Google Promises Chrome Changes After Privacy Complaints (cnet.com) 82
Google, on the defensive from concerns raised about how Chrome tracks its users, has promised changes to its web browser. From a report: Two complaints in recent days involve how Google stores data about browsing activity in files called cookies and how it syncs personal data across different devices. Google representatives said Monday and Tuesday there's nothing to be worried about but that they'll be changing Chrome nevertheless. "We've heard -- and appreciate -- your feedback from the last few days, and we'll be making some product changes," tweeted Parisa Tabriz, a security team leader at Google. Google added in a blog post Tuesday evening that it will add new options and explanations for its interface and reverse one Chrome cookie-hoarding policy that undermined people's attempts to clear those cookies.
Oh (Score:3, Funny)
Was that bad? Should I not have done that?
Re:Oh (Score:4, Interesting)
Was that bad? Should I not have done that?
They know full well what they're doing. This is no mistake. This only means they'll not use cookies to track you.
Their intention is to modify the thought and behavior.of the population.
See this leaked internal Google video.
https://youtu.be/QDVVo14A_fo [youtu.be]
Here's a good analysis by YT poster 'Computing Forever'.
https://youtu.be/UqByX959pxg [youtu.be]
This is some seriously fucked up, dystopian-as-hell shit. It should frighten the piss out of anyone with more than two brain cells.
Google must be stopped.
Strat
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Just use a better browser [brave.com].
(For what it is worth, I am not affiliated with them and don't have any special agenda here, but of course I am posting as AC so there is no reason to believe me. Still, it's a good browser).
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Never. Ever. Trust. Google. (Score:4, Insightful)
NEVER!
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TRUST NO ONE. --THE X-FILES
They're not changing anything (Score:5, Informative)
Google added in a blog post Tuesday evening that it will add new options and explanations for its interface and reverse one Chrome cookie-hoarding policy that undermined people's attempts to clear those cookies.
They'll just move the info stored in the cookies to internal non-cookie storage and they're still going to log you in when you login to other aspects. They're just going to change the interface to show you they're watching you.
Be nice to have a MS office assistant character appear (like Clippy) and tap on your screen and say "Hey... I'm watching you!"
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Exactly. Cookies are only really needed for session persistence. They can still track your activity without them by simply you using a google account.
Re: They're not changing anything (Score:1)
It's called umatrix. Or ublock. Both say what gets sent.
GLIPPY Chrome Assistant says : (Score:1)
" It looks like your spreading forbidden western capitalistic dogma. Are you sure you want to visit that slashdot website, Comrade ?"
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Um, if you are looking for "western capitalistic dogma," you are using the wrong website for your example.
They got caught.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Chromium needs the the Mozilla treatment. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Blink and Chromium are open source, so what problem you are anticipating?
**FAR** TOO LATE (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is now, and I believe irrevocably, not a company with whom I want to do business. They took their advantage and have firmly leveraged it against the public interest.
Advertising networks, and Google's specifically, need to be dealt with by the FTC immediately. We have the right to be secure in our correspondence in the USA. "Let me move your correspondence for free, and I will read everything about it, compile it, and sell what I can" is not a contract many people would join if the terms were laid so plainly.
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So google free a whole month. Wow.
Now give the "I left facebook speach."
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Re:**FAR** TOO LATE (Score:4)
You might want to read this article. If companies do not comply with China's laws then they will not be allowed into the country. That means turning-down 1300 million users.
- Jack Poulson says "I was compelled to resign my position on August 31, 2018, in the wake of a pattern of unethical and unaccountable decision making from company leadership."
Note he used the word Pattern, so google is making mistake after mistake. SOURCE:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/... [theverge.com]
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We're sorry we got caught (Score:5, Insightful)
Fix it right now (Score:5, Informative)
You can fix this right now. This auto-login actually broke email/sync for a company I consult for, and luckily actually found a way to turn it off right now.
1) Visit: chrome://flags
2) Set to Disabled:
Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar
When enabled, the browser manages signing in and out of Google accounts. – Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, Android
#account-consistency
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Get more tech people back on Firefox. Demand *BETTER*.
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Demanding better is why we moved away from Firefox in the first place.
No, you traded convenience for your privacy. Chrome was never better enough to justify an inch of the miles of records they got from you.
company usage
I will admit, my advocacy comes from a personal usage. Having been market-forced into supporting Chrome in my professional setting, I am familiar with the product.
However, you're talking about a free product in either case. On what a business values, they'll spend money.
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You can fix this right now.
1) Visit: https://www.mozilla.org, or https://www.palemoon.org, or site of another favorite non-Chrome browser
2) Download and install
Fixed
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Of course, the proper behavior should be the default. Having to opt-out of non-privacy, non-security is just wrong.
Is marketing more effective with all the tracking? (Score:2)
Google and all the other web-tracking companies seem to do so much tracking.
I'm imagining a big argument against better web privacy is fundamentally economics -- tracking, etc, makes business so much more efficient that eliminating it would essentially wind up raising prices as marketers would wind up back in the old days of educated guesses that their ads or messaging was directed at the right people.
My question is -- if you're a marketer, is all this new intelligence and tracking actually making marketing
No. (Score:1)
It also makes me wonder if tracking-type info is a kind of market in false goods -- lots of money being spent and made trading the information, but its not really useful. It persists because the market is so huge and generates so much profit, but if at the end of the day it went away the only actual loss would be the economic exchange associated with buying and selling information.
There are a few things at work. Purchase tracking and prediction is a technique used by many stores to encourage customers to buy more, especially if there is a high margin to the added goods. In physical stores, much of this is rooted in finding what "impulse buys" to put near what popular items to maximize revenue. In online stores, it involves tailoring the "frequently bought with" list and sending out coupons to make the high-margin items look like good deals.
Google does none of that, Google uses rea
Wait... (Score:2, Interesting)
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No, they didn't log into chrome, they logged into Gmail. Then Chrome's login system hijacked the cookie. Big difference.
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No, the problem is that the people didn't turn on sync and logged into chrome. They logged into some Google properties and then Google use that info to log them in Chrome.
And although they might want to step back now, for sure they will try any other method in the future to keep on tracking you even if you try to disable it. They make their money from ads, so they must know you in order to get the maximum price for your data.
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We'll fix it wink wink (Score:2)
Why not switch? (Score:2)
I really wonder why people reading slashdot still uses Chrome? I mean we are a bunch of people that are both aware of the issues with corporates seeing all we do online, we understand technology well enough to know how to switch and most of us care about open source. Chromium is a little better, but really what Mozilla is doing to a great extent is needed and should be supported (by for example using Firefox). I mean, we all remember the good old days when many pages only worked in IE6 right? And if all we
Google knows what it is doing (Score:1)
A slow progression with Chrome from becoming just a good browser, to now Chrome being a primary tool to monitor you as a internet user. Its transition into a data miner has been so subtle that even the most privacy conscious user is blind to what Google is doing. What's more troubling is the large user base of Chrome browser users feeding the Google data collection pot.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)