This seems like a pretty poor take by pg. It ignores the years of friction over targeted ads that have been leading up to this change. Apple and Mozilla have also shifted strategies in this area.

It seems the right time for Google to pivot, if not a little too late.

Or if its less efficient it might increase ad spend - not to be to cynical

Honestly, is that bad?

I have no objection to targeted ads.

I have a multitude of objections to systematic privacy invasion for profit.

If they can somehow target ads while preserving my privacy, I'm all for it.

This proposal won’t protect your privacy. It just helps cement their monopoly and provides a better signal. Pg’s analysis is spot on.

Google's monopoly on ad tech is entirely orthogonal to the issue.

As for PG's tweet, I think it's a bit much to call that single sentence an "analysis". At best it's an opinion, and not a very nuanced one at that.

Please explain how this isn't potentially an objective improvement of end user privacy over things like third party cookies, browser fingerprinting, or other mechanisms of identity tracking.

How is this orthogonal to their monopoly? They’re explicitly blocking direct competitors’ tracking mechanisms in favor of one they control.

I answered your other questions in a sibling comment.

What does Google's monopoly have to do with the privacy implications of the method they're now favouring?

Either it's a more privacy-preserving method than current techniques and technologies or it's not, irrespective of the competitive landscape of the ad tech industry.

I think it's objectively the case that this is certainly better than assigning unique identifiers to every user and tracking those IDs + associated segmentation in third party databases that are ripe for abuse.

Is it perfect? No. But I didn't realize we were just gonna go full nirvana fallacy, here. If that's your bar, nothing short of eliminating targeted advertising entirely will satisfy you, in which case, frankly, you're being unrealistic.

It's anonymized and the ad targeting algorithms are run client-side, with the relevant browsing data never leaving your device.

How is that not a big improvement in privacy for ad targeting vs the current system?

As the EFF has pointed out, the cohorts the machine learning algorithm exposes are targeted enough to be used as an individual identifier.

Also, this solution does nothing to prevent the abuses of the resulting user clustering that we’ve already seen (such as targeting addictive pharmaceuticals to addicts, or youtube promoting conspiracy theories).

The article says they plan to embed the data collection into the operating system as well as web browser, so people on Android will have even more of their privacy stripped away for ad targeting.

> As the EFF has pointed out, the cohorts the machine learning algorithm exposes are targeted enough to be used as an individual identifier.

Yup, deanonymization is a problem.

That's better than no anonymization now.

But I agree, it's not perfect, and frankly, I don't think there is a perfect solution that prevents bad actors from deanonymizing users.

The real solution to this issue is regulation and transparency.

> Also, this solution does nothing to prevent the abuses of the resulting user clustering that we’ve already seen (such as targeting addictive pharmaceuticals to addicts, or youtube promoting conspiracy theories).

This has nothing to do with the privacy implications of this technology.

Personally, I think you (and the entire advertising industry) are massively overestimating the effectiveness of targeted advertising, but... shrug

> The article says they plan to embed the data collection into the operating system as well as web browser, so people on Android will have even more of their privacy stripped away for ad targeting.

They already do this!

Again, this is still objectively an improvement.

Does it fall short of eliminating targeted advertising entirely?

Yes.

Personally, I'm a realist and recognize that ain't happening, so we should welcome any movements that make the industry a little less invasive and destructive.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of progress, I say.