Comment by afavour
3 years ago
Technically they’re correct: the privacy offered by this new system is superior to that which is offered by the web with no tracking protection.
Thinking about it in a very abstract way I find the whole thing fascinating. Google is clearly terrified that the tracking protection offered by other browsers is going to become the norm and they’re trying to head that off at the pass by implementing this compromise. But I’m not sure why they’re all that worried about it, they still have the lions share or the browser market. Maybe they’re worried about incoming legislation?
If I'm understanding correctly, they're not turning on some other tracking prevention when you enable this "feature". It's strictly a privacy downgrade.
Not yet but they can't just turn off third party cookies arbitrarily in their browser without giving time for sites and advertisers to update their systems to account for the removal. They're already facing anticompetitive/monopoly scrutiny on many other fronts, they don't need to shoot themselves in the foot in the advertising space as well. Thus the first step is to implement a replacement technology first and then make the change.
> Not yet but they can't just turn off third party cookies arbitrarily in their browser without giving time for sites and advertisers to update their systems to account for the removal.
This is a good example of anticompetitive/anti-monopoly regulation not only not protecting consumers, but in fact making things actively worse.
A better regulatory response would have been "having an advertising/analytics product and a browser product in one company is anticompetitive, split one of them into a separate business from the other, and then the browser product must not privilege the advertising/analytics product". Then the browser could, in fact, just disable third-party cookies without giving advertisers and analytics companies another alternative.
> Not yet but they can't just turn off third party cookies arbitrarily in their browser without giving time for sites and advertisers to update their systems to account for the removal.
Of course they can. They just don’t want to.
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They could also not run a global surveillance panopticon so that there wouldn't be an unfair competitive advantage. Or telling the UK to get bent and that they won't offer Chrome there is apparently a viable strategy given recent developments with encrypted communication there.
In any case, this is still strictly a privacy downgrade to turn on. It's still deceptive to imply turning it on improves privacy.
After the launch of this feature they plan to disable third party cookies. It's not happening simultaneously because they would get hit with antitrust suits by adtech companies if they gave no time to transition.
That sounds then like a class action lawsuit waiting to be filed.
We're in a transition period to turning off third-party cookies. When that happens, this is objectively more privacy-secure.
> Technically they’re correct: the privacy offered by this new system is superior to that which is offered by the web with no tracking protection.
That’s not true, this new system is a tracker, not tracking protection. Simply turning it off improves privacy.
There’s literally no point in implementing this system if you aren’t going to pair it with tracking prevention, as Google plans to do.
They’re planning on turning off one tracking system they use on us and turning on another, that’s not “tracking prevention”. Every other browser just turned off the old and didn’t replace it, and users are better off for it.
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As of right now they don't turn off 3rd party cookies when you enable this, so no. This objectively decreases your privacy.
It’s beautiful, from a sociopath’s perspective, if you think about it.
“If you let me punch your teeth out, the stabbings will stop (sometime in the future, terms and conditions may apply)”
All while refusing to acknowledge that there is an option that requires neither punching nor stabbing.
To an uninformed user that takes Google’s words at face value it sounds like an upgrade.