Google's Privacy Push Draws US Antitrust Scrutiny (reuters.com) 28
Google's plan to block a popular web tracking tool called "cookies" is a source of concern for U.S. Justice Department investigators who have been asking advertising industry executives whether the move by the search giant will hobble its smaller rivals, Reuters reported Thursday, citing sources. From the report: Alphabet's Google a year ago announced it would ban some cookies in its Chrome browser to increase user privacy. Over the last two months, Google released more details, leading online ads rivals to complain about losing the data-gathering tool. The questions from Justice Department investigators have touched on how Chrome policies, including those related to cookies, affect the ad and news industries, four people said. Investigators are asking whether Google is using Chrome, which has 60% global market share, to reduce competition by preventing rival ad companies from tracking users through cookies while leaving loopholes for it to gather data with cookies, analytics tools and other sources, the sources added. The latest conversations, which have not been previously reported, are a sign that officials are tracking Google's projects in the global online ad market where it and No. 2 Facebook control about 54% of revenue. The ad inquiry may not lead to legal action. Executives from more than a dozen companies from an array of sectors have spoken with Justice Department investigators, one of the sources said. The government has been investigating Google's search and advertising business since mid-2019, and last October it sued Google for allegedly using anticompetitive tactics to maintain the dominance of its search engine. It has continued to probe Google's ad practices.
Did hell just freeze over? (Score:2)
And in other news.... (Score:2)
What doth it profit the google? (Score:5, Interesting)
"For what doth it profit a google, if they gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of their own cookies?"
Any challenge to the premise about who dominates the world? Maybe Amazon or Facebook?
However the point to me is that the google must have "solved" the cookie problem by figuring how to get the same degree of abusive control without the use of cookies. Either that, or the google has decided there's no competitive advantage there and it will hurt the other companies more, which would be the flip side of that coin.
From reading The Hype Machine by Sinan Aral I've been forced to revise my understanding of how the google (et alia) manipulate us. However I think he isn't looking far enough. It isn't just the "lift" that gets us to commit desired actions, but also the "drop" that prevents us from acting in certain ways. Often easier to stop actions than start them. (Take the filibuster, for example.)
Also, Aral doesn't sufficiently consider the manipulation of desires, actually moving people in the multidimensional space to find a path that moves the suckers to the "right" place to be separated from the money. THAT is what the paying advertisers are most eager to pay for.
Deny a man a fishing pole, you can sell him fish (Score:2)
google will replace the cookie with a gookie that is encrypted by googles public key. The browser will be able to ask google to decode it as needed.
They might not be that overt but it is basically the same net effect of what they will do.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting hypothesis, but I don't think they would go that way. At a minimum, it would require them abandoning the people who aren't using Chrome. (Not sure if they could figure out a way to drag Edge along with a new secrete "gookie".)
One of my hypotheses is that the google is working on (or has already developed) a new way to link you back to their profile of your personal information using other information than cookies. For example, the MAC addresses are pretty sticky, but they would need some way to
Re: (Score:2)
You miss the point. In the article, they say they're not going to replace it with something else.
The point is, they don't need the cookie anymore to know it is you. They've got everything in place to track you without it, so they're ready to get rid of it so they can corner the tracking market.
Re: (Score:3)
Google is building a new system called FLoC. The idea is that the browser assigns the user to a cohort that indicates some general interest, say mid priced cars. Sites can then use that to target ads. Because all the assignment is done locally in the browser it's supposed to preserve privacy, although the implementation seems to be full of holes.
Anyway, that's why Google doesn't care much about cookies.
Mis-Direction: Fingerprinting (Score:2)
The most likely solution I would suggest Google have developed is one based on browser fingerprinting. This uses elements such as screen resolution, colour depth, browser type, OS type, installed fonts, etc, built up your identity based on discrete data points, points that individually might look innocuous,
Re: (Score:2)
The most likely solution I would suggest Google have developed is one based on browser fingerprinting
Nope. Google has already killed most browser fingerprint mechanisms and is aiming to eliminate the rest of them. Google's strategy is to have your browser identify your interests and use them to assign you to a group that includes thousands of people with similar interests, then to show you ads based on that group membership without any idea who you are, severing all links to your individual identity.
From Google's perspective, not knowing who you are is a good thing. It eliminates a lot of potential lia
Google's up a creek here (Score:2, Insightful)
For my money this kind of privacy is the least of my worries and a fair trade for the services they give me (search engine, email, a video platform filled to the brim with useful tutorials, maps, a phone OS I can write and distribute my own applications for, etc, etc) and I'd rather my elected representatives focus on getting me affordable housing and healthcare (lots of Mergers
Klaus Schwab Quote (Score:1)
"You will not own anything, but you will be happy".
This is what Big Internet, Big Finance, Big war and Demented Biden has in stock for you. Google is part of this Slavery 2.0 Plan.
Re: Google's up a creek here (Score:1)
So it is much more lucrative to shake up google. And it is much easier to say you helped people everywhere.
If they went after local issues, they would have to do that all over the place...too much work...
AVOID Google (Score:1)
FreeDom Browsers (Score:1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://brave.com/ [brave.com]
Mapping (Score:1)
Normally I'd love anything that hurts advertisers (Score:4, Interesting)
But this is Google doing it, meaning whatever they have in mind is even worse.
It's a sad state of affairs when I find myself rooting more for traditional online advertisers than for the organization that wants to hurt them. Although I root for them the same way prefer stomach flu to cholera - the ideal situation of course being that should have to suffer neither.
It's a compromise so the web survives (Score:2)
> But this is Google doing it, meaning whatever they have in mind is even worse.
Google (and the web generally) has a problem right now.
Almost all web sites are paid for by advertising. Including Google, and including all of the other sites. That's not how I would have designed things, but that's how it is. All the content creators of every kind, from people doing benchmarks to objective product reviews and everything else is paid for by targeted advertising. Unless it's a subscription site, the hosting
When cookies were THE only privacy threat.. (Score:3)
I so miss those days.
FREEDOM COMPUTING (Score:1)
Raspberry PI
Linux
OpenBSD
seL4
YaCY Search Engine
SSH based Private File Server
Private Web Server, UNCENSORED
Private Jabber Chat Server
Private USENET Server
Never change, Slashdot (Score:2)
... Google removes a way of tracking
Arg! Google is evil becuz they remove the way of tracking!
Why not use old-fashioned targeting (Score:4, Insightful)
This is probably naive, but what is wrong with using a piece of information they always have in order to "target" ads: they know what web page the user is looking at. Surely that provides a huge amount of information about the user's interests. Maybe not as much as tracking everything the user ever did but I can't believe it is so much worse that they are going to panic about this.
Personally I have clicked on a few Slashdot ads, which I am almost certain are there because of the site and not because of my history. When I clicked on one of those model engines then for the next few months *every* ad on Slashdot got changed to those model engines. Which seems extremely counter-productive, wouldn't it be obvious that I don't need more than one way to look at the model engine store, and that anything *other* than model engines might be more productive?
Simpsons episode... (Score:1)
This Google "goodness" ("Don't be evil) is like Mr. Burns in the Simpson episode (Season 8, Episode 21) "The Old Man and Lisa."
Lisa said it best: "Ah! You haven't changed at all. You're still evil, and when you're trying to be good, you're even more evil!"
Google's getting rid of cookies is the Burns's "Omni-net" that "...sweeps the sea clean."
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pm... [tvtropes.org]
Or as Edna Krabappel-Flanders used to say "Hah!"
JoshK
Re: (Score:1)
Google and Privacy (Score:1)