what value it truly holds.

Ignoring the fact that this is not how it works - there are plenty of services where you pay and still are the product - the last sentence makes it clear that the author sees privacy as the problem, not tracking.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#116

Post by MrDirkGently »

If I'm using Chrome only to test how websites render in it, what are the alternatives? Use another Chromium based browser or do they have the same issues as Chrome? Use a browser testing suite such as BrowserStack? Or will using a user-agent switcher in Firefox achieve the same effect as using Chrome?

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#117

Post by dbbk »

Vinnl wrote: post #25
runnig wrote: post #21

If I disable this feature, will ads target me with the old cookie methods?

Yes. They will also do so if you keep the feature on. Third-party cookies in Chrome won't be blocked for the near-term future at least. Unless you switch browsers - e.g. Firefox has blocked third-party cookies for a while now.

Chrome is scheduled to drop third-party cookies mid-2024.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#119

Post by esteth »

dspillett wrote: post #89
esteth wrote: post #36

Can anyone explain to me why this is worse than third-party cookies? *If* this lets chrome remove third-party cookies, doesn't it effectively increase your privacy by putting that tracking data on the user's machine instead of having random third-parties involved in every page load to harvest that tracking info? I understand that you can currently turn off third-party cookies, but a bunch of the internet breaks if yo…

> Can anyone explain to me why this is worse than third-party cookies? How about thinking the other way around: Can you, or anyone else for that matter, explain to me why this is better than commercial interests not following us around at all ? > turn off third-party cookies, but a bunch of the internet breaks if you do that Most of what breaks is just tracking for ad serving purposes. I'm fine with that breaking. So…

I totally appreciate the desire not to want an advertising profile build for you at all! I think that in practice, interest-based-advertising is going to happen, and I think if chrome can provide a way for it to be done without involving so many sketchy third-parties then I'm for that.

I don't know a huge amount about the wider ecosystem here, but I can imagine that if chrome were to disable third-party cookies without providing an alternative, then advertisers will go to fairly great lengths to fingerprint you to build a profile.

Right now my guess is that Firefox users benefit from the fact that it's probably not worth investing all that much in alternative tracking techniques since you capture the vast majority of people with techniques which work in chromium browsers.

Again, I really don't know that much about all this, but my feeling is that this is moving in the right direction, even if it's not the solution I'd ultimately prefer as an individual user.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#120

Post by dbbk »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #33
runnig wrote: post #21

If I disable this feature, will ads target me with the old cookie methods?

Yep, and else with browser fingerprinting; https://amiunique.org/fingerprint says that even with adblock and some tracking measures turned off, my browser fingerprint is still unique among 2054475 others.

Chrome are limiting fingerprinting too, including reducing the User-Agent header. https://developer.chrome.com/en/docs/privacy-sandbox/user-ag...
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