Biggest Privacy Erosion in 10 Years? On Google’s Policy Change Towards Fingerprinting
Biggest Privacy Erosion in 10 Years? On Google’s Policy Change Towards Fingerprinting
While I once hoped 2017 would be the year of privacy, 2024 closes on a troubling note, a likely decrease in privacy standards across the web. I was surprised by the recent Information Commissioner’s Office post, which criticized Google’s decision to introduce device fingerprinting for advertising pu...
While I once hoped 2017 would be the year of privacy, 2024 closes on a troubling note, a likely decrease in privacy standards across the web. I was surprised by the recent Information Commissioner’s Office post, which criticized Google’s decision to introduce device fingerprinting for advertising purposes from February 2025. According to ICO, this change risks undermining user control and transparency in how personal data is collected and used.
just a step or two removed from what's probably their ultimate goal: a unique guid for every device, that you can't change, can't remove, can't decline, and is always with you--including linking multiple devices when you log-in to the same account somewhere across googleland from them.
Surely it does this already?!
You don't need to.
By using metrics like IP address , age, gender, race, religion, city, workplace, application, website, favourite song, colour and flavour, throw in a few more questions and you can lucratively target specific groups of people.
By COMBINING those metrics you can target extremely small groups of people, groups with precisely ONE member.
No need for a unique GUID at all.
Microsoft already does this with Edge. Google has advertising ID. Similar in principle.
Well always be able to install our on software that doesn't do that.
Google's idea of privacy seems to always be we will protect your privacy by having all your data and making sure we are the only ones who can profit off of it. Its not that they care about privacy they care about them having exclusive rights to your data.
Yet another corporate self-serving move that should highlight the need for de-googling, but with a monopolist controlling information flow how many will notice, and if they do, how many will recognize there are counter options, even if made difficult by the dominant web player...I would like to say it is blatantly time to break up big tech, but realistically I can't see that happening, given regulatory capture of US politics, on both sides, as an outside observer.
Who's going to get rich making the app that actively trashes this data before it can be read by fingerprinting-ware? Because shut up and take my money.