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Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

forbes.com

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Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#41

Post by notpushkin »

lexlambda wrote: post #40
hyperman1 wrote: post #30

A few weeks ago, I was using my mothers PC. Google was erroneously in French, and no language chooser available. So I checked. Firefox sent a HTTP header with a Dutch preference. She was logged in with her Google account, which had a Dutch language preference. Some geolocation providers put her in Dutch speaking cities of Belgium. Still, the Google Algorithm had decided she would speak French. Plenty of other sites m…

> Why are we sending out all this info. You are generalizing. Google and big providers do that, usually (US)services that need to cater to the whole world. But a huge part of the normal web still uses and _needs_ preferred language. No one wants to be forced to use geolocation. Just one very common example are info pages for sightseeing, they are usually available in all languages that people commonly visit from and…

It would be nice if Google actually used the preferred language. They don't give a shit. I'm still getting maps and other stuff in local language based on IP.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#42

Post by treprinum »

conartist6 wrote: post #5
thomassmith65 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is about Google's new focus on tracking users via device fingerprint, instead of (primarily) via cookies.

Which is, depending on your perspective, either terrifying or just stupid. Right now anti-fingerprinting security is not very high on anyone's minds, but remember that your digital fingerprints follow you EVERYWHERE. You can't turn them off or disable them on your side like cookies. It's sort of like the wholesale elimination of privacy as a concept, you might say. But hence the stupidity! It's too bold a move not to…

Tor browser asks you if you want to allow fingerprinting or not when a site attempts to query your HW info. Not sure why other browsers can't do the same.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#43

Post by Macha »

rpastuszak wrote: post #37
red_admiral wrote: post #32

Adblocking google's ad ecosystem so the third-party scripts don't load in the first place should still fix this, if I read it right?

This is getting trickier: - nowadays (iirc) you can serve/proxy those scripts via your own domain (to circumvent ad blocker blocklists) - there are limitations re the number of blocking rules in Manifest V3 It’s cat and mouse at this stage, we’re getting to the point where blocking ads will be as hard/annoying as, say, installing 3rd party apps on your iPhone. Too much of a hassle even for fairly techie users

> there are limitations re the number of blocking rules in Manifest V3

Use Firefox. uBlock Origin on Firefox also gets around CNAME cloaking to make advertiser domains appear as first party, which Chrome does not give sufficient access to do that.

It doesn't get around actually serving these endpoints mixed directly in with first party endpoints, but these are a hard sell on the advertising side too, from the technical effort from the publisher to implement it to the advertisers reluctance to trust the stats when the publisher gets to be the man in the middle.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#45

Post by Macha »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #4
hulitu wrote: post #2

> Google Starts Tracking All Your Devices in 8 Weeks Those "journalists" were living in a bubble ? Google (and Facebook, and Apple, and Microfost) have been tracking our devices for years.

The article is about Google's new focus on tracking users via device fingerprint, instead of (primarily) via cookies.

This isn't new. Most advertising companies have had some sort of "Cross device targeting" or "household targeting" solution for going on almost a decade now. It's also why the suggestion of "repeal GDPR, just use cookie blockers" is so misguided.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#46

Post by int_19h »

rpastuszak wrote: post #37
red_admiral wrote: post #32

Adblocking google's ad ecosystem so the third-party scripts don't load in the first place should still fix this, if I read it right?

This is getting trickier: - nowadays (iirc) you can serve/proxy those scripts via your own domain (to circumvent ad blocker blocklists) - there are limitations re the number of blocking rules in Manifest V3 It’s cat and mouse at this stage, we’re getting to the point where blocking ads will be as hard/annoying as, say, installing 3rd party apps on your iPhone. Too much of a hassle even for fairly techie users

I wonder if at this point an AI-based ad blocker that would actually look at the DOM, or maybe even the image, would be viable.

Obviously, this requires significantly more resources. But it feels like a more productive use of the hardware power that we already have, compared to the most recent Electron monstrosity.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#47

Post by jocoda »

We have kernel level anti cheat systems for games. So how about kernel level anti tracking?

Browsers use system calls to provide the information used for fingerprinting the device, so why not intercept these calls and lie. Have all users present an identical fingerprints and we're back to pre google times. Yes, we lose some important functionality, but maybe it's a price worth paying?

Never mind the other elephants in the room that do worse than track your browsing habits...

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#49

Post by smitelli »

anythingelsenow wrote: post #18

I have a script which runs a random browser in incognito mode with a random user agent and a random search website every time I click a shortcut. Then another script changes the DOH dns setting for my connection every hour. Next up I will set a socks proxy setting on each browser via command line params to a ssh connection located in Europe. Oh and I also change my computer name on every logon and have random hw addr…

And I use Firefox with uBlock Origin and really nothing else. I suspect everybody’s threat models and risk tolerance is a little different.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#50

Post by CivBase »

jocoda wrote: post #47

We have kernel level anti cheat systems for games. So how about kernel level anti tracking? Browsers use system calls to provide the information used for fingerprinting the device, so why not intercept these calls and lie. Have all users present an identical fingerprints and we're back to pre google times. Yes, we lose some important functionality, but maybe it's a price worth paying? Never mind the other elephants i…

The outcome will be that many sites simply refuse to work on any browser that does this. Users will blame the browser for not working and switch to one that is supported. Most people are happy to trade their privacy for convenience - especially since most people don't even realize they are doing it.
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