Comment by ndriscoll
3 years ago
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.
3 years ago
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.
No, they literally can't. The UK Competition and Markets Authority made Google promise they won't remove 3rd-party cookies from Chrome before adding alternatives.
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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.