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Comment by afavour | Hacker News Reader

Technically they’re correct: the privacy offered by this new system is superior to that which is offered by the web with no tracking protection.

Thinking about it in a very abstract way I find the whole thing fascinating. Google is clearly terrified that the tracking protection offered by other browsers is going to become the norm and they’re trying to head that off at the pass by implementing this compromise. But I’m not sure why they’re all that worried about it, they still have the lions share or the browser market. Maybe they’re worried about incoming legislation?

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If I'm understanding correctly, they're not turning on some other tracking prevention when you enable this "feature". It's strictly a privacy downgrade.

Not yet but they can't just turn off third party cookies arbitrarily in their browser without giving time for sites and advertisers to update their systems to account for the removal. They're already facing anticompetitive/monopoly scrutiny on many other fronts, they don't need to shoot themselves in the foot in the advertising space as well. Thus the first step is to implement a replacement technology first and then make the change.

> Not yet but they can't just turn off third party cookies arbitrarily in their browser without giving time for sites and advertisers to update their systems to account for the removal.

Of course they can. They just don’t want to.

No, they literally can't. The UK Competition and Markets Authority made Google promise they won't remove 3rd-party cookies from Chrome before adding alternatives.

Sure they can. They just have to do it in a way that doesn't create a disadvantage for other advertising providers.

Google isn't allowed to stop others tracking you without also removing their own ability to track you because that's anti-competitive.

You are assuming reasonableness on behalf of the regulators in question. In an ideal world, they hopefully said "you cannot give information to your own advertising/analytics division that you don't give to others". However, they could just as easily have said "you must provide either third-party cookies or a replacement for them", without offering the much more reasonable alternative of turning both off and not giving Google advertising/analytics any information either.

So, what did the regulators actually say, and does it in fact allow Google to turn off third-party cookies without any replacement? If it does, then this is Google's fault for adding this feature in Chrome. If it doesn't, then this is the fault of bad regulation.

Google has a habit of limiting changes it does not like to specific countries.

So if they are rolling out a UK mandated feature globally there is no question that Google is all for it.

> Not yet but they can't just turn off third party cookies arbitrarily in their browser without giving time for sites and advertisers to update their systems to account for the removal.

This is a good example of anticompetitive/anti-monopoly regulation not only not protecting consumers, but in fact making things actively worse.

A better regulatory response would have been "having an advertising/analytics product and a browser product in one company is anticompetitive, split one of them into a separate business from the other, and then the browser product must not privilege the advertising/analytics product". Then the browser could, in fact, just disable third-party cookies without giving advertisers and analytics companies another alternative.

They could also not run a global surveillance panopticon so that there wouldn't be an unfair competitive advantage. Or telling the UK to get bent and that they won't offer Chrome there is apparently a viable strategy given recent developments with encrypted communication there.

In any case, this is still strictly a privacy downgrade to turn on. It's still deceptive to imply turning it on improves privacy.

After the launch of this feature they plan to disable third party cookies. It's not happening simultaneously because they would get hit with antitrust suits by adtech companies if they gave no time to transition.

That sounds then like a class action lawsuit waiting to be filed.

We're in a transition period to turning off third-party cookies. When that happens, this is objectively more privacy-secure.

> Technically they’re correct: the privacy offered by this new system is superior to that which is offered by the web with no tracking protection.

That’s not true, this new system is a tracker, not tracking protection. Simply turning it off improves privacy.

There’s literally no point in implementing this system if you aren’t going to pair it with tracking prevention, as Google plans to do.

They’re planning on turning off one tracking system they use on us and turning on another, that’s not “tracking prevention”. Every other browser just turned off the old and didn’t replace it, and users are better off for it.

I’m aware. The OP said:

> this feature increases your privacy when in reality it does the opposite

My clarification is that their new tracking system does increase your privacy compared to the old. It just doesn’t increase it as much as other browsers. We’re not in disagreement about what is better for users.

We’re in agreement on the relative privacy, too. My point was just to challenge this “protection” / “prevention” framing. If somebody regularly mugs you then announces they’re going to start taking half as much when they mug you, and that only in response to people increasingly fighting back, framing that as “mugging protection” or “mugging prevention” is not just inaccurate, but pushes an assumption that this person is actually helping us and that demands of no mugging at all are unreasonable.

As of right now they don't turn off 3rd party cookies when you enable this, so no. This objectively decreases your privacy.

It’s beautiful, from a sociopath’s perspective, if you think about it.

“If you let me punch your teeth out, the stabbings will stop (sometime in the future, terms and conditions may apply)”

All while refusing to acknowledge that there is an option that requires neither punching nor stabbing.

To an uninformed user that takes Google’s words at face value it sounds like an upgrade.

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