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> The proof to me comes in the quest for alternatives. Find anything else pro-user being suggested. Find ANYTHING. There's nothing. It's barren. Every major br

> The proof to me comes in the quest for alternatives. Find anything else pro-user being suggested. Find ANYTHING. There's nothing. It's barren. Every major browser other than Google is taking proactive steps to limit cookies right now. Firefox very recently announced better cookie deletion for sites; they'll now try to delete cookies from other domains that are linked to those sites. This is going to get progressively better and better. But the sentiment here is exactly what Google promotes. It begs the question over whether or not we need to compromise with content-holders on privacy. We don't, no browser other than Chrome views user tracking as a necessary compromise with advertisers. There was a point in the past where we might honestly worry about whether it was feasible to block 3rd-party cookies, but since then multiple efforts and improvements from Mozilla and Safari have made it clear that browser manufactures don't have to get advertisers' permission to push code. Google is refusing to proactively move forward with steps that everyone else has agreed are necessary, because Google is mad that we're not thinking enough about their business interests. We have a good path forward, Google is blocking it for a large number of users, and then Google is complaining "why is no one else except us coming up with solutions?" But we have come up with solutions, they're just not solutions that Google likes. The caution from Chrome about cookies is really interesting. Chrome broke web audio, alerts, the dev team is regularly openly hostile to suggestions that the consensus process moves too quickly. They tried tried to deprecate the url for crying out loud, but now they want to be all cautious about cookies? Sure. > There is a huge astroturfed war going on. Agreed, but not in the direction that you're suggesting. The general public wants better privacy, they don't care about whether or not it makes advertisers happy. Nontechnical users are often misinformed about tracking and they often lack technical skills or willpower to increase their privacy on their own. But that doesn't mean the public doesn't care about privacy, ordinary users do support the figerprinting protections Apple is building into iOS, they support the privacy changes Mozilla is building into Firefox. Most ordinary people are on the side of privacy in this debate. Advertisers are desperate to argue that users are being harmed or that moving forward without an alternative tracking system is impossible, when the reality is that even the nontechnical public has turned out to have overwhelmingly positive feelings towards on-by-default technical measures to reduce tracking. The astroturfing here is the FUD coming out of companies claiming that we need (for either moral, technical, or PR reasons) to compromise with advertisers before we can move forward removing 3rd-party cookies. It's really only Google who is lagging on this stuff. If they want the least private browser on the market, then they can have it. I don't think we need to hold back everyone else while we wait for Google to make up their mind about this.

jsnell 5y ago
Google is being told by a major regulatory authority to not restrict third-party cookies in Chrome without a replacement mechanism approved by said regulator. They literally do not have the option of doing any of what you said they should do.
- danShumway 5y ago
  It is legitimately a problem that the UK is pressuring Google over this, but that does not necessarily mean that Google doesn't have the option to toggle settings about cookies in other markets. This is exactly how the rollout of DoH has worked, different regions have had rollouts at different rates, particularly in regions where legislators are concerned about market effects. If the UK moves to block that too, then maybe then we have a more serious problem. But Google should be trying to roll out these protections in areas where it can. It also doesn't mean that the UK is opposed to restricting 3rd-party cookies. The UK is worried about Google privileging their own ads. That's not the same thing as demanding a compromise with advertisers to enable cross-site tracking before cookies are removed, it's a requirement that Google not use the removal of 3rd-party cookies to give themselves outsized control over the advertising ecosystem.
  - jsnell 5y ago
    Your last claim is highly misleading. The position of the CMA is that other advertisers need 3p cookies but Google doesn't. So it's just not true that they would have been fine with a straight out removal of 3p cookies with no replacement mechanism. They will demand there to be some mechanism that gives small ad tech companies more data than FLOC did. As for the first point, do you have a region in mind where the regulatory authorities have greenlit this? Certainly not anywhere in the EU, given they launched a pre-emptive probe into the plans before anything was launched. Or in the US, where the unlaunched plans are included in the antitrust complaint being driven by the states. Look, there's a lot of complaints one can direct at Google. But this isn't one of those things. Given the amount of scrutiny how could they possibly unilaterally launch anything related to this, beyond tiny experiments?

jsnell 5y ago

Google is being told by a major regulatory authority to not restrict third-party cookies in Chrome without a replacement mechanism approved by said regulator. They literally do not have the option of doing any of what you said they should do.

danShumway 5y ago
It is legitimately a problem that the UK is pressuring Google over this, but that does not necessarily mean that Google doesn't have the option to toggle settings about cookies in other markets. This is exactly how the rollout of DoH has worked, different regions have had rollouts at different rates, particularly in regions where legislators are concerned about market effects. If the UK moves to block that too, then maybe then we have a more serious problem. But Google should be trying to roll out these protections in areas where it can. It also doesn't mean that the UK is opposed to restricting 3rd-party cookies. The UK is worried about Google privileging their own ads. That's not the same thing as demanding a compromise with advertisers to enable cross-site tracking before cookies are removed, it's a requirement that Google not use the removal of 3rd-party cookies to give themselves outsized control over the advertising ecosystem.
- jsnell 5y ago
  Your last claim is highly misleading. The position of the CMA is that other advertisers need 3p cookies but Google doesn't. So it's just not true that they would have been fine with a straight out removal of 3p cookies with no replacement mechanism. They will demand there to be some mechanism that gives small ad tech companies more data than FLOC did. As for the first point, do you have a region in mind where the regulatory authorities have greenlit this? Certainly not anywhere in the EU, given they launched a pre-emptive probe into the plans before anything was launched. Or in the US, where the unlaunched plans are included in the antitrust complaint being driven by the states. Look, there's a lot of complaints one can direct at Google. But this isn't one of those things. Given the amount of scrutiny how could they possibly unilaterally launch anything related to this, beyond tiny experiments?