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Anti-fingerprinting will never be bulletproof. Legislation definitely needs to be part of the solution. More generally, though, I have to ask: do we want an ev

by jfk13 5y ago

Anti-fingerprinting will never be bulletproof. Legislation definitely needs to be part of the solution. More generally, though, I have to ask: do we want an ever-escalating arms race or a negotiated peace?

danShumway 5y ago
> do we want an ever-escalating arms race or a negotiated peace? I have yet to see an evidence that a negotiated peace is possible, and I have seen a lot of evidence that suggests to me that it is impossible. I personally would rather see hard anti-fingerprinting features in browsers, potentially combined with legislation to fill in the gaps. I have seen a lot of evidence from platforms like iOS, and from web standards like deprecating cookies, that advertisers are only willing to come to the table after they've already lost, and that they only come to the table to weaken existing standards. I have a lot of criticism of Apple, but I look at some of the changes in iOS that were made in regards to Facebook, and it's hard for me not to conclude that the best ways to tangibly improve privacy on platforms like Facebook are to just move forward without its permission. I look at adblockers the same way, there were no conversations about acceptable ads until advertisers thought it was possible that adblockers might become widespread. It's not clear to me what a negotiated peace would entail or how to get there, but it is very clear to me how to improve anti-fingerprinting measures and how to pass legislation. Yes, that means that we're in an arms race, but if we understand that advertisers are always going to advocate for more tracking, it follows that a theoretical negotiated peace would also need to be constantly renegotiated over and over again. Short of burning the industry to the ground and not having ads online, which I think is a separate conversation, I don't believe there is a stable solution to advertising and privacy. Whether it's legislation or technology or industry standards, they will always need to be defended and reinforced and renegotiated. There will always be advertisers arguing that they should be more lax. And I think that's part of why the idea of an arms race isn't that scary to me, because to me all of it is an arms race, including negotiated acceptable ad standards.
tsimionescu 5y ago
> More generally, though, I have to ask: do we want an ever-escalating arms race or a negotiated peace? That's not a choice that's being offered. There is no reason to expect advertising platforms like Google or Facebook to ever be happy with "enough tracking". If they can get more information, they will want more, regardless of any "negotiations". This has been shown pretty clearly with the DoNotTrack header (now itself a tracking element), and the GDPR cookie policies. So the only solution is war on tracking.
munk-a 5y ago
> Legislation definitely needs to be part of the solution. Yup, that's about where I'm at. Standard Oil wasn't broken up because a lot of people made extremely rational arguments about how much monopolies hurt long term economic health to Rockefeller and he just changed his mind. It was broken up because the government stepped in. Advertising is costing America an intense amount of productivity and we're going to need regulations and constraints to help restrict it (vermont has greatly benefited from said billboard restrictions)
- jefftk 5y ago
  > Advertising is costing America an intense amount of productivity How so?
  - munk-a 5y ago
    It is devaluing our services causing them to be less competitive and decreasing worker productivity by lowering the enjoyment of leisure activities leading to higher stress and increasing tool friction. If you want numbers - I don't have them... but the effects on our mental health are pretty clear.
shrimp_emoji 5y ago
One thing to consider is that, in arms race-terms, the consumer wins. See DRM/piracy, see Tor, see Linux, etc. For a sufficiently-determined consumer, there's always a way. The only things running against that grain are the odd bills like the EARN IT act, which seldom pass due to public uproar.

by jfk13 5y ago

danShumway 5y ago

> do we want an ever-escalating arms race or a negotiated peace? I have yet to see an evidence that a negotiated peace is possible, and I have seen a lot of evidence that suggests to me that it is impossible. I personally would rather see hard anti-fingerprinting features in browsers, potentially combined with legislation to fill in the gaps. I have seen a lot of evidence from platforms like iOS, and from web standards like deprecating cookies, that advertisers are only willing to come to the table after they've already lost, and that they only come to the table to weaken existing standards. I have a lot of criticism of Apple, but I look at some of the changes in iOS that were made in regards to Facebook, and it's hard for me not to conclude that the best ways to tangibly improve privacy on platforms like Facebook are to just move forward without its permission. I look at adblockers the same way, there were no conversations about acceptable ads until advertisers thought it was possible that adblockers might become widespread. It's not clear to me what a negotiated peace would entail or how to get there, but it is very clear to me how to improve anti-fingerprinting measures and how to pass legislation. Yes, that means that we're in an arms race, but if we understand that advertisers are always going to advocate for more tracking, it follows that a theoretical negotiated peace would also need to be constantly renegotiated over and over again. Short of burning the industry to the ground and not having ads online, which I think is a separate conversation, I don't believe there is a stable solution to advertising and privacy. Whether it's legislation or technology or industry standards, they will always need to be defended and reinforced and renegotiated. There will always be advertisers arguing that they should be more lax. And I think that's part of why the idea of an arms race isn't that scary to me, because to me all of it is an arms race, including negotiated acceptable ad standards.

tsimionescu 5y ago

> More generally, though, I have to ask: do we want an ever-escalating arms race or a negotiated peace? That's not a choice that's being offered. There is no reason to expect advertising platforms like Google or Facebook to ever be happy with "enough tracking". If they can get more information, they will want more, regardless of any "negotiations". This has been shown pretty clearly with the DoNotTrack header (now itself a tracking element), and the GDPR cookie policies. So the only solution is war on tracking.

munk-a 5y ago

> Legislation definitely needs to be part of the solution. Yup, that's about where I'm at. Standard Oil wasn't broken up because a lot of people made extremely rational arguments about how much monopolies hurt long term economic health to Rockefeller and he just changed his mind. It was broken up because the government stepped in. Advertising is costing America an intense amount of productivity and we're going to need regulations and constraints to help restrict it (vermont has greatly benefited from said billboard restrictions)

jefftk 5y ago
> Advertising is costing America an intense amount of productivity How so?
- munk-a 5y ago
  It is devaluing our services causing them to be less competitive and decreasing worker productivity by lowering the enjoyment of leisure activities leading to higher stress and increasing tool friction. If you want numbers - I don't have them... but the effects on our mental health are pretty clear.

shrimp_emoji 5y ago

One thing to consider is that, in arms race-terms, the consumer wins. See DRM/piracy, see Tor, see Linux, etc. For a sufficiently-determined consumer, there's always a way. The only things running against that grain are the odd bills like the EARN IT act, which seldom pass due to public uproar.