Comment by deely3

3 years ago

> you don't need to worry that toggle will get mysteriously turn back on.

I will be caustious with such statement.

https://github.com/patcg-individual-drafts/ipa/

IPA now allows these companies to track users across multiple IP addresses, and regardless of the user's cookie settings, via a unique tracking identifier. It is also proposed that the operating system provides the unique tracking identifier which can then be used by all applications or browsers on a device, allowing different devices behind a single IP address to be distinguished.

Mozilla is one of the authors.

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deely3

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denton-scratch  3 years ago

> IPA now allows

Any more info on IPA? That link doesn't even say what the acronym stands for. I couldn't figure out how it's supposed to work, too complicated. Wikipedia doesn't seem to have heard of it, and a cursory websearch didn't offer an explanation.

> Mozilla is one of the authors.

Mozilla as a company, or is it that there are Mozilla developers contributing? If Mozilla are planning to introduce a built-in tracking system to Firefox, doesn't that imply shooting off your one remaining foot?

  • Drawde  3 years ago

    They released a blog post about it with a little more info: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attri...

    • denton-scratch  3 years ago

      Thanks.

      So it looks like Interoperable Private Attribution is mostly Meta people; there's one guy from Mozilla, Eric Rescorla. Eric is not notable for adtech achievements; he's notable for his contributions to internet privacy, and security and cryptography.

      [Edit] More detail: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KpdSKD8-Rn0bWPTu4UtK54ks...

      Apparently the proposal is to store the match key in browser local storage; which means that you can block it by setting local storage to zero, or by regularly cleaning-out local storage.

      That article doesn't mention once the privileges that should be granted to the user. It does mention the powers of the user agent, but that really means the browser manufacturer.

    • cout  3 years ago

      I don't understand how this can work. What is to prevent combining the new ostensibly privacy-preserving attribution with existing tracking technology for enhanced identity tracking?