Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny • Hacker News Board

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#151

Post by baybal2 » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:47 AM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #149

baybal2 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, they have GREASE TLS bytes, TLS resume ticket, RLZ value, X-Geo header, UA header, JS APIs with persistent random values (which they do indeed use on adsense! This is why you get surprise WebGL code seemingly doing nonsense once a while in adsense ads) This cannot be a coincidence. They packed Chrome with fingerprints to work around GDPR by combining fingerprints on their side.

Doesn't that risk massive fines if proven? Like a percentage of all revenue?

I believe they already did lawyerising, as written above.

They grabbed onto the wording of PII as "personally identifiable information" that information is identifiable, but not personally identifiable, so it is ok to use for ads.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#152

Post by madrox » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:47 AM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #147

madrox wrote: post #142

I hope no one is saying Privacy Sandbox is worse than third party cookies, or is trusting this article to form an opinion about it. Web advertising was a $319 billion dollar industry in 2019. Does anyone wonder who may be lobbying their government to scrutinize Google and offer themselves for interviews for articles like this? Does anyone think the result of beating up Project Sandbox will be more radical privacy pro…

Ok, I'll bite. I don't trust Google, and let's assume that they will always be a malicious adversary. Given that, why should I not be skeptical of their Privacy Sandbox initiative?

This is basically an ad hominem argument. There is no room to discuss Sandbox on its merits with this stance. Yet we're debating this on an article whose every Sandbox criticism comes from other industry professionals who are just as worthy of being considered a malicious adversary.

I make no statement that Project Sandbox should not be scrutinized -- merely that it's better than third party cookies -- and I don't believe increased antitrust scrutiny of Google will lead to better user privacy.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#153

Post by colordrops » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:48 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #142

I hope no one is saying Privacy Sandbox is worse than third party cookies, or is trusting this article to form an opinion about it. Web advertising was a $319 billion dollar industry in 2019. Does anyone wonder who may be lobbying their government to scrutinize Google and offer themselves for interviews for articles like this? Does anyone think the result of beating up Project Sandbox will be more radical privacy pro…

Yes, google is restricting the tech in a way that superficially helps consumers. But in the way that wall street is selectively deregulated to their advantage and everyone else's disadvantage, google is selectively closing data loopholes to their advantage. This may have positive short-term privacy effects, but long term will hurt it with a single giant company as the arbiter of all data.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#154

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:49 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #152

dleslie wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll bite. I don't trust Google, and let's assume that they will always be a malicious adversary. Given that, why should I not be skeptical of their Privacy Sandbox initiative?

This is basically an ad hominem argument. There is no room to discuss Sandbox on its merits with this stance. Yet we're debating this on an article whose every Sandbox criticism comes from other industry professionals who are just as worthy of being considered a malicious adversary. I make no statement that Project Sandbox should not be scrutinized -- merely that it's better than third party cookies -- and I don't be…

[deleted]

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#155

Post by ogre_codes » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:50 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #142

I hope no one is saying Privacy Sandbox is worse than third party cookies, or is trusting this article to form an opinion about it. Web advertising was a $319 billion dollar industry in 2019. Does anyone wonder who may be lobbying their government to scrutinize Google and offer themselves for interviews for articles like this? Does anyone think the result of beating up Project Sandbox will be more radical privacy pro…

> I hope no one is saying Privacy Sandbox is worse than third party cookies

Sort of like saying: "I hope no one is saying having a tracker in your car is worse than having a guy following you around."

Sure, it's better. But it's not good either.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#156

Post by dleslie » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #152

dleslie wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll bite. I don't trust Google, and let's assume that they will always be a malicious adversary. Given that, why should I not be skeptical of their Privacy Sandbox initiative?

This is basically an ad hominem argument. There is no room to discuss Sandbox on its merits with this stance. Yet we're debating this on an article whose every Sandbox criticism comes from other industry professionals who are just as worthy of being considered a malicious adversary. I make no statement that Project Sandbox should not be scrutinized -- merely that it's better than third party cookies -- and I don't be…

If the API cannot stand on its own merits without trusting Google then it is subject to concerns about Google's trustworthiness.

3rd party cookies should be replaced with _nothing_, not this "privacy" API.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#157

Post by summerlight » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #57

Google's way of leveraging their browser dominance to use 3rd party cookies as a way to gain competitive advantage: Step 1: Implement a whole new browser functionality where Google alone can track people. Step 2: Eliminate 3rd party cookies so Google's competitors have to create increasingly unethical and invasive fingerprinting techniques to remain competitive. Step 3: Increase advertising rates since they are the o…

> so Google's competitors have to create increasingly unethical and invasive fingerprinting techniques to remain competitive.

Why would Google let their competitors to take advantages from fingerprinting if they can control the browser? In fact, Chrome explicitly mentioned anti-fingerprinting measures in their plan for 3rd party cookie deprecation, which is now called privacy budget.

https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/building-more-private-web-... https://github.com/bslassey/privacy-budget

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#158

Post by patcon » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:56 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #152

dleslie wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll bite. I don't trust Google, and let's assume that they will always be a malicious adversary. Given that, why should I not be skeptical of their Privacy Sandbox initiative?

This is basically an ad hominem argument. There is no room to discuss Sandbox on its merits with this stance. Yet we're debating this on an article whose every Sandbox criticism comes from other industry professionals who are just as worthy of being considered a malicious adversary. I make no statement that Project Sandbox should not be scrutinized -- merely that it's better than third party cookies -- and I don't be…

> This is basically an ad hominem argument. There is no room to discuss Sandbox on its merits with this stance.

I respectfully disagree and defend the position you're replying to. I take issue with your provocation because I fear that asserting too much focus on a still-frame snapshot without looking at the full motion, that seems misguided. Politics constitute the motion around any spec snapshot.

Focussing only on the technical merit of the proposal without also prioritizing the living, moving context around it, that's advocating a sort of blindness imho

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#159

Post by dodobirdlord » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:56 AM UTC

dceddia wrote: post #68

Wait wait. So Google kills off third party cookies, but then creates some new “more private” workaround, perhaps relying on some kind of trusted servers (called “FLEDGE” in the article). And then, who gets to run those servers? Even if it’s not Google, it’s probably not just anyone , right? Does that lead to a situation where there’s some authority or group of authorities that decides whether you or your startup gets…

> And then, who gets to run those servers? Even if it’s not Google, it’s probably not just anyone, right? Does that lead to a situation where there’s some authority or group of authorities that decides whether you or your startup gets to track users? And would you suppose it would be free for anyone to join this list of approved advertisers? Or might there be a fee, or some conditions to apply?

This is how DNS, the IP address system, and the gTLD/ccTLD registrar list works, and it works just fine.

Re: Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

#160

Post by madrox » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:59 AM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #155

madrox wrote: post #142

I hope no one is saying Privacy Sandbox is worse than third party cookies, or is trusting this article to form an opinion about it. Web advertising was a $319 billion dollar industry in 2019. Does anyone wonder who may be lobbying their government to scrutinize Google and offer themselves for interviews for articles like this? Does anyone think the result of beating up Project Sandbox will be more radical privacy pro…

> I hope no one is saying Privacy Sandbox is worse than third party cookies Sort of like saying: "I hope no one is saying having a tracker in your car is worse than having a guy following you around." Sure, it's better. But it's not good either.

Of course it isn't good. This is HN, and we want the web advertising industry to go away. However, that's not going to be the outcome. Antitrust scrutiny in this case means making it more fair to third party advertisers...the people who will be hit most by third party cookie disabling. As much as we want to hate on Google, articles like this won't make them move toward more privacy.