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Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

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Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#611

Post by imtringued »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #206
poxrud wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you are missing something important. Once they've tied the browser ID to your personal account they can track you across all google properties, even the ones that you didn't log into.

I still don't understand. When I log into gmail, it logs me into all Google services. If I am worried about being tracked, surely my first mistake is logging in in the first place? Or visiting in the first place? After all, even if I click "log out," I'm only trusting Google that they unlinked the browser state from the account. If I trust them to do that, I don't see why I shouldn't trust them to ignore this experim…

>If I am worried about being tracked, surely my first mistake is logging in in the first place?

Good luck completing a google captcha without a Google account or using Chrome.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#612

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

3xblah wrote: post #583
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We disagree about the purpose of privacy policies. I believe that privacy policies should describe how data will be used, not how it could be used. I just don't think a policy describing how data could be used is very useful, because it's going to be the same for all services. Under this formulation, Google's policy is (presumably, lacking any data to the contrary) honest with respect to this value.

"I believe that privacy policies should describe how the data will be used, not how it could be used." Google's policy does not tell the user how her data will be used by Google's customers. The policy states Google will use the data to "provide better services". That is deliberately vague. That is the "purpose", but how exactly is the data used to achieve that purpose. There are no specifics with which a user could…

> The truth is that Google collects data to provide better services to advertisers.

I understand that that is what you believe, but I do not think this is factually true about the data collected from this Chrome header. I believe that Chrome team collects it in order to understand the impact of Chrome experiments on performance.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#613

Post by zepto »

shawnz wrote: post #193
zepto wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Google has paid to be the the default in most cases.

Anticompetitive behavior is a different and unrelated problem from monetizing your products using advertising and personal data

Your original comment suggests otherwise.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#614

Post by ajsnigrutin »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #575
bamboozled wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you use a VPN service for example, they still know who you are because of this. I would say even if you’re visiting in private mode. I see your point, but I also see how this will keep you identifiable.

I don't math very much, but I would guess the intersection of these sets of people is nil: people who 1) use VPN to avoid tracking by Google 2) still log in to Google services from one of their networks and not the other 3) use the same Chrome profile on both. But suppose some small number exist who adopt this illogical and contradictory pattern of behavior. If Google is using this token for the purpose of tracking t…

So, someone starting up a vpn and opening incognito mode?

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#615

Post by ajsnigrutin »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #510
rvnx wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have more than 13 bits of entropy https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/metrics/entr... Look how the function is called, high-entropy source :)

But if you disable telemetry, they'll only have 13?

+ip +browser version +some os info +fonts info +screen resolution (well.. viewport size) + + +

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#616

Post by wayneftw »

dang wrote: post #592
wayneftw wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was so bad about my comment? Saying that I don’t support Mozilla/Firefox or just not being anti-Google enough? Also, the guy that you’re responding to simply said that I seemed angry. How is that a personal attack? Somebody else responded that I’m ruining the Internet and somehow that’s not flagged?

"You seem very upset", "I suggest going for a walk", "Take a couple deep breaths", "Calm down", and even "It's just a browser" are patronizing personal comments that cross into insulting. Even worse, "By the way, what sites do you work on? I'd like to make sure to avoid them." is an ugly personal attack. I'm delighted that you didn't take offense at any of that, but that puts you above the 99th percentile of non-offe…

Thank you so much for your detailed and thoughtful response.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#617

Post by koheripbal »

Yizahi wrote: post #601
koheripbal wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there really that many popular extensions not available on Firefox? I may be just one anecdote, but I think I'm pretty typical, and I've found the transition to Firefox to be quite pleasant, and uneventful.

Popular - no. Essential - yes. Case in point - my bank (top 5 in my country) which uses Chrome plugin for security purposes, you need it to create digital signature. So once a year I HAVE to install Chrome (key expires every year) and then delete it. I've also found at least one payment processor not working in Firefox, my city portal for public transport and several small sites. The worrying thing is the trend - wit…

In those cases, have you tried IE instead rather than installing Chrome?

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#618

Post by pdkl95 »

imtringued wrote: post #610
meowface wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry about that, too late to edit it now. That is an important detail. If there are 32 or more different feature flags, then that's 4 billion unique states, which would be an effective fingerprint. I still think it's pretty unlikely they're using it in that way or would in the future, and I think Google fuzzing this for those who opt out of telemetry is probably a signal of good faith in this instance. They realize…

reCAPTCHA is the most abusive type of tracking. Google simply denys you usage of captcha if you do not give them enough personal information. It doesn't matter if you enter the captcha correctly 20 times. It won't let you in.

reCAPTCHA increasingly doesn't even give me a captcha. Instead, they simply deny me from even trying; They send this instead of the challenge:

  
    
      Please enable JavaScript to
      get a reCAPTCHA challenge.

    
    
      Please upgrade to a
      supported browser
      to get a reCAPTCHA challenge.
    
    


    
    Why is this happening to me?
They probably don't like my non-standard user agent string and they definitely don't like that I block a lot of their spyware, but reCAPTCHA used to work properly for many years with the same/similar browser configuration.

[1] https://support.google.com/recaptcha/?hl=en#6223828

[2] https://support.google.com/recaptcha#6262736

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#619

Post by Yizahi »

koheripbal wrote: post #617
Yizahi wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popular - no. Essential - yes. Case in point - my bank (top 5 in my country) which uses Chrome plugin for security purposes, you need it to create digital signature. So once a year I HAVE to install Chrome (key expires every year) and then delete it. I've also found at least one payment processor not working in Firefox, my city portal for public transport and several small sites. The worrying thing is the trend - wit…

In those cases, have you tried IE instead rather than installing Chrome?

Installing Chrome was strictly needed only for banking plugin. Didn't have a chance to check yet with a new Chrome-Edge but will definitely try it.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#620

Post by JohnFen »

flukus wrote: post #496
JohnFen wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you'll never get a web browser with more features than the ones released in the '90s I would actively prefer a web browser that lacks the features added since the '90s.

The mozilla suite in 1998 included a browser, an email/newsgroup client, an IRC client, an address book and an html editor. Modern browsers for all their bloat actually have less features.

Such suites are not browsers. They include a browser.
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