Chrome browser bringing an IP address privacy tool to Incognito
github.com
github.com
- It's only a proposal
- It only applies to domains in what they call the Masked Domain List (MDL), see [1]
- The masked IP will be in the same country and same "coarse location" as your actual IP
- It applies "when users are signed into their Google account in the Chrome browser before starting an Incognito session."
1. https://github.com/GoogleChrome/ip-protection?tab=readme-ov-...
>IP Protection will use client authentication to limit the ability of bad actors to leverage the proxies to amplify attacks on services on the Masked Domain List. Therefore, IP Protection will only be available to users that have been authenticated using the Google account they're signed in with in the Chrome browser prior to opening a new Incognito window.
However they say that Apple can’t see the final destination of your traffic.
Most privacy changes have the effect of advantaging the position of big tech. To some extent this is unavoidable because users will actively consent to share data with Google etc but not AdTech startups.
For example, Apple’s ATT rules for app tracking made their own App Store search ads more competitive to Facebook. And the removal of third party cookies benefits Google’s banner ad business over rivals.
there's no ethical way for Google to provide this service, they just shouldn't.
It's so transparent and ludicrous, at first I thought it was an Onion or April Fools post.
Sounds like this is just another attempt by Google to gather the data for itself but make it harder for other advertisement companies.
If you're already signed into google then they already have your IP. If you're not signed into google they continue to not get your IP or proxied traffic. What's the issue?
>But other advert platforms don't get your IP
No good deed goes unpunished. Google gets flak for making chrome privacy better, but they also get flak for making chrome privacy worse (see comments about fingerprinting in this thread).
Can you provide any evidence about this in incognito mode though, specifically?
I'm not aware of a single thing Google has done to make incognito mode tracking easier.
People aren't doing most of their browsing in incognito, so it's not going to be something Google cares much about tracking you in.
Or to be more blunt -- your porn preferences aren't a valuable signal to know what clothing or car ads to show you.
These technologies are increasingly relied on because privacy efforts have chipped away at how useful cookie or IP-based tracking can be. Google’s efforts to “improve privacy” when it comes to cookies or IP addresses benefit Google directly; the other tracking methods, which are built into Chrome and enabled by default slowly become the only viable method for tracking, and blocking cookie or IP address information becomes less and less relevant with regard to privacy.
You say that hiding IP addresses somehow benefits Google -- all I see is them doing something they can do that consumers want. It's not benefiting Google strategically in some way.
My point is, I don't see how anyone can possibly complain about this effort from a privacy point of view. Sure it's not solving fingerprinting, but nobody knows how to do that.
Interesting scope. Wouldn't the people who don't log in with a Google account be the ones who care most about this feature?
Wait, double hop is privacy theater in this case. If you control all the proxy gateways it doesn’t matter if you hop around them.
Even Apple’s privacy is technically more so than this although that’s not saying much. There are two entities in their mix — but a simple collusion between the two entities ends that privacy too.
It does seem like privacy theatre, anonymity protocols like Tor are carefully designed to make malicious cooperation difficult.
This is true from a technical trust perspective, but less true from a legal liability perspective.
If company A sells a product to users with the promise “it will be delivered by company B and we have no knowledge of what you do with it”, and then it turns out there the two companies had an agreement to share data and void that promise, company A is in for a world of hurt when the truth comes out.
Given the small number of people who are aware of and care about this stuff, it would be so much less expensive and less risky to just skip the lies in the first place.
What’s the upside of an elaborate architecture that is all window dressing, which creates a ton of liability, and which fraud likely to be discovered because it’s all written down in code and contracts?
[1]: https://github.com/GoogleChrome/ip-protection/blob/master/Ma...
The concept of privacy from Big Tech and partner CDNs exists. But for these companies, generally computer users are not the customers. They are commercial surveillance and ad targets.
It is purely a coincidence, no doubt, that these companies providing "privacy" services are in fact far the world's greatest threats to and violators (or potential violators) of computer user privacy. As always, it is assumed the computer user will be too naive to notice the absurdity of this arrangement.
Google has already been caught fraudulently promoting "Incognito" as "private" and chose to settle with plaintiffs rather than prove they not misleading computer users. Why would anyone trust Google a second time.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24527110/google-unopp...
Let's be more precise: Google's core business is pimping you out to any John who wants to mindfuck you, and selling a fantastically sophisticated matchmaking service on top, to which all that data is instrumental.
An alternative headline might be, "Hoes grow wary of pimpmobile's 'privacy' mode -- Pimp adds Military Grade Encryption(tm) to reassure bitches that 'nah baby, I really love you'"
Surely.
Yet, it's already known and established over the years that Google keeps trying to monopolize data and has taken actions to reduce their user's privacy.