Comment on Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome
circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
Please, everyone, stop using Chrome. This is an easy vote with your wallet that doesn’t even require your wallet.
Complacency means the internet gets worse, ads get worse, nickel and diming gets worse. It’s the easiest chance to take a stand you’ll ever have.
DarienGS@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Serious question: let’s say I continue using Chrome and Privacy Sandbox becomes the norm. How does my internet experience get worse?
circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
One key change in the short term is the Topics API. This is the replacement for 3rd-party cookies in Privacy Sandbox. Basically, it allows sites to query your browser directly about what topics you enjoy, and Chrome will respond with topics based on analysis of your browsing history to allow for targeted ads. If it seems strange that a new “privacy” feature is still serving up data about you for targeted ads – it is. And in fact, a lot of the proposed changes potentially just give Google more sway to act as a middleman, which ultimately gives them more data.
Will your experience change immediately? Likely not, but as with many things in this space, it’s about the dangers of the path and its longer term implications, specifically here about corporate controls and softening the definition of “privacy”.
Here’s a decent overview with more far more details.
DarienGS@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I know what the Topics API does. I’m asking for a concrete example of exactly how it’s going to make my internet experience worse. (That Register article doesn’t provide one.)
circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
Losing privacy makes your internet experience worse. That seems pretty clear to me, but if you don’t care about corporations being better suited to target ads to you, then I don’t think anyone would be able to convince you that these changes are bad.