12 ms·

Google has been rolling out Chrome's “Enhanced Ad Privacy” via a popup

90 points by nixass 3y ago

skilled 3y ago
Discussed a lot on HN already, Chrome now tracks users and shares a “topic” list with advertiser (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37427227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37427227) (5 days ago | 557 comments) Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37464574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37464574) (2 days ago | 411 comments) Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401909) (7 days ago | 153 comments) Go to Chrome://settings/adPrivacy to turn off the spyware that in Chrome (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392517) (8 days ago | 37 comments)
- passwordoops 3y ago
  And keep it up. Name and shame, just like the stalking by car companies. Do not let this become normalized
- vimax 3y ago
  I disagree. This is about the dark patterns and regional regulatory differences presented in their pop up, not about the tracking itself. Google has done a new shitty thing here while rolling out their other shitty thing. It deserves to be talked about. A lot.
  - skilled 3y ago
    I can't comment on what you said but I will say that I should have used a different tone and not imply being a gatekeeper. It's highly likely my morning java hadn't kicked in properly and I just blurted it out. Sorry!
jraph 3y ago
"Of course I want enhanced privacy" -- any reasonable user not familiar with the issue This is so manipulative. This whole new feature looks like it's there to bypass GDPR, I hope the regulation will be updated if it does not already take this new thing in account. At least the description is quite upfront, but apart from the title, the first sentence is already manipulative. > [we] give you more choice over the ads you see This is deceptive. It gives the impression to the user that they have a choice, but the actual choice is not this. The actual choice is whether to see ads at all, not which ones. People shouldn't care about the presented choice, for the most part. In this light, the new features presented as an enhancement are totally useless to the users. I believe this is a variant of the false dilemma [1] but there must be a more specific name for this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
- gman83 3y ago
  It looks like in Europe they're using a different prompt: https://twitter.com/mjhere/status/1700219703522725968 https://twitter.com/mjhere/status/1700219703522725968 I got that one as well.
  - jraph 3y ago
    ah ah, they do seem to respect the GDPR, but it goes on to show something is fishy… …to a sharpened eye which has seen both versions, of course. Nobody needs to ask for consent to provide more privacy to someone.
    - fhd2 3y ago
      Not true if they insert themselves as a middle man in order to help you against third party tracking. Google here is a questionable example of that, uBO (no profit motive that I'm aware of, open source) a probably objectively positive one. But you do have to trust and give some power to middle man to do their thing for you. Nobody needs your consent to not track you themselves, that's true.
      - 3y ago
TekMol 3y ago
I am not sure if this change is really a bad thing. I don't really know, how the current wild west of online ads works and who stores which data about users. But if Google throws their weight behind the idea that a common set of informations is used, which is completely under the control of the user, easily accessible and changeable, maybe that is a good thing? Maybe no more "header bidding" which sends the users data to a gazillion companies? I guess it just needs a browser API call to see what data is stored in your browser? So it is easy to check? It might also be leveling the playing field. So small websites can get ad revenues similar to big websites. Currently, small websites get something like 1/100th per pageview of what big websites get. If "the user is interested in toasters" is all that is needed to raise ad revenue, maybe that is fresh air to finance the indie web.
- Drakim 3y ago
  The issue is that no way companies will give up the old tracking methods, they are just gonna sandwich together the old with the new and get the sum of the two.
  - TekMol 3y ago
    Sites that get really big, usually do "give up" the old way of sending out the users data to a gazillion of advertisers. Because they have the inhouse resources to segment their users: https://www.reddit.com/ads.txt https://www.reddit.com/ads.txt Meta, Google, Reddit, Twitter etc won't send out your request data to show you ads. But unless you are a giant, it is not feasible and sites resort to send out request data to countless data brokers to find out what users are interested in: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ads.txt https://www.washingtonpost.com/ads.txt If the users interest is available via the browser, that would enable smaller sites to do what larger sites do. Show toaster ads to users interested in toasters without the data brokers being involved.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > If the users interest is available via the browser, that would enable smaller sites to do what larger sites do. And how is that a good thing? The problem is the data collection itself. That larger sites don't directly sell or share the data they collect is better than if they did, but it certainly doesn't make everything OK. The tracking is still happening.
rabbits_2002 3y ago
Has Google made a single good decision under their current CEO?
- chii 3y ago
  is google's profit and/or revenue growing?
  - fhd2 3y ago
    I read that as "good for users". To answer that: Can't think of any (beyond small iterative improvements in their products). The problem is that the users don't pay Google (by and large), so their financial success is quite decoupled from that, inverse proportional even.
  - nullindividual 3y ago
    Not everything in life needs to lead to profit. And indeed those that do are oft paved with bad decisions who harm numerous if not millions of people.
rmac 3y ago
it's unfortunate that the sour response to this impressive privacy work (https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/main/FLEDGE_k_anonymity_server.md https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/main/FLEDGE_k_anonym...) will likely lead to people turning it off, and buried inside is the switch for Private State Tokens (https://github.com/WICG/trust-token-api/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/WICG/trust-token-api/blob/main/README.md)
mrjin 3y ago
Lol, Google talks about privacy...
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  I genuinely wonder what the world looks like without adblocker. Is google that creepy? I've seen iphones with facebook get some crazy targeted messages that I've never seen before. Heck, even me being in the same room as an iphone with facebook installed seems to get me facebook (web) recommendations for whatever was discussed. Degoogled Google is the way to go IMO. Maximum privacy and its not some black box that is giving your data to the US government or China.
beastman82 3y ago
"got it" means "I understand," not "I agree"
phailhaus 3y ago
I genuinely think this is a step in the right direction. Website operators need to get paid. Advertising helps subsidize their costs, often allowing them to provide their services for free. But this is usually done via third party cookies, which means you have no control over what information is collected about you and your behavior, or who it's sent to. Since they are usually implemented by the website itself, they can collect pretty fine-grained data on you. There is no reason for any of these adtech platforms to let you customize or access this data. Google is about to follow Apple's lead and forbid third party cookies. This is unequivocally a Good Thing. But there has to be an alternative so that advertising can continue to hold up the internet and keep it freely accessible. The best solution is to move that information into the browser itself, where you can control it. That's true privacy: the ability to choose what others know about you. If you want anonymity, you can turn it off. It's a solution that covers all the bases.
- dbspin 3y ago
  > But there has to be an alternative so that advertising can continue to hold up the internet and keep it freely accessible. Sure, the alternative is paid sites and free (user created and supported) sites. This is what existed for decades before the web, and for the first decade of the the web. It was a better, safer, more democratic net - one orientated around information, education and self expression rather than persuasion and commerce. If you don't miss it, it's likely because you never experienced it. Advertising is literally a rebranding of propaganda, it consumes our attention, readjusts our values, blights usability, and sways us from rational, connected individuated thinking and decision making - toward conformist, manipulated, consumptive decision making. It's a cultural blight.
  - phailhaus 3y ago
    Paid sites restrict access to those with less money. Free sites are charities affordable only to those with more (and regularly die off with too much traffic). How is that more preferable?
- anonymousab 3y ago
  > But there has to be an alternative so that advertising can continue to hold up the internet and keep it freely accessible This dichotomy is false. You can still advertise to users without having any tracking data about them other than the service or site they are using. Just as advertising has done in most other major industries, be it print media, television, or physical advertisements such as billboards. It's not as crazy insanely lucrative !== it's not profitable enough to work.
otikik 3y ago
The popup I got was different from the one mentioned here (I supposed they're A/B testing). It had something other than "Got it", it was more clear that something was going to be activated when I pressed the button. However the text used was quite short, and in my opinion, extremely misleading. It implied that I was going to have extra privacy with regards to ads, while in reality this was adding yet another way for my browsing information to be shared, which is the opposite of what I wanted. Compared to the general web user, I am a "power user", I knew about Google's incoming changes, and still the language used in the popup made me enable everything by default (which I promptly disabled once I realized what had happened). Regular users have no chance against this. But as for me, Google has earned my distrust completely.
wodenokoto 3y ago
I saw the pop-up and thought it was an ad for a tab container style feature they added in an update.
astro- 3y ago
Create what is essentially a public API to your browsing history and sell it as a privacy feature. Bold move. I would find it acceptable if you would set those topics yourself. Hopefully, they can at least be randomised via an extension.

90 points by nixass 3y ago

Discussed a lot on HN already, Chrome now tracks users and shares a “topic” list with advertiser (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37427227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37427227) (5 days ago | 557 comments) Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37464574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37464574) (2 days ago | 411 comments) Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401909) (7 days ago | 153 comments) Go to Chrome://settings/adPrivacy to turn off the spyware that in Chrome (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392517) (8 days ago | 37 comments)

passwordoops 3y ago
And keep it up. Name and shame, just like the stalking by car companies. Do not let this become normalized
vimax 3y ago
I disagree. This is about the dark patterns and regional regulatory differences presented in their pop up, not about the tracking itself. Google has done a new shitty thing here while rolling out their other shitty thing. It deserves to be talked about. A lot.
- skilled 3y ago
  I can't comment on what you said but I will say that I should have used a different tone and not imply being a gatekeeper. It's highly likely my morning java hadn't kicked in properly and I just blurted it out. Sorry!

jraph 3y ago

"Of course I want enhanced privacy" -- any reasonable user not familiar with the issue This is so manipulative. This whole new feature looks like it's there to bypass GDPR, I hope the regulation will be updated if it does not already take this new thing in account. At least the description is quite upfront, but apart from the title, the first sentence is already manipulative. > [we] give you more choice over the ads you see This is deceptive. It gives the impression to the user that they have a choice, but the actual choice is not this. The actual choice is whether to see ads at all, not which ones. People shouldn't care about the presented choice, for the most part. In this light, the new features presented as an enhancement are totally useless to the users. I believe this is a variant of the false dilemma [1] but there must be a more specific name for this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

gman83 3y ago
It looks like in Europe they're using a different prompt: https://twitter.com/mjhere/status/1700219703522725968 https://twitter.com/mjhere/status/1700219703522725968 I got that one as well.
- jraph 3y ago
  ah ah, they do seem to respect the GDPR, but it goes on to show something is fishy… …to a sharpened eye which has seen both versions, of course. Nobody needs to ask for consent to provide more privacy to someone.
  - fhd2 3y ago
    Not true if they insert themselves as a middle man in order to help you against third party tracking. Google here is a questionable example of that, uBO (no profit motive that I'm aware of, open source) a probably objectively positive one. But you do have to trust and give some power to middle man to do their thing for you. Nobody needs your consent to not track you themselves, that's true.
    - 3y ago

TekMol 3y ago

I am not sure if this change is really a bad thing. I don't really know, how the current wild west of online ads works and who stores which data about users. But if Google throws their weight behind the idea that a common set of informations is used, which is completely under the control of the user, easily accessible and changeable, maybe that is a good thing? Maybe no more "header bidding" which sends the users data to a gazillion companies? I guess it just needs a browser API call to see what data is stored in your browser? So it is easy to check? It might also be leveling the playing field. So small websites can get ad revenues similar to big websites. Currently, small websites get something like 1/100th per pageview of what big websites get. If "the user is interested in toasters" is all that is needed to raise ad revenue, maybe that is fresh air to finance the indie web.

Drakim 3y ago
The issue is that no way companies will give up the old tracking methods, they are just gonna sandwich together the old with the new and get the sum of the two.
- TekMol 3y ago
  Sites that get really big, usually do "give up" the old way of sending out the users data to a gazillion of advertisers. Because they have the inhouse resources to segment their users: https://www.reddit.com/ads.txt https://www.reddit.com/ads.txt Meta, Google, Reddit, Twitter etc won't send out your request data to show you ads. But unless you are a giant, it is not feasible and sites resort to send out request data to countless data brokers to find out what users are interested in: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ads.txt https://www.washingtonpost.com/ads.txt If the users interest is available via the browser, that would enable smaller sites to do what larger sites do. Show toaster ads to users interested in toasters without the data brokers being involved.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > If the users interest is available via the browser, that would enable smaller sites to do what larger sites do. And how is that a good thing? The problem is the data collection itself. That larger sites don't directly sell or share the data they collect is better than if they did, but it certainly doesn't make everything OK. The tracking is still happening.

rabbits_2002 3y ago

Has Google made a single good decision under their current CEO?

chii 3y ago
is google's profit and/or revenue growing?
- fhd2 3y ago
  I read that as "good for users". To answer that: Can't think of any (beyond small iterative improvements in their products). The problem is that the users don't pay Google (by and large), so their financial success is quite decoupled from that, inverse proportional even.
- nullindividual 3y ago
  Not everything in life needs to lead to profit. And indeed those that do are oft paved with bad decisions who harm numerous if not millions of people.

rmac 3y ago

it's unfortunate that the sour response to this impressive privacy work (https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/main/FLEDGE_k_anonymity_server.md https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/main/FLEDGE_k_anonym...) will likely lead to people turning it off, and buried inside is the switch for Private State Tokens (https://github.com/WICG/trust-token-api/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/WICG/trust-token-api/blob/main/README.md)

mrjin 3y ago

Lol, Google talks about privacy...

hospitalJail 3y ago
I genuinely wonder what the world looks like without adblocker. Is google that creepy? I've seen iphones with facebook get some crazy targeted messages that I've never seen before. Heck, even me being in the same room as an iphone with facebook installed seems to get me facebook (web) recommendations for whatever was discussed. Degoogled Google is the way to go IMO. Maximum privacy and its not some black box that is giving your data to the US government or China.

beastman82 3y ago

"got it" means "I understand," not "I agree"

phailhaus 3y ago

I genuinely think this is a step in the right direction. Website operators need to get paid. Advertising helps subsidize their costs, often allowing them to provide their services for free. But this is usually done via third party cookies, which means you have no control over what information is collected about you and your behavior, or who it's sent to. Since they are usually implemented by the website itself, they can collect pretty fine-grained data on you. There is no reason for any of these adtech platforms to let you customize or access this data. Google is about to follow Apple's lead and forbid third party cookies. This is unequivocally a Good Thing. But there has to be an alternative so that advertising can continue to hold up the internet and keep it freely accessible. The best solution is to move that information into the browser itself, where you can control it. That's true privacy: the ability to choose what others know about you. If you want anonymity, you can turn it off. It's a solution that covers all the bases.

dbspin 3y ago
> But there has to be an alternative so that advertising can continue to hold up the internet and keep it freely accessible. Sure, the alternative is paid sites and free (user created and supported) sites. This is what existed for decades before the web, and for the first decade of the the web. It was a better, safer, more democratic net - one orientated around information, education and self expression rather than persuasion and commerce. If you don't miss it, it's likely because you never experienced it. Advertising is literally a rebranding of propaganda, it consumes our attention, readjusts our values, blights usability, and sways us from rational, connected individuated thinking and decision making - toward conformist, manipulated, consumptive decision making. It's a cultural blight.
- phailhaus 3y ago
  Paid sites restrict access to those with less money. Free sites are charities affordable only to those with more (and regularly die off with too much traffic). How is that more preferable?
anonymousab 3y ago
> But there has to be an alternative so that advertising can continue to hold up the internet and keep it freely accessible This dichotomy is false. You can still advertise to users without having any tracking data about them other than the service or site they are using. Just as advertising has done in most other major industries, be it print media, television, or physical advertisements such as billboards. It's not as crazy insanely lucrative !== it's not profitable enough to work.

otikik 3y ago

The popup I got was different from the one mentioned here (I supposed they're A/B testing). It had something other than "Got it", it was more clear that something was going to be activated when I pressed the button. However the text used was quite short, and in my opinion, extremely misleading. It implied that I was going to have extra privacy with regards to ads, while in reality this was adding yet another way for my browsing information to be shared, which is the opposite of what I wanted. Compared to the general web user, I am a "power user", I knew about Google's incoming changes, and still the language used in the popup made me enable everything by default (which I promptly disabled once I realized what had happened). Regular users have no chance against this. But as for me, Google has earned my distrust completely.

wodenokoto 3y ago

I saw the pop-up and thought it was an ad for a tab container style feature they added in an update.

astro- 3y ago

Create what is essentially a public API to your browsing history and sell it as a privacy feature. Bold move. I would find it acceptable if you would set those topics yourself. Hopefully, they can at least be randomised via an extension.