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iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

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Re: iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

#21
post #18

Seems like the right move from a volunteer run project, what will the future will hold though? Artificial scarcity is always a problem. On another note, for just 20k$ I can offer you exclusive use of the xxgfzrf.dinglebop.me Public Suffix so that you can keep tracking your users. Please reach out to sales@example.com if you are interested.

It's interesting because being added to the PSL reduces your ability to track users. So yeah, I have a bridge to sell you, interested?

Re: iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

#22
post #4

Can someone provide more context here? How does being added to the PSL affect tracking? Why are businesses adding themselves to the PSL en masse?

PSL is used to determine the level that a unique domain is registered at. This restricts cookies and privileges to that domain. It’s just a simple list because both .com and .co.uk are valid suffixes. Ios14 is using this list to prevent apps from tracking you across sites by limiting the data that can be stored per site. If you can get your domain recognized as a suffix as mysite.com then you can split information between all higher level domains. client1.mysite.com and client2.mysite.com. This allows you to store as much information as you want.

Re: iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

#23
post #12

Summary: Apple introduced PCM [1], and to keep people from using it for cross-site tracking it limits the bits available to a single site (as defined by the PSL). If shop-a.retail.example and shop-b.retail.example are completely separate, and don't want to compete for bits, Apple will still treat them as a single site unless retail.example is on the PSL. Being on the PSL is a big change (partitioned cookies, etc) but…

It sounds like there's two cases:

1. Multi-tenant domains that probably should've always been in the PSL (ex. to provide cookie silos) but are only realizing now that they should be in it due to the arrival of PCM.

2. Sites that want to abuse an eTLD to do something like give all users on their social network a custom subdomain so that they're not polluting the same pool.

--

I think it was actually reasonable for Apple to consider the PSL as it's basically the most comprehensive eTLD list that we have and would allow them to match browser behavior.

The problem now is that case (1) is sending a bunch of requests at once as something will now actually break for these sites. Before now it was really just them being lax with security and not considering that cookies should be siloed. This isn't a unique situation btw, PSL also saw a large increase in inclusion requests when LetsEncrypt added rate limits based on eTLDs.

(2) is obviously bad and there's really no other justification for these sites being in the PSL.

Therefore I think it's reasonable for PSL to deny inclusion requests that are solely for PCM reasons.

This all being said, the PSL is a massive hack [1] and really needs to be replaced by something else. It probably is about time for these companies to invest in a replacement.

[1]: https://github.com/sleevi/psl-problems

Re: iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

#24
post #4

Can someone provide more context here? How does being added to the PSL affect tracking? Why are businesses adding themselves to the PSL en masse?

PSL is used to determine the level that a unique domain is registered at. This restricts cookies and privileges to that domain. It’s just a simple list because both .com and .co.uk are valid suffixes. Ios14 is using this list to prevent apps from tracking you across sites by limiting the data that can be stored per site. If you can get your domain recognized as a suffix as mysite.com then you can split information be…

The PSL has always been a giant hack and totally unmaintainable in the long term. It's only a matter of time before someone mistakenly relying on it for security purposes gets owned by a rogue PR. Also, as mentioned in some of these issues, browsers don't even update it on any sort of guaranteed schedule.

Re: iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

#25
post #18

Seems like the right move from a volunteer run project, what will the future will hold though? Artificial scarcity is always a problem. On another note, for just 20k$ I can offer you exclusive use of the xxgfzrf.dinglebop.me Public Suffix so that you can keep tracking your users. Please reach out to sales@example.com if you are interested.

To make things worse, it's basically impossible to remove a domain from the PSL as no one knows how software built against the PSL would handle it. A removal could break tremendous amount of software that people rely on.

Re: iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

#26
post #2

> It is inappropriate for presence or absense in PSL to be used by Facebook as a means to include or reject entries due to the IOS14 change, as PSL is not any form of security screen whatsoever, and the volunteer team maintaining the PSL is receiving the burden of being a sieve for the changes on interaction between those systems, which is taxing our resources. > The ONLY validation performed by PSL volunteers and Gi…

Apple is the company that declared this the canonical Public Suffix List. Facebook is just directing their customers towards it. "If you need to be considered a public suffix for Apple's new policy, you'll need to send your pull request to this repo."

Apple should be officially supporting this project and turn it into an independent, but full-time gig. If the maintainers decline, Apple should hire someone to manage their own.

Re: iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

#27
I’m just here to point the finger at Facebook, or anyone, for finding this workaround of declaring your legitimate website as a domain suffix just for tracking entropy purposes this is so laughable. like my ford fiesta identifies as an apache attack helicopter

Re: iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

#28
post #23
post #12

Summary: Apple introduced PCM [1], and to keep people from using it for cross-site tracking it limits the bits available to a single site (as defined by the PSL). If shop-a.retail.example and shop-b.retail.example are completely separate, and don't want to compete for bits, Apple will still treat them as a single site unless retail.example is on the PSL. Being on the PSL is a big change (partitioned cookies, etc) but…

It sounds like there's two cases: 1. Multi-tenant domains that probably should've always been in the PSL (ex. to provide cookie silos) but are only realizing now that they should be in it due to the arrival of PCM. 2. Sites that want to abuse an eTLD to do something like give all users on their social network a custom subdomain so that they're not polluting the same pool. -- I think it was actually reasonable for App…

Nice link to the GitHub issue which explains the problems clearly.

Can anyone explain why something like this wasn't implemented in the first place via DNS TXT records or tied to SSL somehow?

Re: iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

#29
post #2

> It is inappropriate for presence or absense in PSL to be used by Facebook as a means to include or reject entries due to the IOS14 change, as PSL is not any form of security screen whatsoever, and the volunteer team maintaining the PSL is receiving the burden of being a sieve for the changes on interaction between those systems, which is taxing our resources. > The ONLY validation performed by PSL volunteers and Gi…

Apple is the company that declared this the canonical Public Suffix List. Facebook is just directing their customers towards it. "If you need to be considered a public suffix for Apple's new policy, you'll need to send your pull request to this repo."

Ah I just read the links in jefftk's comment and it seems like you're right.

Re: iOS 14 and Facebook Pixel causing increase in PSL inclusion requests

#30
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like there's two cases: 1. Multi-tenant domains that probably should've always been in the PSL (ex. to provide cookie silos) but are only realizing now that they should be in it due to the arrival of PCM. 2. Sites that want to abuse an eTLD to do something like give all users on their social network a custom subdomain so that they're not polluting the same pool. -- I think it was actually reasonable for App…

Nice link to the GitHub issue which explains the problems clearly. Can anyone explain why something like this wasn't implemented in the first place via DNS TXT records or tied to SSL somehow?

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