WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy • Hacker News Board

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#211

Post by Andrex » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

inapis wrote: post #173

Vinnl wrote: post #159

One advantage of Google's dominance and their business model being so reliant on tracking, is that it's become the moat for its competitors: investing energy into tracking protection is a good way for them to gain a competitive advantage over Google, since it's a feature that Google will not be able to copy. So as long as Google's competitors remain in business, we'll probably at least have some alternatives that tak…

That's a very interesting point. But tracking-free services won't really have a major mindshare with the general public because you really can't compete with "free." And there's nothing preventing Google from leveraging Youtube/Gmail/Search to push out other browsers which have tracking protection. Youtube already plays less well with Firefox. Gmail isn't exactly snappy on Safari either.

> Youtube already plays less well with Firefox.

In most other cases I could agree there may have been nefarious intent, but as someone who's followed web components for a while I think YouTube just made a bad technology bet -- that being rewriting their front-end in Polymer v1, which was based on Web Components v0. Jumping the gun on an unratified standard is risky, and this example shows why.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#212

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

awinder wrote: post #200

inapis wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very interesting point. But tracking-free services won't really have a major mindshare with the general public because you really can't compete with "free." And there's nothing preventing Google from leveraging Youtube/Gmail/Search to push out other browsers which have tracking protection. Youtube already plays less well with Firefox. Gmail isn't exactly snappy on Safari either.

I think Apple is pretty clearly able to "compete with free" and has shown it's possible to make great money by bundling some costs into the hardware + offering good cloud services with low-friction payments.

[deleted]

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#213

Post by _verandaguy » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

winrid wrote: post #134

omeid2 wrote: post #113

It is worth reminding that Google Chrome and Chromium no longer use WebKit but Blink. https://www.chromium.org/blink

Wow, thanks. Somehow I missed that. Things move so fast.

Blink and you'll miss it.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#214

Post by samoa42 » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #188

inapis wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very interesting point. But tracking-free services won't really have a major mindshare with the general public because you really can't compete with "free." And there's nothing preventing Google from leveraging Youtube/Gmail/Search to push out other browsers which have tracking protection. Youtube already plays less well with Firefox. Gmail isn't exactly snappy on Safari either.

> And there's nothing preventing Google from leveraging Youtube/Gmail/Search to push out other browsers which have tracking protection. Nothing except antitrust laws...

yea... maybe not, because its profitable nonetheless

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#215

Post by rpastuszak » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

rale00 wrote: post #40

So what is going to happen when Apple succeeds in making it impossible to make any money off advertisements shown to iOS users on the web? I'm currently imagining a future where publishers start to just redirect iOS traffic to install their app, where they can actually make money. Good news for the walled garden, I guess?

> I'm currently imagining a future where publishers start to just redirect iOS traffic to install their app, where they can actually make money. Good news for the walled garden, I guess?

Some might? The situation has been getting worse for the past 1-2 years, so this is just another nail in the coffin. There are different strategies here: subscriptions, micropayments, premium/free content split,

Less creepy, and genuinely useful forms of targeting exist (e.g. contextual targeting). There's just not enough momentum in the AdTech industry to shift. These could work just fine.

In other words, what WebKit is trying to achieve is good news for us.

Publishers so far seem to have given up on the higher CPMs coming from non-targeted ad calls on Safari. Additionally, they would be more than happy to skip ads completely if a different, stable source of revenue existed. There's a bunch of startups dealing with monetising publisher content without ads (Scroll, Blendle, etc...).

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#216

Post by jefftk » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

p4bl0 wrote: post #204

jefftk wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If GitHub wants to track people across all .github.io pages, it can, trivially. It controls the infrastructure, after all.* If WebKit fully implements what they're describing here then GitHub should not be able to use their control of *.github.io to track people across those pages.

quotemstr was talking about the infrastructure that they control. It's true that they can track visitors server-side if they want to.

With what WebKit describes here GitHub won't be able to tell the difference between:

A: a browser visits both foo.github.io and bar.github.io

B: one browser visits foo.github.io, another visits bar.github.io

Both should look identical to github.io, client side and server side.

(This is not the case today, but my reading of the policy is that they consider all the ways in which it is not the case to need fixing.)

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#217

Post by billiam » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

Andrex wrote: post #211

inapis wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very interesting point. But tracking-free services won't really have a major mindshare with the general public because you really can't compete with "free." And there's nothing preventing Google from leveraging Youtube/Gmail/Search to push out other browsers which have tracking protection. Youtube already plays less well with Firefox. Gmail isn't exactly snappy on Safari either.

> Youtube already plays less well with Firefox. In most other cases I could agree there may have been nefarious intent, but as someone who's followed web components for a while I think YouTube just made a bad technology bet -- that being rewriting their front-end in Polymer v1, which was based on Web Components v0. Jumping the gun on an unratified standard is risky, and this example shows why.

this.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#218

Post by Accacin » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

ignoramous wrote: post #144

Strange for a page espousing anti-tracking [0] to load media in from apple.com. Granted Mozilla's page [1] is even a worse offender with google-analytics and newrelic embeds. Really makes you think what really drives the underlying narrative for such initiatives at corporates if not sabotaging competitors? OpenDNS founder, u/davidu, pointed out that DNS over HTTPS, something that takes aim at trackers and advocates p…

At least for your second point https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#219

Post by whoopdedo » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

rpastuszak wrote: post #208

auslander wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple seems to be managing by providing the browser for free Plus @icloud.com email service > Mozilla's financial dependence on Google is still a major challenge, which they'll hopefully be able to fix I honestly do not see how. Sticking to Safari for now.

Mozilla is looking into becoming more independent from Google by introducing paid services, such as ad-free content subscriptions using Scroll, Pocket, VPN... Their approach relies on acquisitions (Pocket) or partnerships/experiments (Scroll). The language used by them when referring to Google has changed quite a lot in the past year or so.

But by doing so are at risk of becoming that which they hate.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#220

Post by auslander » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

rpastuszak wrote: post #208

auslander wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple seems to be managing by providing the browser for free Plus @icloud.com email service > Mozilla's financial dependence on Google is still a major challenge, which they'll hopefully be able to fix I honestly do not see how. Sticking to Safari for now.

Mozilla is looking into becoming more independent from Google by introducing paid services, such as ad-free content subscriptions using Scroll, Pocket, VPN... Their approach relies on acquisitions (Pocket) or partnerships/experiments (Scroll). The language used by them when referring to Google has changed quite a lot in the past year or so.

> by introducing paid services

The only ones I'd pay for is email hosting, search engine and paid clean browser app in iOS and Mac stores. Neither exists. Ahh, and paid uBlock Origin for Safari :)