that sounds a lot like unfair competition, to a degree that it is highly illegal in most countries.
Substance_P@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Not really a win for the casual web user - What Google will stop doing is selling web ads targeted to individual users’ browsing habits, and its Chrome browser will no longer allow cookies that collect that data. Meanwhile, Google will still track and target users on mobile devices, and it will still target ads to users based on their behavior on its own platforms, which make up the majority of its revenue and won’t be affected by the change.
Ad companies that rely on cookies will simply have to find another way to target users.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 5 months ago
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Only where non-corrupt politicians agree to enforce the law.
So. Yknow.
LWD@lemm.ee 5 months ago
I think Google’s biggest argument against it being a monopoly is that the tech is open source. You can download Chromium and your ad data will be manipulated and abused the same way as if you downloaded Chrome itself.
Open source is not a synonym for good, unfortunately. It’s usually a good indicator of it, but never a guarantee.
In the case of Chromium sucking, it’s because Google is the exclusive gatekeeper for what code actually gets added to the browser.
carl_dungeon@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Chromium is open source but isn’t chrome a closed source down stream project? Kinda like how Google’s RCS is in no way open despite all their BS ads bitching about iMessage?
LWD@lemm.ee 5 months ago
You’re completely correct. Chromium includes the badly named “Privacy Sandbox”, and much more proprietary Google stuff. It’s a bit of a chore for independent developers to strip out the Google code from Chromium.
Chrome itself is built atop Chromium and throws in even more closed-source stuff.
I hope regulators start paying attention to Google, but Chrome has been the dominant web browser for a while now and Google has basically had free play with web standards up until this point, so I’m not holding my breath.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 5 months ago
Killing 3rd party cookies is good, but doing it in a way that drives business to Google Ad Services seems like a textbook case of anticompetitive behavior to me. I wonder what makes them think they can get away with it. Or maybe they don’t think they can but they’re grasping at straws to keep their money printing machine operational.
madis@lemm.ee 5 months ago
I wonder what makes them think they can get away with it.
Killing 3rd party cookies is good,
That makes them think it.
CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Aka pay google instead of getting that info for free