SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Browser fingerprinting is where JavaScript or other means are used to scrape uniquely identifying information from the browser metadata and functions such as how it draws a canvas object. In it's latest release Apple will defeat browser fingerprinting by making all Mac users look alike to advertisers and websites that use fingerprinting to track users. Apple can afford to do this as it doesn't have skin in the online advertising game.
[This is likely only going to be for the Safari browser. - Ed]
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Latest Apple Release to Defeat Browser Fingerprinting in Safari
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 48 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
sillema sillema nika su
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:21PM (5 children)
*IF* Apple is recording peoples browsing activities (is there any evidence of this?), I'd say siloing is *still* a good thing - the more separate, secret silos such data is spread across, the more difficult it is for malicious actors (advertisers, governments, etc) to use that data to manipulate the population at large. And even on a personal level - if advertisers have to buy my data from Apple, rather than collecting it themselves for (practically) free, then fewer advertisers will find it worth their while to try to target me specifically with their behavior manipulation engines (aka ads).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:28PM (4 children)
They are a malicious actor themselves for siloing data in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:29PM
You're right: your data wants to be free!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:44PM (2 children)
No, they're malicious for *collecting* it (assuming they are. Evidence?). Your browsing habits are nobody's business but yours. Siloing such data would just make them profiteers, in a manner that actually benefits the users at least slightly compared to selling it or spreading it around.
But again- do we have any evidence that they're actually collecting such data, rather than just making it much more difficult for others to do so? Because the two are basically unrelated, and defending people's privacy seems to me to fall pretty clearly on the side of "good". Even if they're only defending it from other parasites, while mining it themselves, it's *still* good - they could far more easily just continue to let everybody mine it, and let you suffer the subtle price of having far more parasites tracking you.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 14 2018, @08:36PM (1 child)
My evidence that they'll be collecting and siloing it is the following:
1. They can, and basically nobody has either the ability or inclination to stop them (a small number of techies might filter out the traffic, but that's a blip among their customer base).
2. They believe it's profitable for them to do so.
And that makes the decision very very simple for management.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 15 2018, @01:25AM
That's not evidence - that's reasoning. Sound perhaps, but still not evidence. And we are talking about one of the very few tech companies in the world that has actively fought government spying on citizens, rather than bending over backwards to make it easier for them like most do.
And yes - it would be very hard for many to stop them, especially among their target customer base, but it would be very easy for them to be exposed, and for now at least they seem to be embracing the privacy thing as a marketing tool.