4 ms·

> Just open youtube.com in a private window and you'll understand Eh it doesn't work like that. Youtube is actually very good at reliably determining it's you

> Just open youtube.com in a private window and you'll understand Eh it doesn't work like that. Youtube is actually very good at reliably determining it's you who's in that private window and Youtube is even known to track you with WebGL fingerprinting tactics to determine it's the same device. Doing things like spoofing your IP and useragent and using private mode browsing doesn't work. (I still get recommendations in incognito windows for videos I recently played no matter how much I tweak Firefox and mess with the browser to defeat tracking!) Edit: Since Youtube fingerprints your device with WebGL[0], it builds a shadow profile tied to that device, so that even in incognito/private sessions, you will get recommended videos that you recently watched, despite the anecdotal claims of others that they don't encounter this. The only way to defeat that is to use an entirely separate device on a separate network that has a different fingerprint. [0] https://jonatron.github.io/webgl-fingerprinting/ https://jonatron.github.io/webgl-fingerprinting/

Hnaomyiph 5y ago
I find that strange, I use Firefox as well, along with containers, ublock origin, and privacy badger (if those might make a difference) but my private browsing YouTube looks nothing like my non-private browsing youtube
- ravenstine 5y ago
  Same. I've got uBlock and the whole kit and kaboodle and my private window YouTube experience is nothing like my signed in one in any way. If I knew it was about my add-ons I would have rephrased it, but it's too late. My point still stands. If someone went to YouTube having never seen it before and they created an account, what they are introduced to is half mainstream drivel and half animal videos, reactions, viral videos, etc. Unless you are already interested in intellectual content, I doubt that most people are ever exposed to content that's... more meaningful. I'm not saying average Joe and Jane should be watching Lex Fridman, but it they at least knew that these kinds of conversations were taking place on social media then their perspective of the world might be different.
hhh 5y ago
In incognito, I get nothing similar to what I would actually watch. Nothing is even remotely similar. It's scarily different, and none of it interests me.
- unicornporn 5y ago
  > In incognito, I get nothing similar to what I would actually watch. Nothing is even remotely similar. It's scarily different, and none of it interests me. Same here. 100% generic clickbait crap and exactly the same stuff that shows in a Ungoogled Chromium incognito window. I hardly ever use Chromium. I use Cookie AutoDelete, uBlock Origin, Decentraleyes and a VPN for casual surfing though.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Watch a single video that's even remotely related to the topics you watched before and your entire suggestion history will be back (even those unrelated to the single video you watched). When they see a new profile they are basically testing the waters. They suspect it's you, but leave the benefit of the doubt in case it's a legitimately new user. But just giving them a few "fuzzy" data points like watching a video or two will give them enough confidence to fully link your previous activity to the new session despite never providing any concrete evidence such as logging in with the same account.
  - Anon1096 5y ago
    This is conspiracy-tier thinking. It's far more likely that once you click one video you like, other videos you like appear because they are topically similar or the target demographics are the same.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      1) I've noticed this behavior and at the time some of the videos I watched on my main profile had nothing to do with my normal watching patterns (and were completely unrelated topic-wise) and yet after watching a single video fitting my regular patterns on a new profile I ended up getting suggestions for the "outlier" videos despite it being very unlikely that there are enough people out there watching both that and the outlier videos for it to be suggested "organically". 2) This is what I would do if I had no morals, and the people working for Google are smarter and are paid way more money than me, and Google itself has an incentive to stalk people across different sessions, so if I can think of this and implement it then so can they and you'd be foolish to believe they wouldn't do it. You'd think this is conspiracy-level thinking (and I would've agreed with you 10 years ago), but so far, when it comes to online tracking, everything that's been considered a far-fetched conspiracy in the past ended up being true, so better safe than sorry? Given the money at stake in adtech and lack of morals and respect for the law (Google still ignores the GDPR), if it's technically possible, you should assume someone's doing it.
alpaca128 5y ago
> Youtube is actually very good at reliably determining it's you who's in that private window Maybe, but it respects the "private" mode far enough to create a separate profile for that. Browsing in private windows is like starting with a fresh account, and over time it'll adapt to the videos there provided you don't switch the device/reinstall the OS etc. (the latter is the reason I know that...I did a lot of distro-hopping for a while)
- ______- 5y ago
  I'm referring to this when I talk about WebGL fingerprinting: https://jonatron.github.io/webgl-fingerprinting/ https://jonatron.github.io/webgl-fingerprinting/ Since Youtube fingerprints your device, it builds a shadow profile tied to that device, so that even in incognito/private sessions, you will get recommended videos that you recently watched, despite the anecdotal claims of others that they don't encounter this. The only way to defeat that is to use an entirely separate device on a separate network that has a different fingerprint.
  - lupire 5y ago
    Why do you think this is true? What would the point of these half-baked personalization instead of regular personalization? Why would YouTube work so hard to personalize content for people who are explicitly opting out of personalization? Who even benefits?
andmichael 5y ago
On non-incognito I get a page full of 6 second twitch clips. On incognito I get a page full of 6 second soccer clips and Turkish music videos (I live in a partly Turkish-speaking country, in my whole life I have never clicked on a single Turkish video) Fingerprinting is used almost exclusively for anti-spam/anti-fraud. If a company wanted to use it for anything else they'd have to deal with a whole bunch of legal and pr trouble for relatively little gain. While you will be able to see WebGL Fingerprinting in the javascript of most every large website, if you scan for it dynamically you will often find it's only ran on a failed login attempt, for example. (Granted, I haven't scanned youtube in a while)
- ______- 5y ago
  Since Youtube fingerprints your device with WebGL[0], it builds a shadow profile tied to that device, so that even in incognito/private sessions, you will get recommended videos that you recently watched, despite the anecdotal claims of others that they don't encounter this. The only way to defeat that is to use an entirely separate device on a separate network that has a different fingerprint. [0] https://jonatron.github.io/webgl-fingerprinting/ https://jonatron.github.io/webgl-fingerprinting/
  - andmichael 5y ago
    https://imgur.com/a/07XSabz https://imgur.com/a/07XSabz An experiment by me, I went into incognito mode and none of the recommended was what I usually get. I then fully watched a video that was recommended to me on my main account, and even after that, youtube failed to recognize me, instead, it only proceeded to recommend videos specifically in the category of the one video I had watched.

Hnaomyiph 5y ago

I find that strange, I use Firefox as well, along with containers, ublock origin, and privacy badger (if those might make a difference) but my private browsing YouTube looks nothing like my non-private browsing youtube

ravenstine 5y ago
Same. I've got uBlock and the whole kit and kaboodle and my private window YouTube experience is nothing like my signed in one in any way. If I knew it was about my add-ons I would have rephrased it, but it's too late. My point still stands. If someone went to YouTube having never seen it before and they created an account, what they are introduced to is half mainstream drivel and half animal videos, reactions, viral videos, etc. Unless you are already interested in intellectual content, I doubt that most people are ever exposed to content that's... more meaningful. I'm not saying average Joe and Jane should be watching Lex Fridman, but it they at least knew that these kinds of conversations were taking place on social media then their perspective of the world might be different.

hhh 5y ago

In incognito, I get nothing similar to what I would actually watch. Nothing is even remotely similar. It's scarily different, and none of it interests me.

unicornporn 5y ago
> In incognito, I get nothing similar to what I would actually watch. Nothing is even remotely similar. It's scarily different, and none of it interests me. Same here. 100% generic clickbait crap and exactly the same stuff that shows in a Ungoogled Chromium incognito window. I hardly ever use Chromium. I use Cookie AutoDelete, uBlock Origin, Decentraleyes and a VPN for casual surfing though.
Nextgrid 5y ago
Watch a single video that's even remotely related to the topics you watched before and your entire suggestion history will be back (even those unrelated to the single video you watched). When they see a new profile they are basically testing the waters. They suspect it's you, but leave the benefit of the doubt in case it's a legitimately new user. But just giving them a few "fuzzy" data points like watching a video or two will give them enough confidence to fully link your previous activity to the new session despite never providing any concrete evidence such as logging in with the same account.
- Anon1096 5y ago
  This is conspiracy-tier thinking. It's far more likely that once you click one video you like, other videos you like appear because they are topically similar or the target demographics are the same.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    1) I've noticed this behavior and at the time some of the videos I watched on my main profile had nothing to do with my normal watching patterns (and were completely unrelated topic-wise) and yet after watching a single video fitting my regular patterns on a new profile I ended up getting suggestions for the "outlier" videos despite it being very unlikely that there are enough people out there watching both that and the outlier videos for it to be suggested "organically". 2) This is what I would do if I had no morals, and the people working for Google are smarter and are paid way more money than me, and Google itself has an incentive to stalk people across different sessions, so if I can think of this and implement it then so can they and you'd be foolish to believe they wouldn't do it. You'd think this is conspiracy-level thinking (and I would've agreed with you 10 years ago), but so far, when it comes to online tracking, everything that's been considered a far-fetched conspiracy in the past ended up being true, so better safe than sorry? Given the money at stake in adtech and lack of morals and respect for the law (Google still ignores the GDPR), if it's technically possible, you should assume someone's doing it.

alpaca128 5y ago

> Youtube is actually very good at reliably determining it's you who's in that private window Maybe, but it respects the "private" mode far enough to create a separate profile for that. Browsing in private windows is like starting with a fresh account, and over time it'll adapt to the videos there provided you don't switch the device/reinstall the OS etc. (the latter is the reason I know that...I did a lot of distro-hopping for a while)

______- 5y ago
I'm referring to this when I talk about WebGL fingerprinting: https://jonatron.github.io/webgl-fingerprinting/ https://jonatron.github.io/webgl-fingerprinting/ Since Youtube fingerprints your device, it builds a shadow profile tied to that device, so that even in incognito/private sessions, you will get recommended videos that you recently watched, despite the anecdotal claims of others that they don't encounter this. The only way to defeat that is to use an entirely separate device on a separate network that has a different fingerprint.
- lupire 5y ago
  Why do you think this is true? What would the point of these half-baked personalization instead of regular personalization? Why would YouTube work so hard to personalize content for people who are explicitly opting out of personalization? Who even benefits?

andmichael 5y ago

On non-incognito I get a page full of 6 second twitch clips. On incognito I get a page full of 6 second soccer clips and Turkish music videos (I live in a partly Turkish-speaking country, in my whole life I have never clicked on a single Turkish video) Fingerprinting is used almost exclusively for anti-spam/anti-fraud. If a company wanted to use it for anything else they'd have to deal with a whole bunch of legal and pr trouble for relatively little gain. While you will be able to see WebGL Fingerprinting in the javascript of most every large website, if you scan for it dynamically you will often find it's only ran on a failed login attempt, for example. (Granted, I haven't scanned youtube in a while)

______- 5y ago
Since Youtube fingerprints your device with WebGL[0], it builds a shadow profile tied to that device, so that even in incognito/private sessions, you will get recommended videos that you recently watched, despite the anecdotal claims of others that they don't encounter this. The only way to defeat that is to use an entirely separate device on a separate network that has a different fingerprint. [0] https://jonatron.github.io/webgl-fingerprinting/ https://jonatron.github.io/webgl-fingerprinting/
- andmichael 5y ago
  https://imgur.com/a/07XSabz https://imgur.com/a/07XSabz An experiment by me, I went into incognito mode and none of the recommended was what I usually get. I then fully watched a video that was recommended to me on my main account, and even after that, youtube failed to recognize me, instead, it only proceeded to recommend videos specifically in the category of the one video I had watched.