How to Turn Off Google's "Privacy Sandbox" Ad Tracking–and Why You Should

Re:How to Turn Off Google's "Privacy Sandbox" Ad Tracking–an... by lelandbatey on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:19PM (#38730586)

It's a threat to the "free" (as in freedom) internet in that with this as the tracking mechanism, Google via Chrome is directly tracking your interests. It effectively makes "serves you ads and tracks your interests" a core part of what it means for a browser (Chrome) to be a browser.

Many folks feel like this is a capitalism-flavored move on par with "all phones should track the bad behavior of their owners and report it to the government." The point is that it hands over a lot of control.

What if Google decides to expand the topics to include things like "seeking reproductive care" in a state like Texas? Could that be used to try to target folks seeking abortions, potentially with legal action? All of these are hypotheticals, but they're all potential destinations if we continue in this direction.

Hence the EFFs warning.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Turn Off Google's "Privacy Sandbox" Ad Tracking–an... by insanitybit on Friday December 22, 2023 @01:04AM (#38731412)

> Google via Chrome is directly tracking your interests

But Chrome doesn't send Google that data. The data doesn't leave Chrome. What leaves are the features.

> "all phones should track the bad behavior of their owners and report it to the government."

But behavior and identity are not being conveyed in this instance.

> The point is that it hands over a lot of control.

But you can disable it.

> What if Google decides to expand the topics to include things like "seeking reproductive care" in a state like Texas?

That would suck, but:

a) If this is done as intended it's anonymous

b) That would be insane

[ Parent | on HN ]