5 ms·

The blog post mentions: > This update meant we needed to re-engineer the way cookies work on Google sites, and to make deep, coordinated changes to critical Go

The blog post mentions: > This update meant we needed to re-engineer the way cookies work on Google sites, and to make deep, coordinated changes to critical Google infrastructure.

hef19898 4y ago
That's acknowledgment of the fact that trampling people's privacy is Google's business model.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  Google has a very strong interest in developing tracking techniques that do not require cookies, so they can appear to be on the side of the public with respect to privacy, while also securing a competitive advantage for tracking in a post-cookie world.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    The good thing about the GDPR is that it's about the act of tracking and collecting data as opposed to focusing on specific technical means, so moving away from cookies won't allow you to work around the law.
wereHamster 4y ago
No they didn't have to. Rejecting all cookies was possible before, it was just hidden behind convoluted and confusing menus. To make this functionality available with a single click of a button they didn't have to invent any new technology or process or backend service. Just move the onClick handler to a different HTML element on a different page.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  And everyone could build Twitter in a weekend. Google cookies do not work that way. Ironically, one of the challenges is that some of them are firewalled from each other so that it's harder to aggregate a holistic picture of a user in one location. You know, for privacy reasons. And not even moving an onClick handler is trivial given the layers of abstraction that Google's UIs are built on top of.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    Submitting a form with toggle controls set to the off position is not “building Twitter”. The only reason this would take 3 months rather than a few days is if: A) they were lying before in the old cookie popup B) they are dragging their feet out of spite Not sure which is worse honestly.
    - Groxx 4y ago
      There is also room for C) they had millions of crappy partial copies of the same pop-up, much of which had to be fixed by hand
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        It's D) The hard part is the backend data storage, not the frontend. People's intuition of how user data storage and retrieval works at Google scale doesn't align with the reality. Cost of storage (immediate and secondary), effect on creation of new permissions, privacy protection, user security (can this new option somehow be used to leak userdata or trick users into doing something they didn't want to do?), and (if they're only rolling this out in Europe) region gating all have to be accounted for.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      > Submitting a form with toggle controls set to the off position is not “building Twitter”. That's also not what "reject all" does.
      - account42 4y ago
        It should be effectively the same, otherwise A) they were lying before in the old cookie popup
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        Not at all. The previous pop-up gave you the opportunity to switch off every item individually. What do you think would happen if new items were added? The new button sets a new default that affects new options for data collection. And yes, adding one new field that affects user configuration across all Google properties (or even two major Google properties, such as the main site and YouTube) is a one-quarter project. Privacy review, legal review, data storage assessment to make sure an additional Boolean isn't going to blow a limit somewhere, thinking through all permutations of options users could already have set to make sure that this new feature doesn't break existing user configurations... Hell, they probably had to do analysis to make sure that you couldn't uniquely identify users based on the setting because of how many / how few people would click reject all. And did they roll it out everywhere or just in europe? Europe only requires additional work. It's a big corporation, extrapolating how it works from small corporations leads to inaccurate conclusions.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  I have seen websites were you have to go through a list of 20 fucking companies that want to put a cookie in your browser. Honestly I'm at the point where I just give up. Whomever gets to infiltrate beyond Firefox tracking protection and ublock: congratulations.
  - CyanBird 4y ago
    Get noscript Yes, you will need to white list many websites, yes, you will also become appealed at the sheer amount of cookie requests you receive and thank God that you have installed noscript every day
    - account42 4y ago
      uMatrix is/was even better - fine grained website x technology control with an intuitive interface.

The blog post mentions: > This update meant we needed to re-engineer the way cookies work on Google sites, and to make deep, coordinated changes to critical Google infrastructure.

hef19898 4y ago

That's acknowledgment of the fact that trampling people's privacy is Google's business model.

nerdponx 4y ago
Google has a very strong interest in developing tracking techniques that do not require cookies, so they can appear to be on the side of the public with respect to privacy, while also securing a competitive advantage for tracking in a post-cookie world.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  The good thing about the GDPR is that it's about the act of tracking and collecting data as opposed to focusing on specific technical means, so moving away from cookies won't allow you to work around the law.

wereHamster 4y ago

No they didn't have to. Rejecting all cookies was possible before, it was just hidden behind convoluted and confusing menus. To make this functionality available with a single click of a button they didn't have to invent any new technology or process or backend service. Just move the onClick handler to a different HTML element on a different page.

shadowgovt 4y ago
And everyone could build Twitter in a weekend. Google cookies do not work that way. Ironically, one of the challenges is that some of them are firewalled from each other so that it's harder to aggregate a holistic picture of a user in one location. You know, for privacy reasons. And not even moving an onClick handler is trivial given the layers of abstraction that Google's UIs are built on top of.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  Submitting a form with toggle controls set to the off position is not “building Twitter”. The only reason this would take 3 months rather than a few days is if: A) they were lying before in the old cookie popup B) they are dragging their feet out of spite Not sure which is worse honestly.
  - Groxx 4y ago
    There is also room for C) they had millions of crappy partial copies of the same pop-up, much of which had to be fixed by hand
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      It's D) The hard part is the backend data storage, not the frontend. People's intuition of how user data storage and retrieval works at Google scale doesn't align with the reality. Cost of storage (immediate and secondary), effect on creation of new permissions, privacy protection, user security (can this new option somehow be used to leak userdata or trick users into doing something they didn't want to do?), and (if they're only rolling this out in Europe) region gating all have to be accounted for.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    > Submitting a form with toggle controls set to the off position is not “building Twitter”. That's also not what "reject all" does.
    - account42 4y ago
      It should be effectively the same, otherwise A) they were lying before in the old cookie popup
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        Not at all. The previous pop-up gave you the opportunity to switch off every item individually. What do you think would happen if new items were added? The new button sets a new default that affects new options for data collection. And yes, adding one new field that affects user configuration across all Google properties (or even two major Google properties, such as the main site and YouTube) is a one-quarter project. Privacy review, legal review, data storage assessment to make sure an additional Boolean isn't going to blow a limit somewhere, thinking through all permutations of options users could already have set to make sure that this new feature doesn't break existing user configurations... Hell, they probably had to do analysis to make sure that you couldn't uniquely identify users based on the setting because of how many / how few people would click reject all. And did they roll it out everywhere or just in europe? Europe only requires additional work. It's a big corporation, extrapolating how it works from small corporations leads to inaccurate conclusions.
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
I have seen websites were you have to go through a list of 20 fucking companies that want to put a cookie in your browser. Honestly I'm at the point where I just give up. Whomever gets to infiltrate beyond Firefox tracking protection and ublock: congratulations.
- CyanBird 4y ago
  Get noscript Yes, you will need to white list many websites, yes, you will also become appealed at the sheer amount of cookie requests you receive and thank God that you have installed noscript every day
  - account42 4y ago
    uMatrix is/was even better - fine grained website x technology control with an intuitive interface.