from the privacy-blowing-away-in-a-sandstorm dept.
Rather than match iOS's tracking limits, Google built an additional tracking system:
Apple blew up the advertising market in 2020 when it gave tracking an opt-in feature on iOS. Since then, Google—the world's biggest advertiser—has been slow to roll out its solution for Android and Chrome. The idea that Google has come up with is called the "Privacy Sandbox," which sounds like a good thing, but it's a new tracking system for Android and Chrome. Once that is up and running, only then does Google say it will start blocking existing tracking methods like third-party cookies.
[...] Privacy Sandbox, on Chrome and Android, tracks users by interest groups rather than individually, which Google claims is a privacy improvement. Android will soon build an advertising profile of you, and the user interface will let you block "interests" you don't want to see ads for. There's an off switch and a list of apps that plug into the new tracking system—presumably anything using a new build of the Google Ads API.
[...] The "Privacy Sandbox" on Chrome has at least some roundabout argument for improving privacy, since Google claims it will one day block third-party tracking cookies in Chrome once the system rolls out. On Android, the Privacy Sandbox tracking is in addition to all the usual individual tracking methods; it's not being pitched as an alternative to anything. The Privacy Sandbox on Android is toothless, and Google has no plans to reduce tracking on Android. The company said last year: "We plan to support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes." So even in the best-case scenario, Google has no plans to answer iOS's 2020 tracking reduction until at least 2024.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday February 22, @04:19AM (8 children)
Be nice if they could fork Android, remove all the tracking crap, and maintain their own phone OS.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday February 22, @04:46AM (7 children)
Others have forked Android (well, they just use vanilla AOSP) and isolated Google Play. Look up Graphene OS for instance.
That's not the issue. The issue is, you can't buy any old phone and load Graphene OS Onto it. You have to buy a phone you can root somehow. And none of the phones Graphene OS runs on is terribly appealing.
In other words, you have to play a game of cat and mouse with The Man to be free and The Man is winning.
(Score: 2) by Ox0000 on Wednesday February 22, @10:04AM (6 children)
I'll rate you as informative and will second GrapheneOS. I do want to contextualize some items:
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday February 22, @02:31PM (5 children)
Sure:
- Pixel phone? You must be joking... I'm not giving my money to Google for the privilege of escaping their surveillance.
- I like ruggedized phones with huge batteries, so they don't break, they're waterproof and they last several days between charges. I want to be able to be rough with my phones, and never have to worry about damaging them. Weight, styling or performances are of no interest to me. I have a computer to do real work. None of the ruggedized phones on the market, like Ulefones or Cats, are supported by GrapheneOS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22, @02:39PM (4 children)
Ok. How about giving them money for some decent hardware that doesn't have a "bixby button"?
I've used direct-from-google hardware since the Nexus line. My first few Android phones were full of so much cell-phone-company-supplied bullshit, and Google gave me a "clean" phone. My first (and only) Verizon phone that work purchased for me had some shitty NFL app pre-installed. You couldn't remove it. You couldn't get it to stop handing out sports score notifications. You couldn't disable its ability to track your location.
Let's face it...if you want to control your privacy as much as possible, you don't buy a phone that whores your data out to 20 different companies, you buy the phone that only whores it out to one...simply because dealing with one "leak in the bucket" is easier than dealing with 20.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Wednesday February 22, @03:17PM (2 children)
I mean, sure, I guess. Except that if that one leak in the bucket is just as large as having the multiple leaks in the bucket. In the event that your data is going to be passed around and sold anyway. Does it matter, if it's just being leaked only to one?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Ox0000 on Wednesday February 22, @03:56PM (1 child)
Are you suggesting we should just give up and not only willingly, but (pro)actively hand everything over to our new Digital Feudal Lords because what's the point anyway?
Your statement betrays a level of resignation to the current state of things and that is exactly where they want you (damn you Scott McNealy with you're "you have no privacy, get over it", you lied!).
If you do buy a google phone (to stick with the example above) and flash graphene on it, then yes, you've given google money. I'll agree that that's not great nor desirable because you feed the monster that way.
But on the other hand, you've given them money once and that's also pretty much where it ends. You're not feeding the monster any further with your data: you're not actively capitulating and pushing every bit of information about you to them. You're not using the stock android that comes on the device anymore.(*)
In a more ideal world, that list of devices supported by graphene is expanded, extensively, but here we are. At least there's something you can do to not get f'ed over on a continual basis.
We gotta start somewhere...
(*) Give or take whatever insidious tracking they do online, and via unwise apps you may (but don't have to) install, that's a related, but very different matter.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday February 22, @04:31PM
I definitely agree that it's best to use a device with an OS that isn't spying on you all the time. In the event that you're trying to justify why stock Android OS vs Samsung's Android OS is better. You're just giving your information away, either way. Neither is best and all you're doing is deciding who gets your data first.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday February 23, @08:13AM
"you buy the phone that only whores it out to one...simply because dealing with one "leak in the bucket" is easier than dealing with 20."
A counter argument is that 20 random companies fighting over bits of my data are collectively less of a real threat to my privacy than just giving google all of it.
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday February 22, @04:22AM (1 child)
And this is why I only brows in Lynx.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday February 22, @04:55AM
I lash in Lynx myself...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday February 22, @04:49AM
is called Firefox.
Why is anybody waiting for Google to come up with a solution to shoot themselves in the foot? It's like asking a pedophile web developer to design a child protection scheme.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Wednesday February 22, @09:04AM
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: thanks to ad blocking, I have a different view of the Internet than the average person. It's been a long time since I've seen ads on Android, as I browse the Internet using Vivaldi, which has a built-in ad blocker, and I have also installed AdAway [wikipedia.org], to block ads at the system level, so that I don't have to watch tons of ads in an application, for the privilege of having a small window of opportunity, to actually run the application between watching ads.