[chopin24]

I'm not comfortable assuming the best intentions from a $1.2T company whose business model relies on tracking my behavior. They burned that bridge after the war-driving "Wi-Spy" scandal, which went on from 2007-2010. [0].

It's clear that Google sees a threat to their business model, and they'll use any PR-friendly language they can to convince people that they're addressing the user concerns. Just like they did in 2010, when they ascribed their willful malfeasance to a "rogue engineer" who they then put in charge of StreetView.

If I'm "reading too much into it" it's because we collectively haven't been reading enough into it for the past 15 or so years, and in that time our Overton window has shifted too far.

[0]https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/23/google_wispy_payout/

[spinningslate]

this. I'm fine with GP's use of "finding" a solution. Yes, they found one; finding solutions is a central process in software.

But I'm absolutely not fine with the wording. When confronted with the phrase "Google says it may have found a privacy-friendly substitute to cookies", I'd wager most people would think "this improves my privacy in a general way".

It doesn't. What it actually means is: Google will make it more difficult for others to track you, but Google will remain committed to tracking everything about you that it possibly can. Except silently, and without your ability to opt out using ad blockers etc.

Net result: even less control over your privacy, and Google further entrenches its monopoly to boot.

That's not an improvement in privacy.

[Hasu]

> That's not an improvement in privacy.

Okay, that's obviously not true from your own comment, you also say:

> Google will make it more difficult for others to track you

So if Google can still track me at the same level, but others can no longer track me, that IS an improvement in privacy. Not from Google, but from everyone else.

I get and agree with your point about how it's an advantage for Google because they can make their tracking harder to avoid and lock others out, but I find it hard to sell "This is not an improvement in privacy" as being unequivocally true.

[RcrdBrt]

Google will track you more since adblockers will do nothing against this new practice.

So, again, this is not an improvement for users privacy.

[Hasu]

This does not address my point at all, which is that if it locks out OTHER parties that currently abuse third party cookies from tracking, there's a substantial improvement for user privacy from those parties.

Not to mention that while adblockers currently do not do anything against this practice, this does not mean that adblockers can never come up with anything to block this tracking.

[subaquamille]

OP also says > but Google will remain committed to tracking everything about you that it possibly can. Except silently, and without your ability to opt out using ad blockers etc.

Also others may no longer track you at the moment but they definitely will do in the future.

So... Google breached a bit deeper in our privacy and paved the way for others to follow them. I can't help seeing them so evil.

[jand]

> So if Google can still track me at the same level, but others can no longer track me, that IS an improvement in privacy.

This is only true if Google does not sell the gathered information to others. If they sell the data, the net privacy gain is nil.

[Hasu]

Google doesn't sell your personal information to anyone. They sell ads that are targeted based on your personal information. Selling your information directly would entirely negate their market advantage in advertising, it would be suicide for Google. Facebook has been known to do this, Google has not.

[chopin24]

Not saying you are one such person, or that you are doing so intentionally, but this argument is a clever sleight of hand employed by surveillance capitalists and their apologists to deflect attention away from the real issue: that thousands of well-paid, highly intelligent engineers devote 40+ hours a week to coming up with ways to influence your behavior.

“Selling personal data” — as if your particular affinity for left handed baseball gloves were of special interest to large corporations — is a red herring. Let’s stop perpetuating it.

[ceph_]

But there are companies that sell personal data. Google is not one of them. The phone companies sell your location. There are regular articles about companies buying up chrome extensions to harvest/sell browsing data. Etc

[btilly]

You are reading way too much into that incident.

At the time, "Engineer put in feature not asked for."

Later, "Upon full examination, engineer put description of feature in piece of paper shoved in front of busy manager, and told selected co-workers what he had done." (None of whom, when the shit hit the fan, should be expected to stick their necks out.)

Neither version suggests that the feature was something reflective of corporate policy, or would have had support from higher ups if they knew about it. Also, said engineer turns out to be a very good programmer. Which explains the company's decision to try to keep him and correct his behavior rather than immediately firing him.

[chopin24]

That Google’s management is so unaware of their data collection software that they allowed engineers to drive around spying on people for three years does not inspire trust. Incompetence or malice is besides the point. Google did not take responsibility for the error, and in fact stonewalled Congress for more than a year when it was investigated.

[btilly]

What do you expect them to do? Randomly sample the internal data formats? Or verify that the official outputs look right?

Google specializes in automation at scale, not lovingly handcrafted data.

[chopin24]

I don't have any expectations for how they will address their transgressions. They don't have a right to my personal data, don't have a right to track me, don't have a right to sell my attention to modify my behavior. People who are the target of their data collection -- which includes users and innocent bystanders -- are victims, and we don't expect victims to come up with performance improvement plans for their abusers.

[btilly]

You want rules that run counter to every trend in technology. And believe that it can be done with government fiat.

I emphatically believe the opposite. Data collection, storage, and manipulation is ever becoming easier. The only actual choice is between a society where we're lied to about surveillance, or one where surveillance is generally available. https://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Society-Technology-Betwee... laid out the case for this over 20 years ago.

Here are the realistic choices.

On the one hand, we can create any set of rules we want on paper. We can get governments to officially support it. We can be frustrated as those same governments do it ineffectively. And then watch as the rules meant to curtail monopolies get caught by regulatory capture and are manipulated to support the very organizations that they are theoretically supposed to punish. (Seriously, do you expect any secret service to not take advantage of what is possible? Have you heard of Snowden?)

Or we can choose the path recommended in https://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Society-Technology-Betwee..., accept that surveillance is real. And put the tools in the hands of the masses. This is already happening. See https://asherkaye.medium.com/do-you-know-this-man-7836e54abc... for a story of how a random person in a random photo was tracked down by an internet stranger using reverse image search with facial recognition. And the tools are only getting better and harder to stop over time.

I personally hate both futures. But I hate the first one more. And I see people like you as unwitting pawns who are creating the first of those two futures. And your unwillingness to understand how things actually work, combined with your certainty that you've got the moral high ground, makes you an easily manipulated true believer.

Enjoy your certainty that you're in the right here. I guarantee that you'll have a lot to be upset about in the way that our world is shaping up.

[chopin24]

Thanks for the recommendation on The Transparent Society. I haven't read it, but certainly will.

The idea that the surveillance tools are "put in the hands of masses" neglects the part where the "masses" includes corporations that do it better, because they have the ability to pay handsomely thousands of people to make it effective. So rather than accept the defeatist position -- "We are powerless to stop technology," even though surveillance capitalism is a choice, and one that we don't have to accept -- we can choose meaningful laws which restrict those actions. We can choose meaningful laws which change the economic imperatives so that corporations don't profit from tracking and shaping human behavior. Will it be perfect? Absolutely not. Is defeat inevitable? Perhaps. But sitting on the sidelines and choosing not to shape that future because of some sense of foregone inevitability.... that cannot be the future, unless we believe that those now with the ability to shape it (and someone will -- Google, Facebook, or someone else) deserve to have that right without being challenged.

I cannot accept that. I will not be gaslit into believing that I'm 'too concerned' or 'reading too much into it'. This does not have to be our future.

[buttersbrian]

You, myself, everyone -- we're jaded. Got it.

Not much concerned with descriptions, so what's your prescription:

What do you believe to be satisfactory wording in this case?