Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting • The Register

1984@lemmy.today to Technology@lemmy.ml – 247 points – Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting
theregister.com

Topics essentially works like this: rather than using cookies to track people around the web and figure out their interests from the sites they visit and the apps they use, websites can ask Chrome directly, via its Topics JavaScript API, what sort of things the user is interested in, and then display ads based on that. Chrome picks these topics of interest from studying the user's browser history.

Isn't this completely immoral? They are literally stealing the users private browsing history and uses it to boost their own profits.

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So this is why they want that browser integrity stuff.
Without the integrity a change like this would be absolutely wonderful - my ad interests would be "FuckOff" and "Nothing".

So what has to happen for the general population to move away from chrome/chromium?

Vivaldi had stripped out this crap, it's good that Chromium is FOSS, anybody can gut it to their like. Apart the Vivaldi History Page is way different from al other Chromium (Calendar view customizable in several formats, stadistics with graphs, not a simple list) since its first versions..

Vivaldi doesn’t collect your history data. All of this information is strictly private and local to your computer. What you get to see is the kind of data that could be tracked by third parties. Instead of trying to monetize it, we are giving you this data – for your eyes only. With the ability to analyze this information, you can decide if you want to adjust your online behavior or remove certain items from the list.

...and when browser integrity becomes a thing?

Wich browser integrity? Because of Chromium? Google already tried this years ago to try to control Chromiums with infinite APIs added to the Chromium code, even with discriminatory browsersniffings, which practically all other Chromium Browsers eliminated just as quickly, Vivaldi the first. Windows on Edge anyway (naturally putting its own Spy APIs in place of these). No trackings or logging by Google in Vivaldi (as long as you do not naturally use Google as a search engine). This is why Google is now trying to gain control through its web services and pages that use them with this WEI DRM, which forces all browsers, no matter what engine, be it Chromium, Firefox Gecko or Safari WebKit, to include a "security" Google Token in your script to access these pages or services. This is naturally a huge bummer if not avoided, since then it depends only on Google which browser deserves this Token, which could be the end of all minority browsers, leaving in the end only Chrome itself with full internet access. THAT is the problem, not the browser integrity.

Nothing. It's only the tin-foil hatters that care about privacy because the normal people have nothing to hide.

Post your entire browser history right now then.

Probably could, there's nothing interesting you'll find there but I'm not bothered enough.

Interesting. So they know what bank you use, which problems you have in your relationship, if your partner was ever unfaithful.

They can find out stuff about you that you don’t know yourself and use it to manipulate you (for example in pointing you away from anti trust legislation support, etc).

It’s not tinfoil hat at all. Google and co have been fined billions for doing this exact stuff.

Post your last 100 transactions?

Nah. Am good. You people can't read sarcasm or what ...

Sarcasm in person generally comes with a distinctive tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language that are lacking in text-only communication. If people know you well enough in a text chat, they can often make assumptions about your seriousness based on what they know of your beliefs, but we are on an anonymous message board here. The people here have no experience with whether or not you are naive or a jokester or seriously confused. There's a reason it became standard to mark sarcasm on reddit with /s, it is the simplest replacement for the missing tone and body language context that would go along with a statement if we were communicating face to face.

Sarcasm can also just be common sense but apparently humor isn't that common here.

What is it with Americans naming things the exact opposite of what the thing does

Does not foes

Here are some more candidates:

  1. FREEDOM: Full Range Enhanced Experience Derived Online Marketing.
  2. LIBERTY: Leveraging Internet Browsing & Experience Records To Yield profits.
  3. JUSTICE: Join Users' Surfing Trends for Intelligent Commercial Engagement.
  4. PRIDE: Personalized Recommendations from Internet Data & Exploration.
  5. HONOR: History-Oriented Network for Optimal Recommendations.

These are fun:

  1. TRUST: Telemarketing Reliability Using Safety Technology (abuse of safety systems)
  2. HOPE: Helpful Online Personalization Engine (literally just adware)
  3. TRUST: Tracking Retail Usage Systems Technology (amazon spying)
  4. LIBRE: Liberating Inconvienenced Beings of Repour Emails (gmail reading emails from your friends)

To be fair, they immediately give the option to disable it.

Who wants to bet the option to disable doesn't actually disable?

Who also wants to bet that every update has a 10% chance of re-enabling it

They're not stealing browser history. The site requests a list of topics and Chrome parses them based on the local history and returns a list of topics.

It's more secure and private than third party cookies.

The technique they use does not really change to the issue.

It's also not necessarily more secure than third party cookies like you claim? You can refuse those cookies and not all website use them, while all website ends up in browsing history.

I might be wrong but as far as I understand Google's topics API only gives websites access to information like "here is a user who likes the topics IT and gardening", which is a LOT less than what is possible with cookies. With cookies a website can get information like "here is a user who visited your website yesterday and two times last week. Also they recently visited websites A, B and C, and frequently visits website D. On website D they are logged in as X." They make all your visits to a website and, with third-party cookies, also to other websites connectable. Google's topics do not.

But the website doesn't end up with your browsing history...

And you can opt out of this just like you can opt out of third party cookies.

I would like to watch you opt out of all this every single time you sit down in the next class of your education institute or workplace.

Yes, they merely created the technology that watches everything you do. You can opt out! No worries! This certainly isn’t anything to worry about! They will definitely continue to let you opt out indefinitely. History tells me that that’s how this works.

That's so silly; you can manage all of your data and opt out on your Google account from the start.

The way I see it, that's just browser history exfiltration with extra steps. Whether they're sending the actual history or parsing your history and sending topics, both are equally as objectionable to me as both could reveal information about something private you've been visiting.

Am all for this move if it makes Google drop third-party cookies tomorrow.