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Honest question, why is the privacy sandbox user hostile? I assume it's because Google is using it to collect your information but blocking everyone else from c

Honest question, why is the privacy sandbox user hostile? I assume it's because Google is using it to collect your information but blocking everyone else from collecting it?

simplotek 3y ago
> Honest question, why is the privacy sandbox user hostile? From the horse's mouth, "privacy sandbox" is explicitly designed "to build thriving digital businesses." https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/ https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/ At face value they claim it's designed to eliminate tracking techniques like fingerprinting, it's actually a system explicitly designed to collect the users' private information. From the horse's mouth. "To provide this free resource without relying on intrusive tracking, publishers and developers need privacy-preserving alternatives for their key business needs, including serving relevant content and ads."
- edoceo 3y ago
  So, it's tracking just not intrusive tracking?
  - simplotek 3y ago
    It sounds like it's plain old tracking, but pushed and owned by Google through it's control over Chrome.
    - thewataccount 3y ago
      No it's objectively less intrusive. The proposals involve reducing UA data, ip tracking, etc. But still allows for some amount of targeting. From my understanding instead of you being an identifiable individual via fingerprinting, the aim is to make you "probably one in [large group] of technology people". I'm not saying I think it's a good thing, but on the surface it does appear _better_.
      - codedokode 3y ago
        Does Privacy sandbox prevent fingerprinting completely (for example, canvas fingerprinting, WebGL fingerprinting, audio fingerprinting)? Or the advertisers would be able to use both fingerprinting and newly provided data? I don't understand why we need to trade here. Just block figerprinting and do not provide any alternatives for advertisers. This is the best for users.
        None4U 3y ago
        We "need to trade here" because Google is an adtech business
        Paul-Craft 3y ago
        "Just block fingerprinting" is also not trivial to do while providing a good user experience.
        codedokode 3y ago
        Put WebGL, enumerating installed fonts, web audio, etc. behind a permission. In rare cases when they are really needed not for fingerprinting, the user will grant a permission and nothing gets broken.
        efreak 3y ago
        Have you been around for the past 10-15 years of Android? Manual permissions don't solve the problem. People will just say why yes, I do indeed want to read this clickbait article/use this flashlight app, go ahead and give the server my GPS location so it can follow me around. The only reason you don't get much of this anymore is the limits the app stores enforce these days.
        SquareWheel 3y ago
        You can't block fingerprinting completely without breaking a ton of useful features. But the sandbox has a concept called the privacy budget which tries to determine if a site is collecting too much information. It should allow sites that actually use some of these features to continue to work. The idea is that if sites that query fonts, engage canvas, read the user agent information, etc, they are likely trying to build a fingerprint, so the browser will start to return generic data. Presumably - hopefully - it would allow users to set their own privacy budgets. Even better if it supports granular per-site control, which may be needed for certain specialized websites. https://github.com/mikewest/privacy-budget https://github.com/mikewest/privacy-budget
- nr2x 3y ago
  That’s literally written by a PR team, see the quote I pasted from the w3c decision.
cptskippy 3y ago
> I assume it's because Google is using it to collect your information but blocking everyone else from collecting it? It isn't so much a privacy sandbox, it's an anti competition sandbox. Google is designing standards and practices under the auspices of user privacy but in reality these changes simply lock others out of accessing data while serving it up to Google. * Not only are they locking out competition, but they're preventing the user from stopping or mitigating collection of data as well.
devjab 3y ago
I think you can have a lot of debate on it, but for me personally it can be summoned down to the following: the privacy sandbox wants to block tracking on everything that isn’t of “high user interest”. But as a user I don’t want “any” privacy intrusion. On one hand it’s better than what’s going on now, on the other hand it’s not going to give you privacy and it’s likely going to further Google’s advertisement monopoly on much of the internet. Which is where a lot of the debate can be had, but as a user, do you really want any company to track you? If not, then you most likely don’t want control of who gets to track you in the hands of the biggest advertisement company on earth.

Honest question, why is the privacy sandbox user hostile? I assume it's because Google is using it to collect your information but blocking everyone else from collecting it?

simplotek 3y ago

> Honest question, why is the privacy sandbox user hostile? From the horse's mouth, "privacy sandbox" is explicitly designed "to build thriving digital businesses." https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/ https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/ At face value they claim it's designed to eliminate tracking techniques like fingerprinting, it's actually a system explicitly designed to collect the users' private information. From the horse's mouth. "To provide this free resource without relying on intrusive tracking, publishers and developers need privacy-preserving alternatives for their key business needs, including serving relevant content and ads."

edoceo 3y ago
So, it's tracking just not intrusive tracking?
- simplotek 3y ago
  It sounds like it's plain old tracking, but pushed and owned by Google through it's control over Chrome.
  - thewataccount 3y ago
    No it's objectively less intrusive. The proposals involve reducing UA data, ip tracking, etc. But still allows for some amount of targeting. From my understanding instead of you being an identifiable individual via fingerprinting, the aim is to make you "probably one in [large group] of technology people". I'm not saying I think it's a good thing, but on the surface it does appear _better_.
    - codedokode 3y ago
      Does Privacy sandbox prevent fingerprinting completely (for example, canvas fingerprinting, WebGL fingerprinting, audio fingerprinting)? Or the advertisers would be able to use both fingerprinting and newly provided data? I don't understand why we need to trade here. Just block figerprinting and do not provide any alternatives for advertisers. This is the best for users.
      - None4U 3y ago
        We "need to trade here" because Google is an adtech business
      - Paul-Craft 3y ago
        "Just block fingerprinting" is also not trivial to do while providing a good user experience.
        codedokode 3y ago
        Put WebGL, enumerating installed fonts, web audio, etc. behind a permission. In rare cases when they are really needed not for fingerprinting, the user will grant a permission and nothing gets broken.
        efreak 3y ago
        Have you been around for the past 10-15 years of Android? Manual permissions don't solve the problem. People will just say why yes, I do indeed want to read this clickbait article/use this flashlight app, go ahead and give the server my GPS location so it can follow me around. The only reason you don't get much of this anymore is the limits the app stores enforce these days.
      - SquareWheel 3y ago
        You can't block fingerprinting completely without breaking a ton of useful features. But the sandbox has a concept called the privacy budget which tries to determine if a site is collecting too much information. It should allow sites that actually use some of these features to continue to work. The idea is that if sites that query fonts, engage canvas, read the user agent information, etc, they are likely trying to build a fingerprint, so the browser will start to return generic data. Presumably - hopefully - it would allow users to set their own privacy budgets. Even better if it supports granular per-site control, which may be needed for certain specialized websites. https://github.com/mikewest/privacy-budget https://github.com/mikewest/privacy-budget
nr2x 3y ago
That’s literally written by a PR team, see the quote I pasted from the w3c decision.

cptskippy 3y ago

> I assume it's because Google is using it to collect your information but blocking everyone else from collecting it? It isn't so much a privacy sandbox, it's an anti competition sandbox. Google is designing standards and practices under the auspices of user privacy but in reality these changes simply lock others out of accessing data while serving it up to Google. * Not only are they locking out competition, but they're preventing the user from stopping or mitigating collection of data as well.

devjab 3y ago

I think you can have a lot of debate on it, but for me personally it can be summoned down to the following: the privacy sandbox wants to block tracking on everything that isn’t of “high user interest”. But as a user I don’t want “any” privacy intrusion. On one hand it’s better than what’s going on now, on the other hand it’s not going to give you privacy and it’s likely going to further Google’s advertisement monopoly on much of the internet. Which is where a lot of the debate can be had, but as a user, do you really want any company to track you? If not, then you most likely don’t want control of who gets to track you in the hands of the biggest advertisement company on earth.