Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
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Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#2[dead]
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#3Is there still anyone competent that "doubt" so? As long as data transit through their infrastructure, in security, we must always assume that it's recorded (and later-on, eventually used), it has nothing to do with "settings".
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#4Luckily almost all modern corporate tracking is done through javascript execution + cookies. The days of parsing actual webserver logs are over for the most part. After all, it's only the browsers that execute javascript code and provide profitable personal information about the human behind the browser that matter. People with JS off are not providing sellable information and therefore classified and treated as if they were bots.
Turning off JS by default and temp-whitelisting only mitigates most of this tracking.
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#5they have no fear of the current financial incentives, there has to a punitive quantity involved, and the mentality of any regulators has to catch up with present day.
fines that amount to a daily expenditure account, do nothing. fines have to have potential to do real damage to, or destroy noncompliants, if there is going to be any deterrent.
contempt, is obvious, the chance of jail should exist in actuality, rather than a vague possibility.
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#6That’s what made big tech big - one giant tracking operation. Trawler style - dolphins be damned
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#7I mean duh, but also this seems like a fairly weak gotcha. Cookies != Tracking, they can track you just fine without cookies, and they can use cookies without tracking you.
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#8Luckily almost all modern corporate tracking is done through javascript execution + cookies. The days of parsing actual webserver logs are over for the most part. After all, it's only the browsers that execute javascript code and provide profitable personal information about the human behind the browser that matter. People with JS off are not providing sellable information and therefore classified and treated as if t…
The issue is, even with all the browser protections, you still create an account anywhere or buy something an input your name/email address/shipping address, your "hashed data" immediately gets sent to meta/google as a conversion with "this guy bought a cat toy", and you start getting ads for cat related stuff everywhere.
They don't even need to "track" you properly for this stuff to work and it seems there's no way to escape it.
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#9Hi, I'm Dr Tim Libert, founder of webXray who did this audit. Happy to answer questions from YC'ers. [Note, stepping away for some mental health exercise, stressful day!]
I also want to push back on Google telling the press our California Privacy Audit is "is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how [Google's] products work".
I'm the former head of Cookie Compliance at Google and I have the federal court filings that show their statements are not simply true, and Google knows it isn't true.
For the record, here are direct quotes from a federal court filing made by Google's "Data Protection Officer and Senior Director of Privacy", who stated that "If called to testify as a witness, [they] could and would testify competently to such facts under oath."
Here are those facts:
* "Due to Dr. Libert’s academic background focusing on cookies, he became one of the primary members of the team assisting with Google’s cookie compliance and governance efforts..."
* "Dr. Libert quickly assumed responsibility for aiding our in-house regulatory lawyers in addressing governmental investigations into cookies..."
* "Dr. Libert often worked under the guidance of in-house counsel to develop technical solutions to issues raised by privacy regulators..."
* "Dr. Libert was also responsible for the development of internal policies on cookies and web storage. He drafted Google’s internal cookie guidelines in 2021 and early 2022, which applies to all cookies or cookies-like objects, and outlines processes on managing cookies, storing cookies, logging data associated with cookies, server protocols, policies on data collection, and data linkage..."
* "By developing the policy and conducting the audit, Dr. Libert gained insight into every Google-owned cookie deployed across Google’s web properties..."
* "Dr. Libert also proposed changes to how Google interprets specific definitions across its products’ various privacy policies. This included work on policies relating to analytics and advertising services used by third-party apps and websites..."
--
TLDR: Google can say what they want about me in public, but when they are under oath in a federal court of law, this is what they really say.
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#10I mean duh, but also this seems like a fairly weak gotcha. Cookies != Tracking, they can track you just fine without cookies, and they can use cookies without tracking you.
Cooking != Tracking?
That's historically been a very prominent purpose of cookies.
Sure it's not exclusively tracking, but it's nonsense to make the assertion that "Cookies != Tracking"