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

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

#171

Post by patcon »

kissickas wrote: post #168
patcon wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

You're ignoring the living, moving context that is the adtech industry. It's one with a much higher ratio of middlemen:customers than needed, representatives of whom appear in this article.

I think I agree with you. I wholly support clamping down on adtech btw. I just don't support the "this article doesn't talk about the tech merit" angle of critique, as if that's so obviously a starting (or priority) point of departure.

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

#172

Post by dceddia »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #159
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 I…

Maybe this is just my cynicism shining through, but I'm not sure I trust Google, or really most modern companies, to create something that wouldn't mainly be for their own benefit.

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

#173

Post by Google234 »

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #90
seaman1921 wrote: post #26

It is so annoying to see that HN and general media have collectively decided that Google and everything it does is evil, but honestly you have no idea how good you have it right now. Google is not abusing your user data like you are made to think. If you talk to a Google engineer, you would realise the countlesss number of measures they take to safeguard user's data - human access is next to impossible. Only machines…

> but honestly you have no idea how good you have it right now. Do me a favor: Grab an Android phone with all the Google crap still on it, factory reset it, and actually read the obnoxious ways in which Google asks you to give it permission to track you. "We want to improve your search results!!! Click yes!" The small print: and thereby enable us to log EVERYWHERE you walk, drive, commute ALL DAY LONG. And that examp…

You do get better search results with location tracking though...

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

#174

Post by ttt0 »

lmkg wrote: post #144
ElvisTrout wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely fingerprinting is PII? It allows for mosaic identification.

Fingerprinting doesn't reveal an individual's name or passport number, so it's not PII. That's why PII is not a very useful concept in general, and why claims about privacy safeguards that over-focus on PII should be met with some skepticism. The laws are catching up this in regard. GDPR uses "personal data" and CCPA uses "personal information," both of which more generally refer to data that identifies an individual…

At the same time let's not forget it's Google we're talking about. They are even parsing your emails to extract all the data from your transactions. They already have all your personal information, they just need to keep track of you when you're using other websites.

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

#175

Post by CyberRabbi »

madrox wrote: post #160
ogre_codes wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don’t want the web advertising industry to go away. It’s benign. If you don’t want advertisers to track you you have the option to default browse without cookies. Even better, default browse without cookies and JavaScript. Yes, I do this.

If you understand how cookies work then this is a perfectly viable option for you. If you don’t, you likely don’t care about advertisers tracking you.

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

#176

Post by dleslie »

kissickas wrote: post #168
patcon wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

You're ignoring the living, moving context that is the adtech industry. It's one with a much higher ratio of middlemen:customers than needed, representatives of whom appear in this article.

And, worth noting, the set of adtech industry persons includes all employees and contractors of Google. Google simple wouldn't exist if it weren't for adtech, and all cheques written by Google are dependent on adtech.

It's the largest, most invasive and pervasive privacy intrusion in history, and its beneficiaries includes many HN regulars.

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

#177

Post by trhway »

SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #111
nemothekid wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How did Mozilla survive as a business? On one end by almost literally being an extension of Google. On the other end by constantly laying off engineers. A big problem people are just handwaving away is that browsers are incredibly complex nowadays and how do you fund development of a browser engine? If you think the "Linux" model would work, well browsers already have that - it's called Mozilla and there is never a…

Browsers are way more complex than OSs these days. Mozillas Servo project had over 40,000 commits and still wasn't ready for production and it was only a small part of the browser. I don't think there is anything else that could have 40k commits and still be a tech demo.

back in 1999 looking at nspr (Netscape Portable Runtime - the foundation of Mozilla) i remember thinking - it just can be packaged alone as an OS, similar to Java OS (which i had been working with before that our Mozilla project).

There is also another aspect to it - one can imagine that the time of an OS which would run web apps as first class citizens (in the correctly engineered sandboxes/etc.) just hasn't come yet. In the meantime the browsers are just ugly stop-gap 0.x version of such an OS (there is a reason they are "browsers" as their roots (incl. deep architectural roots) are in browsing of static content, and everything else is bolt-ons - the integration of JavaScript engine for example back then could be best described exactly as a "bolt-on").

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

#178

Post by deathlight »

gcblkjaidfj wrote: post #115
esperent wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still use Firefox 68 on Android since that's the last version to support extensions. It works well, for now.

I can't imagine the kind of Stupids that are steering mozilla, but they definitely want people to move to chrome. They disabled many loved extensions by power users for absolutely no reason at all! after those power users spend years bending to all their capricious changes. moving to webextension? done. moving to a new mobile UI? done. But, they still want you to move to chrome no matter what. We should take firefox…

They made a workaround for power users: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extensio...

One needs to make a mozilla account to complete the last steps and that's where I've been holding off. Mostly out of laziness and also from lack of necessity since I just moved on to other browsers in the mean time.

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

#179

Post by millstone »

mav3rick wrote: post #76
local_dev wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that we have different definitions of 'abuse' in the case of Google. Of course, Google doesn't sell your data directly to anyone, allow anyone to get your metadata, or allow anyone to view your data. In that sense, I also completely trust Google to be good stewards of my data. That said, while I agree that Google does not 'abuse' my data by giving it to others in any form, Google absolutely does use my da…

PLEASE DON"T USE ANY GOOGLE PRODUCTS. Problem solved.

The linked article has five trackers from Google-owned domains. You don't have to use Google products for Google to track and profile you.

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

#180

Post by ogre_codes »

madrox wrote: post #160
ogre_codes wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You present a false dichotomy. "Google's Privacy Sandbox" versus Third Party Cookies, as if those are the only alternatives. Now you are following along with another false dichotomy!

> This is HN, and we want the web advertising industry to go away.

Here's a crazy idea. We don't need either Google's monopoly preserving Privacy "Sandbox" or third party cookies... and we don't need to do away with web advertising. We're not in a black and white world.

Google can advertise on their home page and make money without all the crazy tracking bullshit. We know they can, because that's how they funded all the bullshit tracking.

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