Google Chrome Proposes 'Privacy Sandbox' To Reform Advertising Evils 56
Google's Chrome team proposed a "privacy sandbox" Thursday that's designed to give us the best of both worlds: ads that publishers can target toward our interests but that don't infringe our privacy. From a report: It's a major development in an area where Chrome, the dominant browser, has lagged competitors. Browsers already include security sandboxes, restrictions designed to confine malware to limit its possible damage. Google's proposed privacy sandbox would similarly restrict tracking technology, according to proposal details Google published.
The privacy sandbox is "a secure environment for personalization that also protects user privacy," said Justin Schuh, a director of Chrome Engineering focused on security matters, in a privacy sandbox blog post. "Our goal is to create a set of standards that is more consistent with users' expectations of privacy." For example, Chrome would restrict some private data to the browser -- an approach rival Brave Software has taken with its privacy-focused rival web browser. And it could restrict sharing personal data until it's shared across a large group of people using technologies called differential privacy and federated learning.
The privacy sandbox is "a secure environment for personalization that also protects user privacy," said Justin Schuh, a director of Chrome Engineering focused on security matters, in a privacy sandbox blog post. "Our goal is to create a set of standards that is more consistent with users' expectations of privacy." For example, Chrome would restrict some private data to the browser -- an approach rival Brave Software has taken with its privacy-focused rival web browser. And it could restrict sharing personal data until it's shared across a large group of people using technologies called differential privacy and federated learning.
Except Google is the biggest snooper (Score:5, Informative)
Better != Perfect (Score:1)
Google and most web sites makes their money off of advertising, Paywalls are not popular, and hoping for donations and public and private donations and grants, doesn't work for all cases.
Advertising News Papers, Magazines, TV, Radio, Internet... Either support fully or partially the organization who is offering a service that is in demand, while the supply they can produce is so high, that the price per individual is too low, so it needs large bulk money sources.
I am sure many of us has forgotten the pain f
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Since there is no privacy, the best solution is to feed them chaff. Never give up real info. Even open a second bank account for internet purchases.
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Thank you Mr. Google Shill
Newspapers, Magazines, TV, Radio
All make their money from advertising. None of them track me and invade my privacy.
I am sure many of us has forgotten the pain from the late 1990's where we had pop-up ads filling our screens
Those of us who aren't morons, figured how how to block that shit 20 years ago.
all for selling stuff we really don't have any interest in buying
Exactly the same as today. 99% of all ads on the Internet today is scam bullshit that nobody wants and that nobody would click on except accidentally. Right now, my adblocker is blocking 15 things right here on Slashdot. Fifteen fucking things on one page.
Google with its context ads built from the loss of our privacy, means we get less ads then before
Bullshit. Bullshit and more Bullshit. There are more ads than
Re: Better != Perfect (Score:1)
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Advertising != privacy (Score:2)
There is no need to give up privacy in order for a site to publish advertising.
The privacy side is Google's business model and they take every step to ensure that they get the information to sell. Google is not in the business of protecting your privacy, they are in the business to monetize it. That is the whole point of Chrome.
I never had the pop-up, pop-under, ads problem you describe. It was and still is simple to avoid. Most people who had this problem were using software which was designed to encourage
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There is nothing to be gained by tying our privacy to Google. It's not better, as a matter of fact it is worse because we become dependent on one organization which we give the power to do as they please. The only option is to opt out of all this advertising model and remove this power from one entity.
Exactly. With this latest bullshit Google is simply trying to increase Chrome's market penetration even further. It's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, just like Microsoft. Kill the competition, then back out the new privacy 'protections', which are really just smoke and mirrors anyway.
Just within the last hour I attempted to use TI's Webench and was confronted with an intrusive "Try Google Chrome for a better experience" popup at the bottom of the page. The bastards even have Texas Instruments shilling for them
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"I am sure many of us has forgotten the pain from the late 1990's where we had pop-up ads filling our screens, taking minutes to load the actual web site, all for selling stuff we really don't have any interest in buying. The sites were making money by selling their space for cheap, because there was such a high ignore rate."
I blocked all that stuff, and all advertizing and JavaScript from third-parties as soon as it appeared. I have never seen an advertisement on a website, ever! I do not know what y'all
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I am sure many of us has forgotten the pain from the late 1990's where we had pop-up ads filling our screens, taking minutes to load the actual web site, all for selling stuff we really don't have any interest in buying.
I don't remember that happening to me. But, then again, I was already not running Windows.
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I am sure many of us has forgotten the pain from the late 1990's where we had pop-up ads filling our screens, taking minutes to load the actual web site, all for selling stuff we really don't have any interest in buying.
I don't remember that happening to me. But, then again, I was already not running Windows.
I wasn't either, but it was on all platforms, not just Windows. I think you just forgot.
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So Google Chrome can still know all my private stuff and upload it to Google, but Google will just make sure those other advertisers can't have access to that personal information.
That's how it works now.
The idea here is to keep the private information from ever leaving the browser, by doing the machine learning that distills your interests from all of your personal data inside browser. Right now, the information is sent to Google, which does the interest identification in its servers and then decides which ads to show to you. But if the processing that determines ad selection can be moved to the browser then Google can show targeted ads without collecting and processing personal
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So Google Chrome can still know all my private stuff and upload it to Google, but Google will just make sure those other advertisers can't have access to that personal information.
That's how it works now.
I should clarify that I don't believe Chrome "knows all your private stuff and uploads it to Google", except in the way that all web browsers do. If you have some evidence to the contrary, I'd love to hear about it.
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It is about privacy.
The privacy of Google's assets.
Using chrome really makes no sense (Score:2)
You are just asking for trouble when you use a browser made by someone who is selling targeted advertising. Talk about rooster in the henhouse.
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I will stick with no ads whenever possible instead of compromising in this area; meaning no Chrome.
What replaces ads? (Score:2)
Welcome to your ad-free, Google-free world. What do you plan to do once more than half of the results for a particular query on Bing Search require a monthly or annual subscription to the site to read past the first paragraph? I've already run into such cases even with ads. I'd be interested to see what you suggest as a third model to fund writing and hosting without ads or paywalls.
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How about not going there anymore?
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[Without ads,] more than half of the results for a particular query [are paywalled]
How about not going there anymore?
You'll end up with a very long list of sites where you won't go anymore, cluttering up your search results for the foreseeable future. Much of your mental effort while using a web search engine will be spent on avoiding those sites.
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You'll end up with a very long list of sites where you won't go anymore, cluttering up your search results for the foreseeable future. Much of your mental effort while using a web search engine will be spent on avoiding those sites.
Yep, and nobody needs any of them. Honestly, we got by fine without 90% of the crap out there before the internet. I've come to realize that the internet is primarily a waste of time contributing nothing to the quality of life of anyone. Aside from online shopping and video games, I don't know that we wouldn't be better off without it.
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"unjustly affecting exposure of the product"
Life isn't fair. You don't have a right to be successful.
But there is another way. Allow users to close ads at will and say "not like this" and keep that account on that site. It works for Netflix and movies so why not ads? Don't give anyone the option of objecting on behalf of others and don't try to be the moral police.
Also, further spread the option to pay some amount and block ads altogether. There are far too many "free" services which are ad supported but do
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In theory, this would work. The problem with that is that you can end up with ads that would be objectively inappropriate, such as being an outright scam, or perpetuating objectively inappropriate content such as advocating domestic terrorism, an
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"The problem with that is that you can end up with ads that would be objectively inappropriate, such as being an outright scam, or perpetuating objectively inappropriate content such as advocating domestic terrorism, and the simple fact is that there may be far too high a volume of ads for them all to be manually verified"
Nope. Due diligence is the responsibility of the platform. Again, there is no right to rake in excessive profits by pushing through advertising irresponsibly. If there are too many you jus
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He understood that it was Facebook's algorithm that rejected the ads, not a person.
That's a big part of the problem. Platforms have been using the "we're not publishers - we're just a platform" excuse to avoid responsibility for all sorts of nastinesses that have arisen from their platforms. Well, they may not be publishers, but their algorithms may well be. When I read a traditional newspaper or magazine, the content has been curated by humans. When I visit Facebook or YouTube, there may have been no humans involved, but the content has sure been curated. Curated down to the level o
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Talk about rooster in the henhouse.
There can only be one
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I thought it was the fox guarding the hen house. Unless you are insinuating that google is going to knock you up.
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They are definitely trying to get inside you
Not going to happen (Score:2)
This likely won't happen for one reason: Nobody wants to pay for ads if they can't confirm that they were shown to anyone.
If google can isolate advertisements such that there is no tracking, advertisers can't tell if google showed it to whey they're saying they showed it to. I don't see a functional way for google to isolate IP address, MAC address, browser string, etc., without essentially serving the ad themselves, and reporting views back to the advertiser. At that point you're just trusting that the req
How is dead tree advertising verifiable? (Score:2)
Nobody wants to pay for ads if they can't confirm that they were shown to anyone.
How do advertisers who place ads in printed newspapers and printed magazines "confirm that they were shown to anyone"?
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Look up "Audit Bureau of Circulation". It works on knowing the quantity of issues sold, then advertisers work out what size of target audience they get. Squirrel feeders aren't advertised in sports car magazines (regardless of volume), but might be in knitting mags.
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Squirrel feeders aren't advertised in sports car magazines (regardless of volume), but might be in knitting mags.
That's helpful for ads in a publication targeted at a specific vertical market. It's not so helpful for ads in general-interest magazines like Newsweek or The New Yorker.
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Back in the 1980's I did some work a company called Ad-Scan. It tracked advertisements placed on TV, Print, and Radio. How did they do this? They acquired copies of the broadcast video from every TV station in North America and had a bunch of people watch them all and record every instance of every advertisement that appeared into a huge database. Mutatis mutandis for many "print" publications and Radio stations.
This data was then analyzed and sold back to the companies placing the advertisements and to
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Advertisers can't tell if Google showed their ads today. Google ads don't get served from or ping back to advertiser's servers. They just have to take Google's word for it that their ad was shown to a general demographic or in relation to some particular search term.
This won't stop detection of ad loading anyway. All it will do it block cross-site tracking via cookies, by making third party cookies sandboxed per domain.
"Our goal is to create a set of standards..." (Score:2)
Google sets standards on privacy... Oh the humanity!
Conflicted (Score:3)
Observation: Advertising destroys every medium it ever touches. Newspapers. Radio. Magazines. TV. Cable TV. BYTE Magazine. Usenet. Email. The Web. Smartphones.
Another observation:
The first thing that will be widely created on any new medium will be p0rn.
The last thing that will be widely created on any new medium will be advertising.
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Targeted advertising is not "evil".
In and of itself, targeted advertising is a win-win for all involved
- Advertisers don't waste $ promoting a product to segments who don't care about it
- Consumers don't see stupid ads for things they don't care about or are not a segment for
The reason people don't like targeted advertising on the internet is because the way it works today, you are giving away too much private information to the advertiser - because the targeting is being done on the server end. Google's pr
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The reason people don't like targeted advertising on the internet is because the way it works today, you are giving away too much private information to the advertiser
Another reason is intrusiveness and compulsiveness. Ads come your way all the time, whether or not you want to see them. Even if I have an interest in, say, golf, I sure don't want to be forced to see golf-related ads all the bloody time.
Re: Conflicted (Score:1)
You're complaint about ads in general here, not targeting. Those complaints have nothing to do with privacy.
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No, he wants ads to be *more* targeted. Not just targeted to his personal desires, but also to when he is feeling those desires. I feel the same way, but would really object to giving anyone the insight to fulfill them. (Well, my wife, perhaps...but only perhaps.)
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Observation: Advertising destroys every medium it ever touches. Newspapers. Radio. Magazines. TV. Cable TV. BYTE Magazine. Usenet. Email. The Web. Smartphones.
Better observation: Some of those mediums could never have existed at all without advertising, and the rest would have been much inferior to what they are/were. Newspapers and magazines would have been ridiculously expensive. Radio and TV simply wouldn't have worked, except perhaps via taxpayer funding, and I'm skeptical that they ever would have become big enough to justify taxpayer funding without first growing organically on advertiser funding. USENET only existed because universities, and later ISPs
Er, what? (Score:2)
Pure doublespeak. How can an advertisement target someone's interests without knowing what they are? Which means invading their privacy.
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Which means invading their privacy.
Not necessarily. For instance, an anonymous client could state "I am interested in seeing ads for these things," rather than an advertising company stating "We're pretty sure this is John Doe, SSN 123-45-6789, who is 34, drives a Honda, has red hair and calls his mom once a week. Prell Shampoo seems suitable."
Too bad they won't just go back to ... (Score:1)
... their old unofficial motto and their old official code of conduct, which said "don't be evil [gizmodo.com]."
Expecting privacy from Google (Score:3)
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expecting smoking cessation assistance from Big Tobacco
Or better yet like avoiding what happened to Big Tobacco [wikipedia.org] when the judge forced Big Tobacco to provide smoking cessation assistance.
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Expecting privacy measures from Google's Chrome is like expecting smoking cessation assistance from Big Tobacco.
Nonsense.
Google's goal[*] is to make money from you clicking on Google ads. To do that, they need to show you ads you're likely to click on. Until now, their approach to figuring out which ads you're likely to click on has been by getting information about you... but that's not because they actually want to know about you. It's better for Google not to have loads of personal information about people, because having that makes them a target of all sorts of other organizations, ranging from organized cri
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Additionally, while interesting concept, I see no indication that Google is considering such move away from collecting and centrally storing personal data.
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Interesting point, but have you considered that client-side processing still would require both collection and protection of private data? Your privacy is still vailoated if Google Chrome caused you to collect, retain and make available data about yourself instead of collecting, retaining, and aggregating data about you they are doing now.
The point is that Chrome wouldn't make available data about you. It would provide hints about what some random unknown person, unlinked to anything, is interested in. Another part of the idea is that even those hints are tallied up against a "privacy budget", which is designed to ensure that not enough information is given to identify an individual (read about Differential Privacy [wikipedia.org]; there's some really cool -- and powerful -- math here).
Additionally, while interesting concept, I see no indication that Google is considering such move away from collecting and centrally storing personal data.
That's exactly what Google's announcement is about, building and testi
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Currently, I am fighting losing war with Google collecting data about me. If all this tracking shifted to Chrome, I will be 100% invisible to them as I still control my side. Even if I am forced to use Chrome (I don't see how, but suppose this is the case) I would simply reset it to virgin state on each use.
I doubt that (Score:5, Insightful)
My interest in ads in 'none', will they respect that too?
The best of my world.... (Score:2)
is that I get to see no ads anywhere. I can't wait for Google to get on board!
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I too am willing to get on board with an ad-free web so long as someone figures out how...
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If you repeat something often enough (Score:1)
Way to legitimize doxxing, Google. Once someone's private info has been repeated often enough, it's automatically no longer private.