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Comment by kccqzy | Hacker News Reader

It's a government mandated bullshit as a replacement for third party cookies.

When all other browsers disable third party cookies, everything is fine. Apple for example has disabled it for years. When Google does it, antitrust regulators fear that this could benefit Google ads more than non-Google ads. Hence this bullshit to "restore competitiveness" between Google and non-Google ad networks.

My recommendation is to both disable third party cookies and this new thing. You don't need either of them.

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> It's a government mandated bullshit

This is definitely what Google would like you to believe. Considering indeed all other browsers have killed third party cookies, Google legally very well could as well. But they'd love you to believe they must provide a way to invade your privacy.

The issue regulators had was Google retaining special access to user tracking, they have no problem with Google removing their own ability to track as well. Of course, that doesn't buy Larry and Sergey's next yacht or private island remodel.

> The issue regulators had was Google retaining special access to user tracking, they have no problem with Google removing their own ability to track as well.

I don't think you understand the issue. Without third party cookies Google still has search ads while adtech competitors without a search engine are decimated. That's the antitrust concern.

> It's a government mandated bullshit

Who says that, google?

To make an analogy, don't believe any EU country government when they blame some EU directive for a new law.

The CMA. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62052c52e90e0...

Some government regulators used to primarily focus on natural persons (i.e. citizens/consumers) and prioritize them above all else.

Then neo-liberalism took over and they took a page out of the US’ playbook, and started prioritizing businesses.

But unlike in the US they aren’t comfortable outright stating that they’re prioritizing business interests over consumer interests, so instead they do this weird thing in their communications where they act like they’re standing up for small businesses. Problem however is that their definition of “small” business is everything below a trillion euro market cap.

It’s kind of jarring really, to hear them talk about having to protect those poor advertisers, like it’s some UNICEF donation ad.

> My recommendation is to both disable third party cookies and this new thing. You don't need either of them.

then you will see random low quality ads instead of something you may be interested in

But if I block ads in my browsers, at the router level through Ad Guard, route all my personal devices through Tailscale, and use Firefox then I won't see those either.

I think eventually Ads industry will catch up on those like you if it will threaten Ads revenue in significant volumes.

There were news already that they block people from playing youtube videos if they blocked ads.

That's a fine choice by me. In the rare scenarios I turn off my ad blocker, I want to see generic badly targeted ads, not ads precisely engineered to cause me to make a purchase or change my worldview.

Exactly! Ad companies literally pay psychologists to convince people to buy stuff they don't need. Everyone loves to say "those tricks don't work on me!", but the reality is that they absolutely do. You see an ad for Coke a thousand times, and you're at the store and thirsty, hey, there's a refrigerator full of Coke and I haven't had one in a while...

I'm certain a company could convince me to buy a new mechanical keyboard or nice mouse or some app I don't need but that looks pretty cool. That kind of targeting might just separate me from my money. On the other hand, no one's ever going to convince me to buy any brand of tampons.

Oh my god, how will I live my life knowing the parts of the web pages I tune out give pennies to certain companies instead of others. It's FOMO for ads!

Oh wait, I use uBlock Origin, so this doesn't affect me at all! I'm stealing all that data from servers that give it to me when doing an unathenticated GET.

google likely tracks you anyway through your search, youtube, browser history synced to your account, so yes, you take pennies from little competition google still have to actual google.

Not everyone has a google account, nor any of those services.

its probably close to statistical error in terms of revenue.

Just use Ad Nauseum, then everyone gets the pennies, and you don't lose time off of your life looking at things you don't want to see.

I use Firefox, DuckDuckGo, NewPipe/invidious, CookieAutoDelete to logout of Google as soon as the tab is closed.

I'm sure they track me nonetheless, but it's a bit less.

<cough> google container for firefox

You're perfectly free to use an ad blocker as you always have. But for the people who don't block ads, it's obviously preferable to see ads relevant to them than totally arbitrary stuff.

That isn't obvious at all. There are various reasons why someone would not be blocking ads but not all of them include actually wanting to see the ads or caring about the content.

I'd rather not see ads for things I may be interested in. Do you see why?

We could have privacy protection as the default, and then you can opt-in to sharing your personal life with hundreds of companies so they can show you more relevant ads. Since everyone loves relevant ads, they'd be sure to opt-in, right?

there are such browsers and search engines, but looks like majority prefers to use services with quality backed by revenue from relevant ads.

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