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Comment by duringmath | Hacker News Reader

I don't know why the Ars Google guy is so hostile toward the company but good grief!

Every other outlet "google releasing their version of Apple's ATT"

Ars Technica guy "Google will watch you while you sleep"

I agree that Ars Technica has an anti-Google stance, but in this case, it seems to be accurate, so I'm not sure what the problem is. The "privacy sandbox" on Android is opt-in… on the part of app developers, not users. If app developers want to track users with cookies and device IDs, they can still do that. It's not anything like what iOS does, where tracking is disabled unless the user opts in.

So yes, while the Ars Technica headline may be a bit hyperbolic, I think it's far closer to the truth than a headline which claims that Privacy Sandbox is comparable to ATT.

As others have stated, it's not a version of Apple's ATT. Not even close.

Personally my biggest issue with this is its naming. I think it is a borderline deceiving name given what it is actually doing.

But they chose a good marketing term so other outlets would say exactly what you think Ars should be saying, but they are not falling for it and actually reporting what it is doing.

That name will trick users into thinking that Google is actually taking privacy seriously (they are not).

Sure the criticism about Privacy Sandbox is valid.

News journalists should dog food Firefox (to encourage end users) and then avoid Chrome. (i.e) they make sure the webpages work great with Firefox. Usually everything works better with Chrome. The reason for the give would be sorry... Our livelihood depends on tracking/ads etc. Oh BTW, I (as a journalist ) am all for privacy but my corporate overlord (CondeNast incase of Ars) forces us to do this/that.

It is the same thing w.r.t. Firefox.

Firstly, journalists are not for the most part going to be the people designing the webpages. They will submit copy to some kind of CMS. So if a site isn't working well on Firefox/mobile/whatever it's generally not going to be the journo who is to blame it will be their designers probably. The exception to this would be small one-person type outfits but those are mostly on substack these days rather than running their own site.

Secondly Ars Technica works completely fine for me on Firefox. I say that as someone who exclusively uses firefox and only ever breaks out chrome to debug compatibility issues and I can't recall ever having a problem with Ars Technica. Are you saying it doesn't work for you?

I've never had problems on the Ars site using Firefox.

Because it doesn't actually improve privacy?

Can it do the thing that ATT does where I can globally or on a per app basis say do not track and have it honored under threat of getting the banhammer from the Play Store?

Because I really don’t care about advertisers having a new cool way to track me, I care that I can force them off by policy and the sandbox seems to not have that feature.

No.

> 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.

I would normally agree that the headline is sensationalist/clickbait, but this author seems to know his stuff and present things accurately. He also wrote the best article I know of on the history of Google chat apps: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-...

Are you legitimately arguing in favour of corporate-sponsored fake news?

Yeah, ArsTechnica really has an anti-Google hardon, it's kinda a pattern where they always choose the worst possible hit piece title when it goes anything in relation to that company. When others do similar things they tend to be much more neutral.

But such is the way of modern digital media - do you think "Google creates a new Privacy Sandbox feature for Android" would bring the same type of clicks, comments and advertiser revenue than one titled "Google will spy on your in your sleep" ? :D

"Google creates a new Privacy Sandbox feature for Android" deceptively implies it improves privacy, when it does just the opposite.

Journalists should pick apart lies, not parrot them.

Anti-Google is what gets the pageviews. Ars has been sliding toward clickbait for a long time now.

But Privacy Sandbox seems legitimately bad. How is pointing that out clickbait? It's okay to criticize a technology company, even — or perhaps especially — if it is the manufacturer of a device one uses.

You're missing the forest for the trees - it's the pattern we're commenting on. ArsTechnica (with Ron Amadeo as Android author) has a consistent history of hit pieces in this area that's easy to see - even when it comes to hardware reviews theirs standout as especially negative in comparison to everyone else.

Is Privacy Sandbox really a lie and bad? Who knows, ArsTechnica will be biased against it either way so you need a better source.

(Unless of course you deeply hate Google, then they'll be writing to soothe your soul and confirm your bias. Go ahead then.)

Ron has such a weird mix of being the only guy willing to state the obvious and being completely unhinged. Like he's willing to state that curved screens and camera notches and no headphone jack are stupid, but he also consistently says whatever Pixel is newest is the best android phone ever despite usually not being more than 72 hours away from Ars Technica posting a story about whatever batshit insane hardware fault the Pixel is currently suffering from.

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