4 ms·

Yeah Google warns you when you enable Incognito mode that it's about Chrome won't store, and specifically says website's can still track you. I think the compl

by macksd 6y ago

Yeah Google warns you when you enable Incognito mode that it's about Chrome won't store, and specifically says website's can still track you. I think the complaint is that in this case, Google wrote the code that is commonly used to do both. I think the lawyer is arguing that since Google gives the option in one product, they should honor it in the other. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about that argument, but it reminds me of the character Ned from 17 Again: "I wrote the software the prevents people from stealing music. Of course, I also wrote the software that helps people steal music..." Selling weapons to both sides and all that.

munk-a 6y ago
I think there are some strong reasons to want marketers to generally be less able to track our online activity and for fingerprinting of the style of Google Analytics or Facebook to not exist but Google is just one participant in this activity, it's particularly ironic that Google Analytics is working to actively counter the work of the Chrome team's incognito mode but I would only really be concerned if those two teams colluded to give Google Analytics a competitive advantage. I do generally think it's quite fair to view Alphabet as an unreasonably large company that needs to be subjected to anti-trust laws - there are many companies with far too broad a breadth of market control in the modern world. So maybe that's the better tactic, actually dust off our anti-trust laws and break up some of these tech giants.
numpad0 6y ago
Is act of selling weapons to both side, ethical? Is it automatically unethical, that it is considered a monopoly, that needs to be regulated, universally across industries and contexts? Or is it not?
eternalban 6y ago
> Selling weapons to both sides and all that. I wrote software that will track you on the net, not matter where or when. I also wrote the software the gives you the impression that you can do something about tracking.
ehsankia 6y ago
> since Google gives the option in one product, they should honor it in the other But it can't, because websites, in theory, aren't and shouldn't be able to detect if someone is in incognito mode. There's sometimes hacky ways, but so far Chrome has patched those as they've come up.

by macksd 6y ago

munk-a 6y ago

I think there are some strong reasons to want marketers to generally be less able to track our online activity and for fingerprinting of the style of Google Analytics or Facebook to not exist but Google is just one participant in this activity, it's particularly ironic that Google Analytics is working to actively counter the work of the Chrome team's incognito mode but I would only really be concerned if those two teams colluded to give Google Analytics a competitive advantage. I do generally think it's quite fair to view Alphabet as an unreasonably large company that needs to be subjected to anti-trust laws - there are many companies with far too broad a breadth of market control in the modern world. So maybe that's the better tactic, actually dust off our anti-trust laws and break up some of these tech giants.

numpad0 6y ago

Is act of selling weapons to both side, ethical? Is it automatically unethical, that it is considered a monopoly, that needs to be regulated, universally across industries and contexts? Or is it not?

eternalban 6y ago

> Selling weapons to both sides and all that. I wrote software that will track you on the net, not matter where or when. I also wrote the software the gives you the impression that you can do something about tracking.

ehsankia 6y ago

> since Google gives the option in one product, they should honor it in the other But it can't, because websites, in theory, aren't and shouldn't be able to detect if someone is in incognito mode. There's sometimes hacky ways, but so far Chrome has patched those as they've come up.