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You present a false dichotomy. "Google's Privacy Sandbox" versus Third Party Cookies, as if those are the only alternatives. Now you are following along with an

You present a false dichotomy. "Google's Privacy Sandbox" versus Third Party Cookies, as if those are the only alternatives. Now you are following along with another false dichotomy! > This is HN, and we want the web advertising industry to go away. Here's a crazy idea. We don't need either Google's monopoly preserving Privacy "Sandbox" or third party cookies... and we don't need to do away with web advertising. We're not in a black and white world. Google can advertise on their home page and make money without all the crazy tracking bullshit. We know they can, because that's how they funded all the bullshit tracking.

smichel17 6y ago
I'll add a third option: neither! Seriously, I've had 3rd party cookies disabled four years and almost nothing breaks. The last time I remember needing to enable them was some online homework system that came with a math textbook.
- ma2rten 6y ago
  I feel like there are some misunderstandings in this thread. Let me summarize my understanding: Safari has effectively disabled third party cookies. Nothing broke. Chrome has announced that they will do the same in 2022. However, unlike Apple, Google doesn't want to cannibalize the ad industry so they decided to introduce this Privacy Sandbox which allows targeted advertising without sending a personal identifier to the server. The article that we are discussing is saying that this Privacy Sandbox will favor Google Ads. The top comment said that this article is likely astroturfing. It written by people affiliated with other ad networks, whose goal is to water down the Privacy Sandbox proposal so that it enables more tracking. Some people have said that they don't trust Google to implement Privacy Sandbox in a privacy friendly way, so it shouldn't exist at all. But that was never really on the table.
  - deadmutex 6y ago
    Thanks for the tl;dr. Should be top comment IMO, lol.
  - svieira 6y ago
    Actually, some things _did_ break and required wonky work-arounds (redirect through three top-level domains to set cookies so you can show the user a page composed from three different systems embedded widgets) and at some point we'll have to make it work better. But while Apple and company are aware of this use case they don't have a solution that can't be _also_ used by ad companies as well as integrators ... so it gets harder to integrate on the front end, unless you trust all the things being integrated implicitly (which you don't)
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > But that was never really on the table. I don't think there is a misunderstanding at all. Fundamentally, Google—A company which has a history of over-reaching and lying about it—is implementing a solution which allows them to continue doing what Google does as best it can given the current atmosphere. They could do what the other browser makers have done and just eliminate 3rd party cookies. They could make this feature opt in. The fact that people seem determined to assert Google must have this feature and we are all somehow better for it is absurd. Edit: In retrospect there does seem to be a fundamental mis-understanding of sorts. If you fundamentally trust Google, I suppose this whole thing looks different with rose colored lenses on.

smichel17 6y ago

I'll add a third option: neither! Seriously, I've had 3rd party cookies disabled four years and almost nothing breaks. The last time I remember needing to enable them was some online homework system that came with a math textbook.

ma2rten 6y ago
I feel like there are some misunderstandings in this thread. Let me summarize my understanding: Safari has effectively disabled third party cookies. Nothing broke. Chrome has announced that they will do the same in 2022. However, unlike Apple, Google doesn't want to cannibalize the ad industry so they decided to introduce this Privacy Sandbox which allows targeted advertising without sending a personal identifier to the server. The article that we are discussing is saying that this Privacy Sandbox will favor Google Ads. The top comment said that this article is likely astroturfing. It written by people affiliated with other ad networks, whose goal is to water down the Privacy Sandbox proposal so that it enables more tracking. Some people have said that they don't trust Google to implement Privacy Sandbox in a privacy friendly way, so it shouldn't exist at all. But that was never really on the table.
- deadmutex 6y ago
  Thanks for the tl;dr. Should be top comment IMO, lol.
- svieira 6y ago
  Actually, some things _did_ break and required wonky work-arounds (redirect through three top-level domains to set cookies so you can show the user a page composed from three different systems embedded widgets) and at some point we'll have to make it work better. But while Apple and company are aware of this use case they don't have a solution that can't be _also_ used by ad companies as well as integrators ... so it gets harder to integrate on the front end, unless you trust all the things being integrated implicitly (which you don't)
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > But that was never really on the table. I don't think there is a misunderstanding at all. Fundamentally, Google—A company which has a history of over-reaching and lying about it—is implementing a solution which allows them to continue doing what Google does as best it can given the current atmosphere. They could do what the other browser makers have done and just eliminate 3rd party cookies. They could make this feature opt in. The fact that people seem determined to assert Google must have this feature and we are all somehow better for it is absurd. Edit: In retrospect there does seem to be a fundamental mis-understanding of sorts. If you fundamentally trust Google, I suppose this whole thing looks different with rose colored lenses on.