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Google’s approach to replacing the cookie is drawing antitrust scrutiny

477 points by Manheim 6y ago

derekp7 6y ago
So if I understand this correctly, then killing off 3rd party cookies is anti-competitive, leaving them in is anti-privacy, and putting out a privacy-enhancing alternative is also anti-competitive. Is there anything that can be done that would satisfy all regulations? Also, this reminds me of a story I heard years ago, that a California oil change location needed to store oil above ground due to EPA regulations, but needed it stored underground to satisfy the fire department regulations. So they were constantly getting fined from one or the other, and had to just include those fines as a cost of doing business.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  Perhaps it's time to recognize that the company simply need not exist in it's present form. If Google was required to spin off Chrome as an independent company, there would be no antitrust issue, and privacy protections Chrome made would not also include anti-privacy features designed to feed Google's ad business. The reality is, Google needs to be broken up. Every fine they get makes that clear.
  - albertgoeswoof 6y ago
    How would chrome survive as a business?
    - tehlike 6y ago
      By auctioning the default search engine slot.
      - greatzebu 6y ago
        Wouldn't that make them entirely beholden to search engines that rely on ad revenue to pay Chrome? It doesn't seem to change the underlying incentives very much.
        asiando 6y ago
        Doesn’t that already happen? Chrome currently survives thanks to advertising either way. Splitting Google would just make it a little more indirect.
        rurp 6y ago
        I'd say there's a big difference between having one primary customer and literally being owned by that customer. I would bet that a significant part Chrome's development is built around feeding data to other parts of Google, which would be more difficult and less appealing as a separate company. Plus, there's no rule that says a browser has to get most of its revenue from selling Google Search placement. That just happens to be the case for the single independent browser that exists right now, one which isn't exactly renowned for great business leadership. I think if the Chrome team had a reason to explore self sustaining revenue models there's a good chance they would come up with some solid innovations.
        fabianhjr 6y ago
        It currently is completelly owned by Google (Alphabet) so your comment would be more of a "there is a possibility that they would end up still relying on Google's ad revenue".
    - kevingadd 6y ago
      How did Mozilla survive as a business? Why is Brave around?
      - tehlike 6y ago
        Brave is terrible example. Brave is vc funded or ICO funded. Mozilla depends on donations and selling the search engine slot.
      - izacus 6y ago
        Mozilla is financed directly by Google. Brave is injecting their own ads into websites. Not really the best examples.
        NeutronStar 6y ago
        What's to prevent chrome from being financed by google the search engine the same way Firefox is financed by Google the search engine?
        seaman1921 6y ago
        Honestly several of these guys just want to promote 'break google up' every chance they get just because it makes them feel good - without understanding how bad the consequences would be.
        neolog 6y ago
        What would the bad consequences be?
        sdenton4 6y ago
        One example: The road from security to revenue is a bit windy. So suppose chrome gets a revenue crunch after getting spun off, and lays off a bunch of the security group. Well, it turns out that security group is actually handling security for ALL of the browsers, because security is expensive, and none of the browsers are really making money, and chrome is open source. So now you've got reduced security in all of the browsers. Whoops?
    - josefx 6y ago
      How would Linux kernel development survive as a business?
      - geofft 6y ago
        Linux kernel development survives because its biggest users develop it. It's certainly possible for a browser to survive that way, but Konqueror doesn't seem to be terribly successful.
        throwaway3699 6y ago
        It's also worth thinking that many of those big users are also the very adtech companies people are hating on here, but for some reason it's fine to fund kernels and not web browsers with ads.
        josefx 6y ago
        It would be interesting to know if Google engineers regularly commit kernel patches breaking Microsoft's Azure integration while pushing people to Google cloud.
      - ilammy 6y ago
        It survives because GPL forces it to be performed in the open, in a cooperative manner. This is not the case with browsers. Both Linux kernel and web browsers are arguably too huge now to be even maintained entirely by a single organization, let alone to be developed from scratch by one. Linux being under GPL kinda forces cooperation between businesses for their business needs, if they are going to tweak Linux. With browsers are you under impression that you can just fork Chromium maintained by someone else and then just add your business value for you alone to reap.
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      As the window 70% of people access the Internet through globally, Chrome has nearly limitless options for monetization. Arguably, being part of Google hurts it, because it has to fit into Google's ideal business strategy.
      - vlovich123 6y ago
        So they’d be Firefox & wholly dependent on Google for search revenue money (I.e. ad money) anyway? Firefox already gets a lot of flack with their 3.65% & I don’t think that complaints about Chrome will stop if they’re still owning ~70% of browser market share with Google paying their bills. The only solution that would actually work is better regulation of the advertising space, but all advertisers (Google included) actively fight this. For example, ban governments from purchasing personal information without a warrant. Ban the sale of any/all personal information between companies - any personal information transferred should be gratis with at most nominal costs for the cost of the transfer itself. But then you might have to actually start paying for some services rather than everything being totally ad supported. Not to mention that governments, despite all their outcries about “privacy” and “evil corporations” love the status quo because of how easy it makes to invade your privacy without a warrant.
        Izkata 6y ago
        > So they’d be Firefox & wholly dependent on Google for search revenue money (I.e. ad money) anyway? Not necessarily, its engine is now what powers Edge. Microsoft might support it.
      - johnmaguire2013 6y ago
        You mention nearly limitless options but fail to mention one. Can you give some examples?
        throw_away 6y ago
        default search seems to be pretty lucrative.
        6y ago
    - mtnygard 6y ago
      Could go the same path as Brave: be a conduit for funding between consumer (me) and creator... then take a small percentage for facilitating the transactions.
    - ljm 6y ago
      Does it need to survive?
    - 3np 6y ago
      That it seems unlikely a browser that is not Chrome, vertically integrated by Google, could survive financially, is a good sign it need to happen imo
    - GlennS 6y ago
      I guess ideally either Chrome or Firefox would be organized as a charitable trust with an endowment, its stated mission to service users of the web, and the EFF given a permanent seat on its board of directors. How to get from here to there, I don't know.
      - jopsen 6y ago
        Firefox is owned by Mozilla Corp, owned by Mozilla Foundation, which is a non-profit -- and Mozilla has a sizable budget. > How to get from here to there, I don't know. You literally are there! Sure, it's easy to criticize Mozilla for having "wrong priorities", being "pragmatic about EME", Firefox OS, losing market share, etc. But simply saying a new board would fix things seems a bit naive.
    - gcblkjaidfj 6y ago
      > How would chrome survive as a business? by doing *exactly* what Google sued microsoft for trying to do with IE in the 90s. Isn't it funny?
  - patwolfe 6y ago
    Yup, when there is nothing a company can do in a situation to avoid anti-trust regulation, that is a pretty good indication anti-trust regulation should have already happened.
    - SerLava 6y ago
      Well said! I'm going to use this and other people should as well.
  - madrox 6y ago
    Playing devil's advocate, how is Google & Chrome different from, say, Apple & App Store? Thinking about iOS like a browser, arguably what Privacy Sandbox does is not that different from iOS 14's AppTrackingTransparency Framework. Both require the operator of the internals not to abuse their position for there to be fair play. The most generous thing I could say is that it feels different. However, Apple has a stronger hold on iOS than Google has on the web. On the web, at least you could switch to another browser to view the same content. Switching off iPhone requires a whole new ecosystem and hardware. I hope people who argue for a certain treatment of Google in this case are at least consistent in the Apple case.
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      1. I think Apple wields a questionable monopoly with regards to the App Store. I think that they should be required to allow third party stores, at minimum, on the iPhone. I am very much hoping Epic wins their case here, and that we have a more open field on iOS in the future. 2. Apple's new privacy changes require that apps solicit user permission before doing any tracking. However, once the user has granted that, app developers are allowed to either use Apple's solution or their own.
    - curryst 6y ago
      > Thinking about iOS like a browser, arguably what Privacy Sandbox does is not that different from iOS 14's AppTrackingTransparency Framework Apple's AppTrackingTransparency Framework harms a market that Apple is not a part of. That specific action doesn't have any monopoly connotations in my mind because it solely benefited the product that was changed. There are no knock on effects where now Apple Maps is worth more. Also, in this case, the consumers that are harmed by Google's alleged monopoly are people who are buying ads, not people using Chrome. I don't do anything with ads, but the impression I got from other people is that it's much easier for a consumer to switch phones than it is for an advertiser to just not advertise with Google. I do think Apple has monopoly issues, I just don't think ATT is part of it. That was a legitimate response to consumer demand for privacy.
  - summerlight 6y ago
    Firefox is completely an independent entity from Google and the reality is that they needed to accept the manifest v3 because their survival entirely depends on Google's money. Why do you think the situation would be different from this if Chrome get broken up from Google?
- morelisp 6y ago
  It's a good analogy - like oil, companies industry-wide should reduce their dependence on data, and companies that still deal in it should be prepared to deal with heightened legal scrutiny and additional restrictions.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    It's all allowed because of Clinton-era bill that legalized data collection in the first place. Can you imagine? Before that, databases of metadata couldn't be copyrighted without getting consent for the owners of said information. Perhaps we should our digital ethics going back to basics - corporations shouldn't have a "right" to own data that doesn't belong to them.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  I'm reminded of a snarky libertarian quip: > If a big company charges more than the competition, they say they're illegally abusing their monopoly. > If a big company charges the same as the competition, they say it's illegal collusion. > If a big company charges less than the competition, they say it's illegal price-dumping.
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    This seems like it overlooks the obvious possibility of things that don't fall into any of those three categories...
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      Sure, it's just a silly quip, I'm not saying it's watertight.
    - sidibe 6y ago
      So being a small company?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- awalton 6y ago
  > Is there anything that can be done that would satisfy all regulations? We could go back to having advertisements be relevant to the content audience instead of the specific viewer and end stalkerware for good. Crazy talk, I know...
- coliveira 6y ago
  You're right, everything they do is illegal because it is an illegal monopoly that needs to be broken up.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  No. The reason Google is killing third party cookies in Chrome (I firmly believe) is because Google—and only Google—doesn't need cookies to track you. Google owns the browser. If Google was killing third party cookies in Chrome while also removing other tracking features, regulators wouldn't have a leg to stand on. But back in the real world, they are absolutely correct to see through Google's BS.
- contravariant 6y ago
  I think you're slightly off on that first one. Killing 3rs party cookies isn't anti-competitive, in fact I'd argue any decent browser should do it to protect their users' privacy. What is possibly anti-competitive is their proposed alternative. And frankly I'm not sold on the supposed privacy of such an alternative either (which, in order to be functionally different from 3rd party cookies, will have to store personal identifying information in a location that users cannot access, edit and/or control). Note also that (to my knowledge) browsers are not currently obligated to protect their users' privacy (though perhaps they should be, it makes more sense than punishing websites for sending cookies). This leaves google at least 2 completely legitimate options: 1. Keep 3rd party cookies. 2. Kill 3rd party cookies. Sure the first will cost them their privacy conscious users and the second might hurt their ad business, but rejecting that choice on the sole grounds that it would hurt the bottom line of a different venture is textbook anti-trust. They'll probably list other reasons for not taking that second option, though I've not found them terribly convincing so far.
  - jsnell 6y ago
    > Killing 3rs party cookies isn't anti-competitive The problem is that when it comes to determining what's anti-competitive, yours is not the opinion that matters. According to the article, multiple US states, a US House submicommitee believe it is anticompetitive and now a UK regulator is also investigating whether it is. This is not a hypothetical like you think. It is what the people in power actually are on record about. Your option 2 does not exist. Just full stop. So we're left with the idea that every other browser in the world can improve privacy, but not the one that most people use. Do you seriously not see how fucked up that is? Why do you want to build up this garbage narrative about how it's not the fault of the authorities?
    - contravariant 6y ago
      I'm having some trouble following your argument. You seem to be accusing me of the thing I'm against on the basis that my opinion isn't the one that matters.
      - 6y ago
- Simulacra 6y ago
  In a word, no. Google and other corporate monoliths like it depend on data, as much as they can get, as personal as it can be, and pervasive as the air we breathe. Consumers want privacy, control over their data, and the power to say no. The only sensible middle ground is for Google and others to be up front about the data, what they do with it, where it goes, etc. and the consumer having the ability to say no. Unfortunately Google, etc. cannot back away from their position because they risk losing a market edge. Perhaps PAYING users for their data, that would be an interesting middle ground, but the shareholders of the monoliths would likely reject such a proposal.
  - victorhooi 6y ago
    I think you're projecting the HN crowd a bit here. The majority of normal people probably don't care as much about "privacy" as some of the vocal folks here do. I'm not making a value judgement on that, it's simply how it is. People want to use services like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or Google search/Gmail/Google Maps that have the functionality they enjoy. If those companies can show them targeted ads vs random useless ads, the majority of people seem to be fine with that tradeoff. I want it to be the year of the Linus desktop for a long while but I've made peace with the fact that's not the majority view. Most people are happy with a proprietary desktop that just works.
    - syshum 6y ago
      I think it is clear that the public cares about privacy but only when they are fully educated about what a given platform is doing. The public is not reading the privacy policies, or looking at the app permissions or do anything really to educate themselves on all the ways Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc are abusing their data But if a high profile news story comes out about some privacy issue they are outraged about it. This shows a education / knowledge gap, I dont know how to close it, or if it can even be closed but to say "no one cares about privacy" I believe is false
      - v7p1Qbt1im 6y ago
        The public cares about privacy, yes. But only as long as its presence doesn‘t inconvenience them in any way. People hate the GDPR pop ups. Most are badly designed (probably on purpose) and make it easy to accept all and difficult to customize/reject all. Most people are just going to click accept because it makes the box disappear faster. Let‘s say we have the new Apple opt-in rules for Facebook. There‘s a pop-up some day asking users: „do you want facebook to be able to track you?“ many people will say no. But only because it‘s really easy/frictionless and the app presumably functions as normal. So primarily users want to do want users want to do. They don‘t care about tracking/ads as long as avoiding them isn‘t completely simple.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Killing off 3rd party cookies is anti-competitive because Google has the means to continue tracking people without them. If Google didn't own something like 60% of the browser market, it would just be a privacy enhancement.
- eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
  > needed to store oil above ground due to EPA regulations, but needed it stored underground to satisfy the fire department regulations. Did they try building tanks both above and below ground, connecting them with two pipes so there's a circle, and constantly pumping it along that circle so it is not stored anywhere but merely in transit through both areas?
- danudey 6y ago
  The claim that killing 3rd party cookies is anti-competitive is some Marketing Company Bullshit. A group in France is also suing Apple on antitrust grounds because they're going to ask users if they want to be tracked. What's actually anti-competitive is the idea that Google will kill them off and replace it with a solution which they control, forcing advertisers to deal with them and their ad products directly in order to do anything. Whether that's actually what's happening is another question entirely.
- mechnesium 6y ago
  Yes, eliminate cookies entirely. Let companies revert to relying on consumer feedback and word of mouth praise rather than cyberstalking.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
TheChaplain 6y ago
Well, Google is first and foremost an ad-company, and obviously any method that improves profiling for selling ads is the way to go. Anything else would probably not please shareholders and investors.
- swiley 6y ago
  Both are pleasing as a bearish investor: one results in lost profits and the other in lawsuits and regulation. It's just a matter of timing.
hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
My heart goes out to all the other adtech companies, may you all go fuck yourselves and find you’re future endeavours in more ethical industries fulfilling.
- morelisp 6y ago
  Things will definitely be better when Google has all the lobbyists, no competitors, and even more information about you.
  - warent 6y ago
    I don't get why this is being voted down, it's the first thing I thought too. Basically winning a battle to lose the war EDIT: anyone care to provide some rationale? Silently button-mashing downvote without even contributing isn't really helpful here
    - DenisM 6y ago
      Don't be snarky. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - NeutronStar 6y ago
        FWIW I don't find it snarky. Could you explain instead of just linking to the guidelines?
      - warent 6y ago
        That is helpful, thank you
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  your
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't post like this to HN. It's against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You may not owe adtech companies better, but you owe this community better if you're participating here. We're hoping for curious conversation, not internet fulmination.
kevingadd 6y ago
Aside from the parties and parades that would be thrown over the removal of third-party cookies (were we not in a no-parties-allowed situation in 2021), it does seem a little troubling that they appear to be repeating the AMP strategy here 1:1, with an "open initiative" to replace cookies with something that is clearly owned and operated by Google for their interests with industry participation instead of an actual collaborative effort. On the other hand, who would they collaborate with? Mozilla is busy selling VPNs or something and Apple wants nothing to do with Google's ad practices. Unpleasant all around.
- slumpt_ 6y ago
  Apple wants nothing to do with the future of the web. FTFY APPS APPS APPS
dang 6y ago
Recent and related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25813601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25813601
seaman1921 6y ago
It is so annoying to see that HN and general media have collectively decided that Google and everything it does is evil, but honestly you have no idea how good you have it right now. Google is not abusing your user data like you are made to think. If you talk to a Google engineer, you would realise the countlesss number of measures they take to safeguard user's data - human access is next to impossible. Only machines roles are allowed to request for decryption keys and each access is logged and audited. And even the data a machine gets to see is annonymized and only aggregated analysis is usually allowed which is also required to be approved by dedicated Legal and Security teams. Having worked at a start-up I know how much these smaller companies care about privacy - trust me you are way better with your data lying in Google servers than one of these random small companies claiming to 'protect your privacy'. I would rather trust the brilliant minds at Google to safeguard my data any day.
- IanSanders 6y ago
  I never understood why an individual would go out of their way to defend a corporation. Otherwise, found a "google engineer". The issue most people have with it is the amount of data collected unnecessarily, rather than the practices around safeguarding it. Many "small startups" wouldn't collect it in the first place and it would be a non-issue. Even when "small startups" are collecting more information as they should, it's not in one basket and has less value without context.
- fungi 6y ago
  false dichotomy
- local_dev 6y ago
  I would say that we have different definitions of 'abuse' in the case of Google. Of course, Google doesn't sell your data directly to anyone, allow anyone to get your metadata, or allow anyone to view your data. In that sense, I also completely trust Google to be good stewards of my data. That said, while I agree that Google does not 'abuse' my data by giving it to others in any form, Google absolutely does use my data to try to sell me things. From my perspective, this is abuse. Google is using data that I generated to psychologically manipulate my behavior. When Google Search, gmail, and other like services from Google were released, Google was a tech company first and foremost. These properties/services were offered for "free". At the time, most people didn't realize that "free" meant paying with your data. Now, Google is an advertising company and I do not want them to have my data because of that fact. In a similar vein, if The Trade Desk or another adtech company provided a "free" email service it would likely not be widely adopted as it would be well understood that users are paying with their data.
yalogin 6y ago
This is the equivalent of saying Company X makes the best light bulbs, we fear consumers won't buy other brands and so we don't want to allow X to sell bulbs. If anything this is a privacy concern, and a huge motivation for regulation. Cookies at least gives some iota of control to the user to stop tracking and know when its happening. However with the new approach users will be tracked all over incessantly. There is no stopping it It's not that hard to see other companies will adopt the same architecture and kill cookies. For example, I can bet facebook is working on something similar.
- dralley 6y ago
  Bad analogy. It's more like, the company that controls the light bulb market, also controls most of the light fixture market, and decides to push for a new type of socket that they control the IP for. Except in the real world, unlike this analogy, they can magically change the socket of their own light bulbs and fixtures over the air at any time.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    But if that socket uses 3x less power for the same light output, and the automatic update reduces the power usage of the entire world overnight, wouldn't it be a net positive? Although, I suppose it could still be viewed as an anti-competitive action.
- kall 6y ago
  No, this is nothing like lightbulbs. If you take the complaint at face value (limiting ad tracking for others more than yourself) it is a classic antitrust case: leveraging your earned position in one market to gain unearned advantage in an unrelated one. This disrupts the efficient functioning of markets, which makes it a problem.
ogre_codes 6y ago
Google's way of leveraging their browser dominance to use 3rd party cookies as a way to gain competitive advantage: Step 1: Implement a whole new browser functionality where Google alone can track people. Step 2: Eliminate 3rd party cookies so Google's competitors have to create increasingly unethical and invasive fingerprinting techniques to remain competitive. Step 3: Increase advertising rates since they are the only company able to effectively target adverts on the web. (Profit) Did I miss anything? Google in their enthusiasm to prevent Microsoft from dominating the web has become worse than Microsoft was in its heyday.
- adriancr 6y ago
  > increasingly unethical and invasive fingerprinting techniques to remain competitive. ... or serve cookies via first-party subdomain ... Also, hasn't Safari already killed third party cookies?
  - jay_kyburz 6y ago
    Then the advertisers need to trust the first parties.
    - adriancr 6y ago
      or the subdomain goes to an advertiser server.
      - hashkb 6y ago
        Yeah... we're all too lazy to relay our data through our own backends. I recommend this to clients but there's always some killer analytics feature that requires the JS integration.
      - jay_kyburz 6y ago
        Oh, I didn't realize a subdomain was not considered 3rd party. So soon we'll see adnetwork.mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com. I think we should just make cookies only work when the domain matches exactly.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dceddia 6y ago
Wait wait. So Google kills off third party cookies, but then creates some new “more private” workaround, perhaps relying on some kind of trusted servers (called “FLEDGE” in the article). And then, who gets to run those servers? Even if it’s not Google, it’s probably not just anyone, right? Does that lead to a situation where there’s some authority or group of authorities that decides whether you or your startup gets to track users? And would you suppose it would be free for anyone to join this list of approved advertisers? Or might there be a fee, or some conditions to apply? This reminds me of a thread a few days ago where an open source browser was denied access to Google’s Widevine DRM, without which the browser would be pretty much useless for most consumers who’d like to be able to watch Netflix and such. No small-fry browsers allowed. Good luck getting out of that Catch-22. And of another thread where it came up that if you’re trying to get a search engine off the ground, a large chunk of the internet will probably block your crawler bot, so good luck building up that search index. Not all these things are Google’s doing (well, not that last one anyway)... but it sure starts to feel like the open web is closing up around us.
- hashkb 6y ago
  The "open web" only barely ever existed; MSIE killed it and Chrome is just a better weapon in the hands of a next generation monopoly.
  - minikites 6y ago
    And now with Facebook and Twitter, the idea of the "open web" is irrelevant to most people since they get everything they want or need from those two places.
    - yepthatsreality 6y ago
      This will bounce back. What happened is that you have a large percentage of people who chose not to advance their computer skills. Instead they "mastered Microsoft Office suite" for a bullet point on a resume and were presented the internet as a suite of websites. These people are our peers. However as more and more people are taught about coding and networking we will see a demise in the size of the former and the embrace of the open web again. They will be advertised the web as a platform for networking services and products. Of course this all will take place by stopping Google and other corporations from monopolizing the web with help from our locked-in peers. ;)
ulber 6y ago
This post got me into looking up what Google's privacy sandbox actually is. One proposal I found quite interesting was TURTLEDOVE, which proposes to move ad bidding onto the user device [1]. The current proposal of course uses bidding logic delivered by the ad seller. However, if this were to gain wide adoption, the step to imposing user control over bidding gets a bit smaller. Imagine being able to tell advertisers "ok I'll look at any ad that pays me at least 50 cents" (~100X the typical price of an impression currently). If anyone wants to show you an ad at that price you know they think its going to be relevant. That's the kind of targeting I could get behind. No chance that would actually happen though. [1]: https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/master/FLEDGE.md https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/master/FLEDGE.md
- minsc__and__boo 6y ago
  Seems like they're storing the user based stuff from here: https://adssettings.google.com/ https://adssettings.google.com/ in the browser, and letting publishers configure their own bidding logic based on that data. Not sure how that is going to play out since publishers want clicks and users don't want ads.
- IanSanders 6y ago
  > "ok I'll look at any ad that pays me at least 50 cents" Personalised advertisement industry is inherently harmful. Remember, the end goal is to charge the user as much as they are willing to pay.
  - presentation 6y ago
    How is that inherently harmful? Doesn't charging a large sum for something offered by an ad mean, that the ad provided something of value to the user? My issue with personalized ads isn't that users end up spending money on what they offer; it's the potential for the collection of that pervasive data to negatively impact the user and broader society.
    - IanSanders 6y ago
      >How is that inherently harmful? Aside from collected data being used for other purposes besides advertisement, when efficient, it allows charging the individual more than they "should" be paying. If an industry "knows" that your washing machine broke, it "knows" that you would be easier manipulated into paying a higher price (sorry for the simplification and the amount of quote marks). >Doesn't charging a large sum for something offered by an ad mean, that the ad provided something of value to the user? If a user was to be compensated, the payment for watching the ad is most definitely coming out from the product price in the end, so on the big scale there is no compensation. >potential for the collection of that pervasive data to negatively impact the user and broader society. Absolutely agree.
ycombigator 6y ago
STOP USING GOOGLE
OptionX 6y ago
The idea of having Google of all people make a cookie replacement seems a real "fox in the henhouse" kind of situation.
jeffrogers 6y ago
Well I wonder if the alternative to cookies, the QUIC HTTP/3 Connection Migration IDs, are an end run around ad blockers, MAC spoofing, and other forms of anti-tracking measures. No way Google is going to make it harder to track people if they’re proposing a change and my understanding is that these IDs survive network switching, sessions, etc.
madrox 6y ago
I hope no one is saying Privacy Sandbox is worse than third party cookies, or is trusting this article to form an opinion about it. Web advertising was a $319 billion dollar industry in 2019. Does anyone wonder who may be lobbying their government to scrutinize Google and offer themselves for interviews for articles like this? Does anyone think the result of beating up Project Sandbox will be more radical privacy protection? No, I don't think this article has anything really to do with a better privacy outcome and everything to do with watering down Google's stance to something more status quo for the advertising industry. There are no actual critiques of Privacy Sandbox's APIs here. There's no mention of what critics stand to lose if Privacy Sandbox becomes the standard. There's merely hand wringing of "but do you trust Google?" Everyone who's made themselves available for quoting in this article is a web advertising professional, including the ones who come off as not[1][2]. None of them care about you. [1] James Rosewell is cited as director of "Marketers for an Open Web." He's also the CEO of a company that specializes in device detection. His LinkedIn headline reads "THE Fastest and Most Accurate Device Detection = more profitable websites" [2] Alan Chapell is sarcastic about Google attempting to do this openly through the w3c. He's cited as running a privacy law firm. Their web site says they represent tech companies navigating privacy issues. They aren't actual privacy advocates. https://chapellassociates.com/ https://chapellassociates.com/
- dleslie 6y ago
  Ok, I'll bite. I don't trust Google, and let's assume that they will always be a malicious adversary. Given that, why should I not be skeptical of their Privacy Sandbox initiative?
  - madrox 6y ago
    This is basically an ad hominem argument. There is no room to discuss Sandbox on its merits with this stance. Yet we're debating this on an article whose every Sandbox criticism comes from other industry professionals who are just as worthy of being considered a malicious adversary. I make no statement that Project Sandbox should not be scrutinized -- merely that it's better than third party cookies -- and I don't believe increased antitrust scrutiny of Google will lead to better user privacy.
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perryizgr8 6y ago
Google has dug themselves into a deep hole when it comes to anything remotely related to web advertising. They own the top 2 browsers (Chrome and Firefox), they own the largest web ad business, and a lot of web tracking technology is used for delivering ads. Any changes they try to push for in web standards will incite an angry response even if there is the appearance/possibility of any advantage to google ads. I think the correct way to deal with this is to do what people are expected to do in any conflict of interest case: recuse themselves from any and all web standard committees and orgs. If they aren't willing to do that, unfortunately they should prepare for an expansive anti-trust action.
mattxxx 6y ago
Once they remove cookies, Google will still be able to track you... they'll just restrict the ability of others. Personally, I think anonymizing the web and de-incentivizing companies from collection data is a good thing, but privacy sandbox itself is just a ploy to kill competition.
yuhong 6y ago
Worth mentioning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008_financial_crisis_on_Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008...
RedComet 6y ago
Good. But unfortunately there seems to be little chance of them ever actually being broken up. They're more powerful than the government of their host country at this point.
alanlovestea 6y ago
Mmm... Chrome won't accept 3rd party cookies to protect user's private. Meanwhile, Chrome is forcing all gmail users to upload their browse histories to Google. In the end, only Google has access to our browse history and can dominate the web ad market.
partingshots 6y ago
It’s interesting how people don’t realize Google is basically saving these advertisers from bankruptcy, and yet they’re still complaining. You realize Google could just have done what Apple is doing and completely get rid of all third party cookies with no replacement right? The privacy sandbox API is a lifeline to third party advertisers that otherwise would be completely screwed.
- amf12 6y ago
  Except that would lead to anti-trust rulings against Google. Google can't do this unlike Apple because it generates revenue from advertising.
j45 6y ago
We got away from flash cookies only to potentially have another option driven by one company?
concordDance 6y ago
Articles like this remind me of the fact Paul Graham noted a decade and a half ago that a substantial portion of "news" articles are written by PR firms. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
ElectricMind 6y ago
>>"Don't be evil" is a phrase used in Google's corporate code of conduct, which it also formerly preceded as a motto.<< Well well. That was typo right?. Okay Google!
villgax 6y ago
LMFAO on "ad-supported web". Keep that to your employees.
throwaway31416 6y ago
For those who want to really double click here's an interesting place to look: https://github.com/WICG/floc https://github.com/WICG/floc
jonplackett 6y ago
Why would it be so bad to just get rid of targeted advertising full stop? As a consumer, would I end up just having to watch a lot more ads? Even if that that is the case, maybe then it would force alternative business models, like some kind of distributed tips for websites you visit.
thingification 6y ago
Can somebody who has worked in this industry of user tracking/advertising please explain why this is still considered a technical issue as opposed to one about law/politics/social expectations/ideas, etc.? It seems that it is hard to technically prevent tracking because of things like browser and behavioural fingerprinting. I don't intend to suggest that technical things are completely irrelevant: I'm simplifying drastically (for example, I have faith that providing software that makes decentralisation easier, and does security better will help the problem as I see it). But from my quick scan of the proposed changes from Google, I'm curious why the trackers won't just switch tactics to the next easiest thing? Don't they already do that for people who block third party cookies in fact?
gallamine 6y ago
EFF wrote a rebuttable to the original broad proposal in 2019. It's still makes for interesting reading: "Don't Play in Google's Privacy Sandbox" https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/dont-play-googles-privacy-sandbox-1 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/dont-play-googles-priv...
ajarmst 6y ago
Their original "don't be evil" motto was always a little hypocritical, but now it represents a level of irony previously reserved for slave owners and religiously motivated genocide.
coffee-person 6y ago
As much as I want google to have competitors, I can think of no argument that disabling third-party cookies is anti-user. It is inevitable that these cookies will be blocked. I'm all for the news industry coming up with a counter-proposal but trying to keep the current, bad system is not it.
ajarmst 6y ago
Time to accelerate the purge. To be honest, all I'll really miss are GMail spam filtering and Google Scholar.
freedomben 6y ago
Is it possible that this is related to the recent Chromium sync changes? If Privacy Sandbox adds APIs for tracking/advertising, it would be trivial for a Chromium rebuild to patch them out. If a user can use google sync with Chromium, it would be easy then to escape the tracking system. If you can only use sync with Chrome proper however, it becomes much more difficult.
Ajedi32 6y ago
This effort is similar to Chrome's previous implementation of a built-in ad blocker[1]. As before, the goal isn't to completely eliminate ads or tracking, rather it's to push the advertising industry in a direction that's more acceptable to users, with the understanding that that approach is likely better for the industry (and therefore Google) long-term. In this case, Google wants to maintain the ability to target ads and detect click fraud, but eliminate server-side tracking as many users find the latter practice undesirable. Given that these changes will affect the entire advertising industry, not just Google, it's unsurprising that their competitors would claim anti-trust. They have a point; Google undeniably _is_ using their control over the Chrome browser to make changes that directly impact their competitors. Google may genuinely believe these changes are good for the industry as a whole, but that might be hard to argue in court, particularly if competitors with particularly intrusive tracking mechanisms are disproportionately impacted. This will be interesting to watch. [1]: https://blog.chromium.org/2018/02/how-chromes-ad-filtering-works.html https://blog.chromium.org/2018/02/how-chromes-ad-filtering-w...

477 points by Manheim 6y ago

So if I understand this correctly, then killing off 3rd party cookies is anti-competitive, leaving them in is anti-privacy, and putting out a privacy-enhancing alternative is also anti-competitive. Is there anything that can be done that would satisfy all regulations? Also, this reminds me of a story I heard years ago, that a California oil change location needed to store oil above ground due to EPA regulations, but needed it stored underground to satisfy the fire department regulations. So they were constantly getting fined from one or the other, and had to just include those fines as a cost of doing business.

deleted 6y ago
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ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Perhaps it's time to recognize that the company simply need not exist in it's present form. If Google was required to spin off Chrome as an independent company, there would be no antitrust issue, and privacy protections Chrome made would not also include anti-privacy features designed to feed Google's ad business. The reality is, Google needs to be broken up. Every fine they get makes that clear.
- albertgoeswoof 6y ago
  How would chrome survive as a business?
  - tehlike 6y ago
    By auctioning the default search engine slot.
    - greatzebu 6y ago
      Wouldn't that make them entirely beholden to search engines that rely on ad revenue to pay Chrome? It doesn't seem to change the underlying incentives very much.
      - asiando 6y ago
        Doesn’t that already happen? Chrome currently survives thanks to advertising either way. Splitting Google would just make it a little more indirect.
      - rurp 6y ago
        I'd say there's a big difference between having one primary customer and literally being owned by that customer. I would bet that a significant part Chrome's development is built around feeding data to other parts of Google, which would be more difficult and less appealing as a separate company. Plus, there's no rule that says a browser has to get most of its revenue from selling Google Search placement. That just happens to be the case for the single independent browser that exists right now, one which isn't exactly renowned for great business leadership. I think if the Chrome team had a reason to explore self sustaining revenue models there's a good chance they would come up with some solid innovations.
      - fabianhjr 6y ago
        It currently is completelly owned by Google (Alphabet) so your comment would be more of a "there is a possibility that they would end up still relying on Google's ad revenue".
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    How did Mozilla survive as a business? Why is Brave around?
    - tehlike 6y ago
      Brave is terrible example. Brave is vc funded or ICO funded. Mozilla depends on donations and selling the search engine slot.
    - izacus 6y ago
      Mozilla is financed directly by Google. Brave is injecting their own ads into websites. Not really the best examples.
      - NeutronStar 6y ago
        What's to prevent chrome from being financed by google the search engine the same way Firefox is financed by Google the search engine?
      - seaman1921 6y ago
        Honestly several of these guys just want to promote 'break google up' every chance they get just because it makes them feel good - without understanding how bad the consequences would be.
        neolog 6y ago
        What would the bad consequences be?
        sdenton4 6y ago
        One example: The road from security to revenue is a bit windy. So suppose chrome gets a revenue crunch after getting spun off, and lays off a bunch of the security group. Well, it turns out that security group is actually handling security for ALL of the browsers, because security is expensive, and none of the browsers are really making money, and chrome is open source. So now you've got reduced security in all of the browsers. Whoops?
  - josefx 6y ago
    How would Linux kernel development survive as a business?
    - geofft 6y ago
      Linux kernel development survives because its biggest users develop it. It's certainly possible for a browser to survive that way, but Konqueror doesn't seem to be terribly successful.
      - throwaway3699 6y ago
        It's also worth thinking that many of those big users are also the very adtech companies people are hating on here, but for some reason it's fine to fund kernels and not web browsers with ads.
        josefx 6y ago
        It would be interesting to know if Google engineers regularly commit kernel patches breaking Microsoft's Azure integration while pushing people to Google cloud.
    - ilammy 6y ago
      It survives because GPL forces it to be performed in the open, in a cooperative manner. This is not the case with browsers. Both Linux kernel and web browsers are arguably too huge now to be even maintained entirely by a single organization, let alone to be developed from scratch by one. Linux being under GPL kinda forces cooperation between businesses for their business needs, if they are going to tweak Linux. With browsers are you under impression that you can just fork Chromium maintained by someone else and then just add your business value for you alone to reap.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    As the window 70% of people access the Internet through globally, Chrome has nearly limitless options for monetization. Arguably, being part of Google hurts it, because it has to fit into Google's ideal business strategy.
    - vlovich123 6y ago
      So they’d be Firefox & wholly dependent on Google for search revenue money (I.e. ad money) anyway? Firefox already gets a lot of flack with their 3.65% & I don’t think that complaints about Chrome will stop if they’re still owning ~70% of browser market share with Google paying their bills. The only solution that would actually work is better regulation of the advertising space, but all advertisers (Google included) actively fight this. For example, ban governments from purchasing personal information without a warrant. Ban the sale of any/all personal information between companies - any personal information transferred should be gratis with at most nominal costs for the cost of the transfer itself. But then you might have to actually start paying for some services rather than everything being totally ad supported. Not to mention that governments, despite all their outcries about “privacy” and “evil corporations” love the status quo because of how easy it makes to invade your privacy without a warrant.
      - Izkata 6y ago
        > So they’d be Firefox & wholly dependent on Google for search revenue money (I.e. ad money) anyway? Not necessarily, its engine is now what powers Edge. Microsoft might support it.
    - johnmaguire2013 6y ago
      You mention nearly limitless options but fail to mention one. Can you give some examples?
      - throw_away 6y ago
        default search seems to be pretty lucrative.
      - 6y ago
  - mtnygard 6y ago
    Could go the same path as Brave: be a conduit for funding between consumer (me) and creator... then take a small percentage for facilitating the transactions.
  - ljm 6y ago
    Does it need to survive?
  - 3np 6y ago
    That it seems unlikely a browser that is not Chrome, vertically integrated by Google, could survive financially, is a good sign it need to happen imo
  - GlennS 6y ago
    I guess ideally either Chrome or Firefox would be organized as a charitable trust with an endowment, its stated mission to service users of the web, and the EFF given a permanent seat on its board of directors. How to get from here to there, I don't know.
    - jopsen 6y ago
      Firefox is owned by Mozilla Corp, owned by Mozilla Foundation, which is a non-profit -- and Mozilla has a sizable budget. > How to get from here to there, I don't know. You literally are there! Sure, it's easy to criticize Mozilla for having "wrong priorities", being "pragmatic about EME", Firefox OS, losing market share, etc. But simply saying a new board would fix things seems a bit naive.
  - gcblkjaidfj 6y ago
    > How would chrome survive as a business? by doing *exactly* what Google sued microsoft for trying to do with IE in the 90s. Isn't it funny?
- patwolfe 6y ago
  Yup, when there is nothing a company can do in a situation to avoid anti-trust regulation, that is a pretty good indication anti-trust regulation should have already happened.
  - SerLava 6y ago
    Well said! I'm going to use this and other people should as well.
- madrox 6y ago
  Playing devil's advocate, how is Google & Chrome different from, say, Apple & App Store? Thinking about iOS like a browser, arguably what Privacy Sandbox does is not that different from iOS 14's AppTrackingTransparency Framework. Both require the operator of the internals not to abuse their position for there to be fair play. The most generous thing I could say is that it feels different. However, Apple has a stronger hold on iOS than Google has on the web. On the web, at least you could switch to another browser to view the same content. Switching off iPhone requires a whole new ecosystem and hardware. I hope people who argue for a certain treatment of Google in this case are at least consistent in the Apple case.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    1. I think Apple wields a questionable monopoly with regards to the App Store. I think that they should be required to allow third party stores, at minimum, on the iPhone. I am very much hoping Epic wins their case here, and that we have a more open field on iOS in the future. 2. Apple's new privacy changes require that apps solicit user permission before doing any tracking. However, once the user has granted that, app developers are allowed to either use Apple's solution or their own.
  - curryst 6y ago
    > Thinking about iOS like a browser, arguably what Privacy Sandbox does is not that different from iOS 14's AppTrackingTransparency Framework Apple's AppTrackingTransparency Framework harms a market that Apple is not a part of. That specific action doesn't have any monopoly connotations in my mind because it solely benefited the product that was changed. There are no knock on effects where now Apple Maps is worth more. Also, in this case, the consumers that are harmed by Google's alleged monopoly are people who are buying ads, not people using Chrome. I don't do anything with ads, but the impression I got from other people is that it's much easier for a consumer to switch phones than it is for an advertiser to just not advertise with Google. I do think Apple has monopoly issues, I just don't think ATT is part of it. That was a legitimate response to consumer demand for privacy.
- summerlight 6y ago
  Firefox is completely an independent entity from Google and the reality is that they needed to accept the manifest v3 because their survival entirely depends on Google's money. Why do you think the situation would be different from this if Chrome get broken up from Google?
morelisp 6y ago
It's a good analogy - like oil, companies industry-wide should reduce their dependence on data, and companies that still deal in it should be prepared to deal with heightened legal scrutiny and additional restrictions.
- r00fus 6y ago
  It's all allowed because of Clinton-era bill that legalized data collection in the first place. Can you imagine? Before that, databases of metadata couldn't be copyrighted without getting consent for the owners of said information. Perhaps we should our digital ethics going back to basics - corporations shouldn't have a "right" to own data that doesn't belong to them.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
I'm reminded of a snarky libertarian quip: > If a big company charges more than the competition, they say they're illegally abusing their monopoly. > If a big company charges the same as the competition, they say it's illegal collusion. > If a big company charges less than the competition, they say it's illegal price-dumping.
- kevingadd 6y ago
  This seems like it overlooks the obvious possibility of things that don't fall into any of those three categories...
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    Sure, it's just a silly quip, I'm not saying it's watertight.
  - sidibe 6y ago
    So being a small company?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
awalton 6y ago
> Is there anything that can be done that would satisfy all regulations? We could go back to having advertisements be relevant to the content audience instead of the specific viewer and end stalkerware for good. Crazy talk, I know...
coliveira 6y ago
You're right, everything they do is illegal because it is an illegal monopoly that needs to be broken up.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
No. The reason Google is killing third party cookies in Chrome (I firmly believe) is because Google—and only Google—doesn't need cookies to track you. Google owns the browser. If Google was killing third party cookies in Chrome while also removing other tracking features, regulators wouldn't have a leg to stand on. But back in the real world, they are absolutely correct to see through Google's BS.
contravariant 6y ago
I think you're slightly off on that first one. Killing 3rs party cookies isn't anti-competitive, in fact I'd argue any decent browser should do it to protect their users' privacy. What is possibly anti-competitive is their proposed alternative. And frankly I'm not sold on the supposed privacy of such an alternative either (which, in order to be functionally different from 3rd party cookies, will have to store personal identifying information in a location that users cannot access, edit and/or control). Note also that (to my knowledge) browsers are not currently obligated to protect their users' privacy (though perhaps they should be, it makes more sense than punishing websites for sending cookies). This leaves google at least 2 completely legitimate options: 1. Keep 3rd party cookies. 2. Kill 3rd party cookies. Sure the first will cost them their privacy conscious users and the second might hurt their ad business, but rejecting that choice on the sole grounds that it would hurt the bottom line of a different venture is textbook anti-trust. They'll probably list other reasons for not taking that second option, though I've not found them terribly convincing so far.
- jsnell 6y ago
  > Killing 3rs party cookies isn't anti-competitive The problem is that when it comes to determining what's anti-competitive, yours is not the opinion that matters. According to the article, multiple US states, a US House submicommitee believe it is anticompetitive and now a UK regulator is also investigating whether it is. This is not a hypothetical like you think. It is what the people in power actually are on record about. Your option 2 does not exist. Just full stop. So we're left with the idea that every other browser in the world can improve privacy, but not the one that most people use. Do you seriously not see how fucked up that is? Why do you want to build up this garbage narrative about how it's not the fault of the authorities?
  - contravariant 6y ago
    I'm having some trouble following your argument. You seem to be accusing me of the thing I'm against on the basis that my opinion isn't the one that matters.
    - 6y ago
Simulacra 6y ago
In a word, no. Google and other corporate monoliths like it depend on data, as much as they can get, as personal as it can be, and pervasive as the air we breathe. Consumers want privacy, control over their data, and the power to say no. The only sensible middle ground is for Google and others to be up front about the data, what they do with it, where it goes, etc. and the consumer having the ability to say no. Unfortunately Google, etc. cannot back away from their position because they risk losing a market edge. Perhaps PAYING users for their data, that would be an interesting middle ground, but the shareholders of the monoliths would likely reject such a proposal.
- victorhooi 6y ago
  I think you're projecting the HN crowd a bit here. The majority of normal people probably don't care as much about "privacy" as some of the vocal folks here do. I'm not making a value judgement on that, it's simply how it is. People want to use services like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or Google search/Gmail/Google Maps that have the functionality they enjoy. If those companies can show them targeted ads vs random useless ads, the majority of people seem to be fine with that tradeoff. I want it to be the year of the Linus desktop for a long while but I've made peace with the fact that's not the majority view. Most people are happy with a proprietary desktop that just works.
  - syshum 6y ago
    I think it is clear that the public cares about privacy but only when they are fully educated about what a given platform is doing. The public is not reading the privacy policies, or looking at the app permissions or do anything really to educate themselves on all the ways Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc are abusing their data But if a high profile news story comes out about some privacy issue they are outraged about it. This shows a education / knowledge gap, I dont know how to close it, or if it can even be closed but to say "no one cares about privacy" I believe is false
    - v7p1Qbt1im 6y ago
      The public cares about privacy, yes. But only as long as its presence doesn‘t inconvenience them in any way. People hate the GDPR pop ups. Most are badly designed (probably on purpose) and make it easy to accept all and difficult to customize/reject all. Most people are just going to click accept because it makes the box disappear faster. Let‘s say we have the new Apple opt-in rules for Facebook. There‘s a pop-up some day asking users: „do you want facebook to be able to track you?“ many people will say no. But only because it‘s really easy/frictionless and the app presumably functions as normal. So primarily users want to do want users want to do. They don‘t care about tracking/ads as long as avoiding them isn‘t completely simple.
ogre_codes 6y ago
Killing off 3rd party cookies is anti-competitive because Google has the means to continue tracking people without them. If Google didn't own something like 60% of the browser market, it would just be a privacy enhancement.
eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
> needed to store oil above ground due to EPA regulations, but needed it stored underground to satisfy the fire department regulations. Did they try building tanks both above and below ground, connecting them with two pipes so there's a circle, and constantly pumping it along that circle so it is not stored anywhere but merely in transit through both areas?
danudey 6y ago
The claim that killing 3rd party cookies is anti-competitive is some Marketing Company Bullshit. A group in France is also suing Apple on antitrust grounds because they're going to ask users if they want to be tracked. What's actually anti-competitive is the idea that Google will kill them off and replace it with a solution which they control, forcing advertisers to deal with them and their ad products directly in order to do anything. Whether that's actually what's happening is another question entirely.
mechnesium 6y ago
Yes, eliminate cookies entirely. Let companies revert to relying on consumer feedback and word of mouth praise rather than cyberstalking.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

TheChaplain 6y ago

Well, Google is first and foremost an ad-company, and obviously any method that improves profiling for selling ads is the way to go. Anything else would probably not please shareholders and investors.

swiley 6y ago
Both are pleasing as a bearish investor: one results in lost profits and the other in lawsuits and regulation. It's just a matter of timing.

hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago

My heart goes out to all the other adtech companies, may you all go fuck yourselves and find you’re future endeavours in more ethical industries fulfilling.

morelisp 6y ago
Things will definitely be better when Google has all the lobbyists, no competitors, and even more information about you.
- warent 6y ago
  I don't get why this is being voted down, it's the first thing I thought too. Basically winning a battle to lose the war EDIT: anyone care to provide some rationale? Silently button-mashing downvote without even contributing isn't really helpful here
  - DenisM 6y ago
    Don't be snarky. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - NeutronStar 6y ago
      FWIW I don't find it snarky. Could you explain instead of just linking to the guidelines?
    - warent 6y ago
      That is helpful, thank you
bpodgursky 6y ago
your
dang 6y ago
Please don't post like this to HN. It's against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You may not owe adtech companies better, but you owe this community better if you're participating here. We're hoping for curious conversation, not internet fulmination.

kevingadd 6y ago

Aside from the parties and parades that would be thrown over the removal of third-party cookies (were we not in a no-parties-allowed situation in 2021), it does seem a little troubling that they appear to be repeating the AMP strategy here 1:1, with an "open initiative" to replace cookies with something that is clearly owned and operated by Google for their interests with industry participation instead of an actual collaborative effort. On the other hand, who would they collaborate with? Mozilla is busy selling VPNs or something and Apple wants nothing to do with Google's ad practices. Unpleasant all around.

slumpt_ 6y ago
Apple wants nothing to do with the future of the web. FTFY APPS APPS APPS

dang 6y ago

Recent and related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25813601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25813601

seaman1921 6y ago

It is so annoying to see that HN and general media have collectively decided that Google and everything it does is evil, but honestly you have no idea how good you have it right now. Google is not abusing your user data like you are made to think. If you talk to a Google engineer, you would realise the countlesss number of measures they take to safeguard user's data - human access is next to impossible. Only machines roles are allowed to request for decryption keys and each access is logged and audited. And even the data a machine gets to see is annonymized and only aggregated analysis is usually allowed which is also required to be approved by dedicated Legal and Security teams. Having worked at a start-up I know how much these smaller companies care about privacy - trust me you are way better with your data lying in Google servers than one of these random small companies claiming to 'protect your privacy'. I would rather trust the brilliant minds at Google to safeguard my data any day.

IanSanders 6y ago
I never understood why an individual would go out of their way to defend a corporation. Otherwise, found a "google engineer". The issue most people have with it is the amount of data collected unnecessarily, rather than the practices around safeguarding it. Many "small startups" wouldn't collect it in the first place and it would be a non-issue. Even when "small startups" are collecting more information as they should, it's not in one basket and has less value without context.
fungi 6y ago
false dichotomy
local_dev 6y ago
I would say that we have different definitions of 'abuse' in the case of Google. Of course, Google doesn't sell your data directly to anyone, allow anyone to get your metadata, or allow anyone to view your data. In that sense, I also completely trust Google to be good stewards of my data. That said, while I agree that Google does not 'abuse' my data by giving it to others in any form, Google absolutely does use my data to try to sell me things. From my perspective, this is abuse. Google is using data that I generated to psychologically manipulate my behavior. When Google Search, gmail, and other like services from Google were released, Google was a tech company first and foremost. These properties/services were offered for "free". At the time, most people didn't realize that "free" meant paying with your data. Now, Google is an advertising company and I do not want them to have my data because of that fact. In a similar vein, if The Trade Desk or another adtech company provided a "free" email service it would likely not be widely adopted as it would be well understood that users are paying with their data.

yalogin 6y ago

This is the equivalent of saying Company X makes the best light bulbs, we fear consumers won't buy other brands and so we don't want to allow X to sell bulbs. If anything this is a privacy concern, and a huge motivation for regulation. Cookies at least gives some iota of control to the user to stop tracking and know when its happening. However with the new approach users will be tracked all over incessantly. There is no stopping it It's not that hard to see other companies will adopt the same architecture and kill cookies. For example, I can bet facebook is working on something similar.

dralley 6y ago
Bad analogy. It's more like, the company that controls the light bulb market, also controls most of the light fixture market, and decides to push for a new type of socket that they control the IP for. Except in the real world, unlike this analogy, they can magically change the socket of their own light bulbs and fixtures over the air at any time.
- judge2020 6y ago
  But if that socket uses 3x less power for the same light output, and the automatic update reduces the power usage of the entire world overnight, wouldn't it be a net positive? Although, I suppose it could still be viewed as an anti-competitive action.
kall 6y ago
No, this is nothing like lightbulbs. If you take the complaint at face value (limiting ad tracking for others more than yourself) it is a classic antitrust case: leveraging your earned position in one market to gain unearned advantage in an unrelated one. This disrupts the efficient functioning of markets, which makes it a problem.

ogre_codes 6y ago

Google's way of leveraging their browser dominance to use 3rd party cookies as a way to gain competitive advantage: Step 1: Implement a whole new browser functionality where Google alone can track people. Step 2: Eliminate 3rd party cookies so Google's competitors have to create increasingly unethical and invasive fingerprinting techniques to remain competitive. Step 3: Increase advertising rates since they are the only company able to effectively target adverts on the web. (Profit) Did I miss anything? Google in their enthusiasm to prevent Microsoft from dominating the web has become worse than Microsoft was in its heyday.

adriancr 6y ago
> increasingly unethical and invasive fingerprinting techniques to remain competitive. ... or serve cookies via first-party subdomain ... Also, hasn't Safari already killed third party cookies?
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  Then the advertisers need to trust the first parties.
  - adriancr 6y ago
    or the subdomain goes to an advertiser server.
    - hashkb 6y ago
      Yeah... we're all too lazy to relay our data through our own backends. I recommend this to clients but there's always some killer analytics feature that requires the JS integration.
    - jay_kyburz 6y ago
      Oh, I didn't realize a subdomain was not considered 3rd party. So soon we'll see adnetwork.mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com. I think we should just make cookies only work when the domain matches exactly.

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dceddia 6y ago

Wait wait. So Google kills off third party cookies, but then creates some new “more private” workaround, perhaps relying on some kind of trusted servers (called “FLEDGE” in the article). And then, who gets to run those servers? Even if it’s not Google, it’s probably not just anyone, right? Does that lead to a situation where there’s some authority or group of authorities that decides whether you or your startup gets to track users? And would you suppose it would be free for anyone to join this list of approved advertisers? Or might there be a fee, or some conditions to apply? This reminds me of a thread a few days ago where an open source browser was denied access to Google’s Widevine DRM, without which the browser would be pretty much useless for most consumers who’d like to be able to watch Netflix and such. No small-fry browsers allowed. Good luck getting out of that Catch-22. And of another thread where it came up that if you’re trying to get a search engine off the ground, a large chunk of the internet will probably block your crawler bot, so good luck building up that search index. Not all these things are Google’s doing (well, not that last one anyway)... but it sure starts to feel like the open web is closing up around us.

hashkb 6y ago
The "open web" only barely ever existed; MSIE killed it and Chrome is just a better weapon in the hands of a next generation monopoly.
- minikites 6y ago
  And now with Facebook and Twitter, the idea of the "open web" is irrelevant to most people since they get everything they want or need from those two places.
  - yepthatsreality 6y ago
    This will bounce back. What happened is that you have a large percentage of people who chose not to advance their computer skills. Instead they "mastered Microsoft Office suite" for a bullet point on a resume and were presented the internet as a suite of websites. These people are our peers. However as more and more people are taught about coding and networking we will see a demise in the size of the former and the embrace of the open web again. They will be advertised the web as a platform for networking services and products. Of course this all will take place by stopping Google and other corporations from monopolizing the web with help from our locked-in peers. ;)

ulber 6y ago

This post got me into looking up what Google's privacy sandbox actually is. One proposal I found quite interesting was TURTLEDOVE, which proposes to move ad bidding onto the user device [1]. The current proposal of course uses bidding logic delivered by the ad seller. However, if this were to gain wide adoption, the step to imposing user control over bidding gets a bit smaller. Imagine being able to tell advertisers "ok I'll look at any ad that pays me at least 50 cents" (~100X the typical price of an impression currently). If anyone wants to show you an ad at that price you know they think its going to be relevant. That's the kind of targeting I could get behind. No chance that would actually happen though. [1]: https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/master/FLEDGE.md https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/master/FLEDGE.md

minsc__and__boo 6y ago
Seems like they're storing the user based stuff from here: https://adssettings.google.com/ https://adssettings.google.com/ in the browser, and letting publishers configure their own bidding logic based on that data. Not sure how that is going to play out since publishers want clicks and users don't want ads.
IanSanders 6y ago
> "ok I'll look at any ad that pays me at least 50 cents" Personalised advertisement industry is inherently harmful. Remember, the end goal is to charge the user as much as they are willing to pay.
- presentation 6y ago
  How is that inherently harmful? Doesn't charging a large sum for something offered by an ad mean, that the ad provided something of value to the user? My issue with personalized ads isn't that users end up spending money on what they offer; it's the potential for the collection of that pervasive data to negatively impact the user and broader society.
  - IanSanders 6y ago
    >How is that inherently harmful? Aside from collected data being used for other purposes besides advertisement, when efficient, it allows charging the individual more than they "should" be paying. If an industry "knows" that your washing machine broke, it "knows" that you would be easier manipulated into paying a higher price (sorry for the simplification and the amount of quote marks). >Doesn't charging a large sum for something offered by an ad mean, that the ad provided something of value to the user? If a user was to be compensated, the payment for watching the ad is most definitely coming out from the product price in the end, so on the big scale there is no compensation. >potential for the collection of that pervasive data to negatively impact the user and broader society. Absolutely agree.

ycombigator 6y ago

STOP USING GOOGLE

OptionX 6y ago

The idea of having Google of all people make a cookie replacement seems a real "fox in the henhouse" kind of situation.

jeffrogers 6y ago

Well I wonder if the alternative to cookies, the QUIC HTTP/3 Connection Migration IDs, are an end run around ad blockers, MAC spoofing, and other forms of anti-tracking measures. No way Google is going to make it harder to track people if they’re proposing a change and my understanding is that these IDs survive network switching, sessions, etc.

madrox 6y ago

I hope no one is saying Privacy Sandbox is worse than third party cookies, or is trusting this article to form an opinion about it. Web advertising was a $319 billion dollar industry in 2019. Does anyone wonder who may be lobbying their government to scrutinize Google and offer themselves for interviews for articles like this? Does anyone think the result of beating up Project Sandbox will be more radical privacy protection? No, I don't think this article has anything really to do with a better privacy outcome and everything to do with watering down Google's stance to something more status quo for the advertising industry. There are no actual critiques of Privacy Sandbox's APIs here. There's no mention of what critics stand to lose if Privacy Sandbox becomes the standard. There's merely hand wringing of "but do you trust Google?" Everyone who's made themselves available for quoting in this article is a web advertising professional, including the ones who come off as not[1][2]. None of them care about you. [1] James Rosewell is cited as director of "Marketers for an Open Web." He's also the CEO of a company that specializes in device detection. His LinkedIn headline reads "THE Fastest and Most Accurate Device Detection = more profitable websites" [2] Alan Chapell is sarcastic about Google attempting to do this openly through the w3c. He's cited as running a privacy law firm. Their web site says they represent tech companies navigating privacy issues. They aren't actual privacy advocates. https://chapellassociates.com/ https://chapellassociates.com/

dleslie 6y ago
Ok, I'll bite. I don't trust Google, and let's assume that they will always be a malicious adversary. Given that, why should I not be skeptical of their Privacy Sandbox initiative?
- madrox 6y ago
  This is basically an ad hominem argument. There is no room to discuss Sandbox on its merits with this stance. Yet we're debating this on an article whose every Sandbox criticism comes from other industry professionals who are just as worthy of being considered a malicious adversary. I make no statement that Project Sandbox should not be scrutinized -- merely that it's better than third party cookies -- and I don't believe increased antitrust scrutiny of Google will lead to better user privacy.

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perryizgr8 6y ago

Google has dug themselves into a deep hole when it comes to anything remotely related to web advertising. They own the top 2 browsers (Chrome and Firefox), they own the largest web ad business, and a lot of web tracking technology is used for delivering ads. Any changes they try to push for in web standards will incite an angry response even if there is the appearance/possibility of any advantage to google ads. I think the correct way to deal with this is to do what people are expected to do in any conflict of interest case: recuse themselves from any and all web standard committees and orgs. If they aren't willing to do that, unfortunately they should prepare for an expansive anti-trust action.

mattxxx 6y ago

Once they remove cookies, Google will still be able to track you... they'll just restrict the ability of others. Personally, I think anonymizing the web and de-incentivizing companies from collection data is a good thing, but privacy sandbox itself is just a ploy to kill competition.

yuhong 6y ago

Worth mentioning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008_financial_crisis_on_Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008...

RedComet 6y ago

Good. But unfortunately there seems to be little chance of them ever actually being broken up. They're more powerful than the government of their host country at this point.

alanlovestea 6y ago

Mmm... Chrome won't accept 3rd party cookies to protect user's private. Meanwhile, Chrome is forcing all gmail users to upload their browse histories to Google. In the end, only Google has access to our browse history and can dominate the web ad market.

partingshots 6y ago

It’s interesting how people don’t realize Google is basically saving these advertisers from bankruptcy, and yet they’re still complaining. You realize Google could just have done what Apple is doing and completely get rid of all third party cookies with no replacement right? The privacy sandbox API is a lifeline to third party advertisers that otherwise would be completely screwed.

amf12 6y ago
Except that would lead to anti-trust rulings against Google. Google can't do this unlike Apple because it generates revenue from advertising.

j45 6y ago

We got away from flash cookies only to potentially have another option driven by one company?

concordDance 6y ago

Articles like this remind me of the fact Paul Graham noted a decade and a half ago that a substantial portion of "news" articles are written by PR firms. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

ElectricMind 6y ago

>>"Don't be evil" is a phrase used in Google's corporate code of conduct, which it also formerly preceded as a motto.<< Well well. That was typo right?. Okay Google!

villgax 6y ago

LMFAO on "ad-supported web". Keep that to your employees.

throwaway31416 6y ago

For those who want to really double click here's an interesting place to look: https://github.com/WICG/floc https://github.com/WICG/floc

jonplackett 6y ago

Why would it be so bad to just get rid of targeted advertising full stop? As a consumer, would I end up just having to watch a lot more ads? Even if that that is the case, maybe then it would force alternative business models, like some kind of distributed tips for websites you visit.

thingification 6y ago

Can somebody who has worked in this industry of user tracking/advertising please explain why this is still considered a technical issue as opposed to one about law/politics/social expectations/ideas, etc.? It seems that it is hard to technically prevent tracking because of things like browser and behavioural fingerprinting. I don't intend to suggest that technical things are completely irrelevant: I'm simplifying drastically (for example, I have faith that providing software that makes decentralisation easier, and does security better will help the problem as I see it). But from my quick scan of the proposed changes from Google, I'm curious why the trackers won't just switch tactics to the next easiest thing? Don't they already do that for people who block third party cookies in fact?

gallamine 6y ago

EFF wrote a rebuttable to the original broad proposal in 2019. It's still makes for interesting reading: "Don't Play in Google's Privacy Sandbox" https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/dont-play-googles-privacy-sandbox-1 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/dont-play-googles-priv...

ajarmst 6y ago

Their original "don't be evil" motto was always a little hypocritical, but now it represents a level of irony previously reserved for slave owners and religiously motivated genocide.

coffee-person 6y ago

As much as I want google to have competitors, I can think of no argument that disabling third-party cookies is anti-user. It is inevitable that these cookies will be blocked. I'm all for the news industry coming up with a counter-proposal but trying to keep the current, bad system is not it.

ajarmst 6y ago

Time to accelerate the purge. To be honest, all I'll really miss are GMail spam filtering and Google Scholar.

freedomben 6y ago

Is it possible that this is related to the recent Chromium sync changes? If Privacy Sandbox adds APIs for tracking/advertising, it would be trivial for a Chromium rebuild to patch them out. If a user can use google sync with Chromium, it would be easy then to escape the tracking system. If you can only use sync with Chrome proper however, it becomes much more difficult.

Ajedi32 6y ago

This effort is similar to Chrome's previous implementation of a built-in ad blocker[1]. As before, the goal isn't to completely eliminate ads or tracking, rather it's to push the advertising industry in a direction that's more acceptable to users, with the understanding that that approach is likely better for the industry (and therefore Google) long-term. In this case, Google wants to maintain the ability to target ads and detect click fraud, but eliminate server-side tracking as many users find the latter practice undesirable. Given that these changes will affect the entire advertising industry, not just Google, it's unsurprising that their competitors would claim anti-trust. They have a point; Google undeniably _is_ using their control over the Chrome browser to make changes that directly impact their competitors. Google may genuinely believe these changes are good for the industry as a whole, but that might be hard to argue in court, particularly if competitors with particularly intrusive tracking mechanisms are disproportionately impacted. This will be interesting to watch. [1]: https://blog.chromium.org/2018/02/how-chromes-ad-filtering-works.html https://blog.chromium.org/2018/02/how-chromes-ad-filtering-w...