Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
31–40 of 102 posts
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#32And in modern times: everybody, including big companies trust the AI APIs from Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic etc. etc. sure... the contracts saying often there is no saving or learning from the AI API usage. But it's at the end like a "trust me bro" promise. There is a saying on the internet: The generation that refused cookies is now giving AI permission to read their emails, scan their local files, and manag…
Luckily "trust me bro" is not a defense in court - there is a thing called "discovery" when they have to prove their claims. The fact is few regulators ever use it, but class-action cases often do.
Guess who's winning?
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#33Now it'll be interesting to see if the AI companies do the same
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#34And in modern times: everybody, including big companies trust the AI APIs from Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic etc. etc. sure... the contracts saying often there is no saving or learning from the AI API usage. But it's at the end like a "trust me bro" promise. There is a saying on the internet: The generation that refused cookies is now giving AI permission to read their emails, scan their local files, and manag…
Luckily "trust me bro" is not a defense in court - there is a thing called "discovery" when they have to prove their claims. The fact is few regulators ever use it, but class-action cases often do. Guess who's winning?
Companies have been getting increasingly aggressive with ‘destruction as a normal course of business/policy’ to help reduce the impact of that. And that assumes that the people tasked with doing the dirty work are following the policies.
It’s been pretty obvious at the federal level (Signal leaks, etc.) that the folks at the top are explicitly trying to avoid it.
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#35I 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.
> Cookies != Tracking, they can track you just fine without cookies That's probably true, but not what the articles reporting: > 55 percent of the sites it checked set ad cookies in a user’s browser even if they opted out of tracking So essentially, it's ignoring user preference directly, not just in spirit.
"Legitimate interest."
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#36In other news, thieves steal things, and liars keep telling lies.
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#37Wait until you folks learn about the quantum panopticon. It sounds fake but governments everywhere are recording as much encrypted data as possible in hopes of decrypting it in the future w/ quantum computers: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11023-025-09723-2
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#38Hi, 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 filing…
Apologies in advance an excuse my ignorance as I am going on a hunch here and don't have much rather than perhaps frustration driving my comment, but it feels like this isn't the first and nor will be the last we find stuff like this. I can't help but think they will pay the fines and go on continuing doing this, which makes it seem like it just evolved into a scheme where the government now takes their cut.
I've been at this 15 years now, and it's neither the first nor last thing I'll do. We call the site "Global Privacy Audit" because California is first. The laws in California are weaker than elsewhere in the world. This is a warm up for the main dish.
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#39Hi, 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 filing…
Thanks for speaking out publicly - especially as an Ex-Big Tech employee who knows the internal workings of these companies - and actually trying to do something about this. I personally felt many times being tracked by Google or other big tech companies showing me something relevant to previous search queries even though they were made on different platforms and using adblock extensions (ublock origin). So their act…
I won't lie, I miss the Staff/L6 paycheck and lack of stress. This is way less money for way more stress, but I chart my own path. I'm proud of what my company https://webxray.ai is doing.
Re: Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out
#40great works! hope this gets more attention soon. Unfortunately I do not care for the graphic at the top of article (that casual readers will be impressed by) since it conflates spiritual imagery with spying.. People with little education in either easily conflate the two.. People who are hostile to spiritual topics can quickly amplify the vilification of it.. so, please consider not using that kind of symbol in media campaigns and public outreach. thx