3 ms·

You realize that the tracking headers are headers as part of the requests that you were already making to doubleclick. So, what's happening here is that if you

You realize that the tracking headers are headers as part of the requests that you were already making to doubleclick. So, what's happening here is that if you make a request to doubleclick (say because you're viewing an ad), extra information is included that allows Google to understand which experiments were enabled on your browser. If you never go to doubleclick yourself, chrome won't ever send data to it. It's not like a sneaky background thing. It's extra data attached to requests you were already making.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bigiain 6y ago
Do you really believe this is even vaguely close to true? To a first approximation, _nobody_ "goes to doubleclick themselves". At the same time, back in 2016 a study at Princeton found almost 50% of all sites on the web had Doubleclick on them (this is separate to the 70% of sites running Google Analytics - and I'd bet there's approximately zero sites that serve doubleclick ads/trackers but not google analytics ones, so there's even less way to spin this as being a necessary way for google to "understand experiments" by whitelisting the doubleclick domain...). I never "go to doubleclick". My browser "sneakily in the background goes to double click" while I browse about half the sites on the internet. "It's extra data attached to requests you were already making." is technically true, and gaslighting at it's most brazen. If you asked your mom how many times she made a went to doubleclick today, what would she say? What would the actual answer be if we wanted to use the tortured terminology of "requests she was already making to doubleclick" from your apologia about your employer up there? You took me to task for calling you a stooge and that being "against HN policy" elsewhere in this discussion...(Well, I said "stooge", you accused me of saying "shill", but whatever.) I guess I apologise for using the term "stooge" for someone who's told us they work at google and are telling lies about how Chrome is sending unexpected tracking data to Doubleclick. But it seems very much the right term. How about instead I say that your statement "If you never go to doubleclick yourself, chrome won't ever send data to it." is a brazen lie, wrapped up in a weasel-wordy disingenuous interpretation of what 99.99% of people would clearly understand "go to doubleclick yourself" to mean? I'll leave this argument now, with a quote for you and all googlers: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair (Source for my 50% number: https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/05/18/160139/largest-study-of-online-tracking-proves-google-really-is-watching-us-all/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/05/18/160139/largest-s... )
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  You've contradicted yourself in the first 3 lines. > At the same time, back in 2016 a study at Princeton found almost 50% of all sites on the web had Doubleclick tracking on the Means that many people are going to doubleclick, via it's ads existing on other sites. If the extent of your concern is that I said "going to" instead of "makes requests to", valid and I apologise for not being precise in my use of language. However, the HN guidelines also ask that you respond to the strongest possible interpretation of what someone is saying. So please respond to what it is clear I meant, and not the straw man you feel compelled to attack. And since that bit of rhetorical drama seems to at this point be the core of your concern, I don't know that theres anything of substance for me to address here, just more personal attacks. > My browser "sneakily in the background goes to double click" while I browse about half the sites on the internet. To be clear, this is false. Your browser isn't doing anything sneaky here. Perhaps you can argue that individual websites are being sneaky by including 3p advertising. That's a valid concern. But a browser "loading the HTML of the page you direct it to" isn't being sneaky or nefarious.
  - bigiain 6y ago
    And how many times did your mom say she "went to" or "made requests to" doubleclick today? We all know the answer. Zero. Whatever your sneaky-browser-behaviour-depending employer wants you to say in public, her answer will be zero. Same as 99.99% of the world.
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    I hope there is generally less rationalization at Google towards privacy practices to be honest. I think the behavior on display is pretty sneaky, undermines privacy and users aren't really informed about Google doing "research" on them.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      This is a fair comment. I'm not saying that there couldn't be better privacy practices in place (while I think Google is better than average here, we aren' perfect and to your point I think a lot of people within Google recognize that). But the question here is what part of this is sneaky? Is including a weird tracking header sneaky? Perhaps. Is making requests to doubleclick sneaky? In the context of those requests being made as part of a page load? Not on the part of Google, which is my point. The original complaint was that the header was being sent > That Google need to send "experimental headers" to a hardcoded domain for an advertising company they bought a decade or so back - because of course the results of web browser experiments should go to an advertising company And the reason why is simple: that's the domain people are already making requests to.
mehlmao 6y ago
You should probably disclose in this comment thread that you work for Google.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bigiain 6y ago

Do you really believe this is even vaguely close to true? To a first approximation, _nobody_ "goes to doubleclick themselves". At the same time, back in 2016 a study at Princeton found almost 50% of all sites on the web had Doubleclick on them (this is separate to the 70% of sites running Google Analytics - and I'd bet there's approximately zero sites that serve doubleclick ads/trackers but not google analytics ones, so there's even less way to spin this as being a necessary way for google to "understand experiments" by whitelisting the doubleclick domain...). I never "go to doubleclick". My browser "sneakily in the background goes to double click" while I browse about half the sites on the internet. "It's extra data attached to requests you were already making." is technically true, and gaslighting at it's most brazen. If you asked your mom how many times she made a went to doubleclick today, what would she say? What would the actual answer be if we wanted to use the tortured terminology of "requests she was already making to doubleclick" from your apologia about your employer up there? You took me to task for calling you a stooge and that being "against HN policy" elsewhere in this discussion...(Well, I said "stooge", you accused me of saying "shill", but whatever.) I guess I apologise for using the term "stooge" for someone who's told us they work at google and are telling lies about how Chrome is sending unexpected tracking data to Doubleclick. But it seems very much the right term. How about instead I say that your statement "If you never go to doubleclick yourself, chrome won't ever send data to it." is a brazen lie, wrapped up in a weasel-wordy disingenuous interpretation of what 99.99% of people would clearly understand "go to doubleclick yourself" to mean? I'll leave this argument now, with a quote for you and all googlers: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair (Source for my 50% number: https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/05/18/160139/largest-study-of-online-tracking-proves-google-really-is-watching-us-all/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/05/18/160139/largest-s... )

joshuamorton 6y ago
You've contradicted yourself in the first 3 lines. > At the same time, back in 2016 a study at Princeton found almost 50% of all sites on the web had Doubleclick tracking on the Means that many people are going to doubleclick, via it's ads existing on other sites. If the extent of your concern is that I said "going to" instead of "makes requests to", valid and I apologise for not being precise in my use of language. However, the HN guidelines also ask that you respond to the strongest possible interpretation of what someone is saying. So please respond to what it is clear I meant, and not the straw man you feel compelled to attack. And since that bit of rhetorical drama seems to at this point be the core of your concern, I don't know that theres anything of substance for me to address here, just more personal attacks. > My browser "sneakily in the background goes to double click" while I browse about half the sites on the internet. To be clear, this is false. Your browser isn't doing anything sneaky here. Perhaps you can argue that individual websites are being sneaky by including 3p advertising. That's a valid concern. But a browser "loading the HTML of the page you direct it to" isn't being sneaky or nefarious.
- bigiain 6y ago
  And how many times did your mom say she "went to" or "made requests to" doubleclick today? We all know the answer. Zero. Whatever your sneaky-browser-behaviour-depending employer wants you to say in public, her answer will be zero. Same as 99.99% of the world.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  I hope there is generally less rationalization at Google towards privacy practices to be honest. I think the behavior on display is pretty sneaky, undermines privacy and users aren't really informed about Google doing "research" on them.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    This is a fair comment. I'm not saying that there couldn't be better privacy practices in place (while I think Google is better than average here, we aren' perfect and to your point I think a lot of people within Google recognize that). But the question here is what part of this is sneaky? Is including a weird tracking header sneaky? Perhaps. Is making requests to doubleclick sneaky? In the context of those requests being made as part of a page load? Not on the part of Google, which is my point. The original complaint was that the header was being sent > That Google need to send "experimental headers" to a hardcoded domain for an advertising company they bought a decade or so back - because of course the results of web browser experiments should go to an advertising company And the reason why is simple: that's the domain people are already making requests to.

mehlmao 6y ago

You should probably disclose in this comment thread that you work for Google.