4 ms·

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. T

by 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?
  - danShumway 5y ago
    > how could they possibly unilaterally launch anything related to this, beyond tiny experiments? My suggestion is literally that they not unilaterally launch this across every region. > The position of the CMA is that other advertisers need 3p cookies but Google doesn't. [...] They will demand there to be some mechanism that gives small ad tech companies more data than FLOC did. I disagree with your connection of those two points. Google's job is to convince regulators that the removal of 3rd-party cookies won't advantage them. There are multiple ways they could attack that problem, including limiting the amount of data they collect. The UK's position is not that it is fundamentally important for advertisers to track users, the UK's position is that is important that there not be one advertiser who can track users. It's particularly galling for Google to ignore this, because it assumes that of course Google can't possibly collect less information about its users or use less information in ad targeting, so the only solution is to make sure everyone else has the same amount of information as Google. But that's a false premise in my mind. I'm not advocating to remove 3rd-party cookies because I want Google to be the only entity that can target me; I would be perfectly happy if Google removed 3rd-party cookies and committed to tracking me less to reduce its dominance in the market. In fact, I would argue that it would be better if Google went down that route. I don't trust Google any more than I trust any other 3rd-party advertiser; it's just as problematic for Google to be collecting this kind of invasive data. The assumption that Google's business model or data collection can't possibly change, and therefore we can't make any privacy improvements for anyone else... I just really strongly disagree with that idea. This is also true in the US. There are some probes happening in the US that cite cookie removal as a possible anti-competitive indicator. Notably, there are other policies and actions that these probes cite that Google has not scrambled to avoid in the same way as it has for cookies. But whatever -- even in the US, regulators are not saying that advertisers need this information, they are saying it's unacceptable for Google to have this large of a disparity with other competitors.

by jsnell 5y ago

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?
- danShumway 5y ago
  > how could they possibly unilaterally launch anything related to this, beyond tiny experiments? My suggestion is literally that they not unilaterally launch this across every region. > The position of the CMA is that other advertisers need 3p cookies but Google doesn't. [...] They will demand there to be some mechanism that gives small ad tech companies more data than FLOC did. I disagree with your connection of those two points. Google's job is to convince regulators that the removal of 3rd-party cookies won't advantage them. There are multiple ways they could attack that problem, including limiting the amount of data they collect. The UK's position is not that it is fundamentally important for advertisers to track users, the UK's position is that is important that there not be one advertiser who can track users. It's particularly galling for Google to ignore this, because it assumes that of course Google can't possibly collect less information about its users or use less information in ad targeting, so the only solution is to make sure everyone else has the same amount of information as Google. But that's a false premise in my mind. I'm not advocating to remove 3rd-party cookies because I want Google to be the only entity that can target me; I would be perfectly happy if Google removed 3rd-party cookies and committed to tracking me less to reduce its dominance in the market. In fact, I would argue that it would be better if Google went down that route. I don't trust Google any more than I trust any other 3rd-party advertiser; it's just as problematic for Google to be collecting this kind of invasive data. The assumption that Google's business model or data collection can't possibly change, and therefore we can't make any privacy improvements for anyone else... I just really strongly disagree with that idea. This is also true in the US. There are some probes happening in the US that cite cookie removal as a possible anti-competitive indicator. Notably, there are other policies and actions that these probes cite that Google has not scrambled to avoid in the same way as it has for cookies. But whatever -- even in the US, regulators are not saying that advertisers need this information, they are saying it's unacceptable for Google to have this large of a disparity with other competitors.