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If Google is successfully forced to divest Chrome, Chrome will no longer be in competition with advertisers. So whether you or I are right about the cause, we s

If Google is successfully forced to divest Chrome, Chrome will no longer be in competition with advertisers. So whether you or I are right about the cause, we should both be able to agree that for privacy reasons, Google must divest Chrome. I do disagree with your cause and effect though, they have gotten blocked from replacing third party cookies with privacy sandbox because it replaces a standard everyone can use equally with a Google-controlled system. They could have cited the industry standard to block third party cookies in other browsers and done so without a replacement, the reason they are being prohibited from doing so is because they are motivated to maintain data access for themselves via privacy sandbox. You can read countless statements from the Chrome team about Privacy Sandbox where they state how vital spying on users for ad targeting is, they've never "wanted" to remove doing so.

modeless 2y ago
Chrome is not in competition with advertisers. If Google divests Chrome and Chrome removes third party cookies as a result, Google's adtech competitors will be crushed just as effectively as if Google removed third party cookies themselves. Google would survive just fine because they have lots of first party ad inventory and data, and all their adtech competition would be gone. This is the exact opposite of what the antitrust suit is trying to achieve. Those statements about tracking you're referencing are legal shielding against antitrust suits from adtech competitors.
- ocdtrekkie 2y ago
  This suggestion that they don't need a replacement for third party cookies seems to directly contradict the number of attempts they've made to develop themselves a replacement. How do you square that belief?
  - modeless 2y ago
    The alternatives are designed to replace the function of third party cookies for Google's competitors to address their antitrust concerns and unblock removing third party cookies in Chrome which, as I said, Google wanted to do. Obviously the effort was unsuccessful. Google was attacked on both sides, on the one hand by adtech who objected to being forced by Google to use something less powerful than third party cookies, and on the other hand by other browser vendors who objected to adding adtech features and certainly didn't have any interest in helping Google avoid their antitrust problem, regardless of the fact that enabling Google to turn off third party cookies would be the better privacy outcome for users of Chrome. They had no interest in helping Chrome users; they preferred to promote alternatives instead.
jsnell 2y ago
> They could have cited the industry standard to block third party cookies in other browsers and done so without a replacement, the reason they are being prohibited from doing so is because they are motivated to maintain data access for themselves via privacy sandbox. This is ignoring the facts. Last summer it was made clear that no privacy-increasing replacement for 3p cookies was going to be acceptable to the CMA. So Google's announced plan was to make 3p cookies an opt-in feature, with a dialog forcing users to make the choice. That plan was not conditional on any of the privacy sandbox replacement mechanisms. (Your guess is as good as mine for what option the average user would choose when forced to.) But clearly even informing the users and having them make a choice was unacceptable to the CMA. And no, they cannot just act unilaterally citing precedence in other browsers like you study. Regulators aren't going around threatening to break up Apple or Mozilla, so they get to do whatever they want. Google does not have that luxury. (And none of the privacy sandbox projects for ad targeting without 3p cookies was giving Google some additional data source denied from other advertisers, like you claim.)

modeless 2y ago

Chrome is not in competition with advertisers. If Google divests Chrome and Chrome removes third party cookies as a result, Google's adtech competitors will be crushed just as effectively as if Google removed third party cookies themselves. Google would survive just fine because they have lots of first party ad inventory and data, and all their adtech competition would be gone. This is the exact opposite of what the antitrust suit is trying to achieve. Those statements about tracking you're referencing are legal shielding against antitrust suits from adtech competitors.

ocdtrekkie 2y ago
This suggestion that they don't need a replacement for third party cookies seems to directly contradict the number of attempts they've made to develop themselves a replacement. How do you square that belief?
- modeless 2y ago
  The alternatives are designed to replace the function of third party cookies for Google's competitors to address their antitrust concerns and unblock removing third party cookies in Chrome which, as I said, Google wanted to do. Obviously the effort was unsuccessful. Google was attacked on both sides, on the one hand by adtech who objected to being forced by Google to use something less powerful than third party cookies, and on the other hand by other browser vendors who objected to adding adtech features and certainly didn't have any interest in helping Google avoid their antitrust problem, regardless of the fact that enabling Google to turn off third party cookies would be the better privacy outcome for users of Chrome. They had no interest in helping Chrome users; they preferred to promote alternatives instead.

jsnell 2y ago

> They could have cited the industry standard to block third party cookies in other browsers and done so without a replacement, the reason they are being prohibited from doing so is because they are motivated to maintain data access for themselves via privacy sandbox. This is ignoring the facts. Last summer it was made clear that no privacy-increasing replacement for 3p cookies was going to be acceptable to the CMA. So Google's announced plan was to make 3p cookies an opt-in feature, with a dialog forcing users to make the choice. That plan was not conditional on any of the privacy sandbox replacement mechanisms. (Your guess is as good as mine for what option the average user would choose when forced to.) But clearly even informing the users and having them make a choice was unacceptable to the CMA. And no, they cannot just act unilaterally citing precedence in other browsers like you study. Regulators aren't going around threatening to break up Apple or Mozilla, so they get to do whatever they want. Google does not have that luxury. (And none of the privacy sandbox projects for ad targeting without 3p cookies was giving Google some additional data source denied from other advertisers, like you claim.)