Critics say new Google rules put profits over privacy | Hacker News Reader

Critics say new Google rules put profits over privacy

bbc.com

124 pointslatexr69 comments

This is not a user first approach. Ad tech heavily relies on IP address for fingerprinting. Chrome will eventually implement IP Protection for incognito users. I believe Chrome originally planned to roll out IP protection for all users. https://github.com/GoogleChrome/ip-protection?tab=readme-ov-...

How does IP address fingerprinting work in IP v6? I am not an expert but as I understand there are just too many addresses to establish patterns.

IPv6 is more like /64 is an IP. Most ISP assign a /56 or /60 to the customer, you can just disregard all the other bits and basically have something like an IPv4 equivalent.

True.

It’s kind of the reverse of IPv4.

In v4 you could have a million people behind one address.

In v6 you at maximum have one person behind an address, but that one person may actually be using a million addresses.

Exactly. IP is but one element of the fingerprint. Browser, OS, language etc. all make it quite possible to reassociate a user to a different IP v4 or 6; just takes a bit of time and processing.

It's actually easier to track. Less NAT, ISP leases can get more specific,misconfigured privacy options...

When I did a geoip lookup on my v4 address last year, it had me about 1.5 miles away from my apartment. When I did it on v6, it was within a block.

Using a VPN and NAT will still be useful for privacy with ipv6.

IP protection from Google's ad tech competitors.

(As a result of Google's antitrust infractions ad tech is going to become more competitive.)

No IP protection from Google and its CDN partners.

>Hi, connections through the proxies are encrypted multiple times to prevent Google from being able to access browsing data. In particular, the connection client-website is end-to-end encrypted, and so are the client-proxyA and client-proxyB connections. Because of this, the proxyA (operated by Google) will only be able to see the client IP address but won't be able to know which website is visited. The proxyB (operated by a partner) will be able to see the hostname of the website, but it won't know which client IP is accessing it. Neither proxy can see the URL nor the data due to the end-to-end encryption. With this design, no one - not even Google - can see who visited what website. Regarding log retention for the very limited information that we do have, let me confirm things internally and circle back.

https://github.com/GoogleChrome/ip-protection/issues/34

Disclosure: I work at Google, but not on IP protection.

When you're going out of business[1], profits get a higher priority than anything in the ESG category. Like a lot of companies that have been successful for a long time, that will take time. But in the 15 years of watching them lose more and more 'margin' on the search ads business and the commensurate changes they have made to their core product, it doesn't seem like they are going to re-invent themselves.

[1] Yes I know, people tell me all the time, Google's not going out of business! And I've responded that based on my observations it is, not like that authoritative or anything. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18179279 on this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18179176

What’s your definition of going out of business?

Google search becoming antiquated in 10-15 years?

For most profitable search categories (ecommerce etc) I can see LLMs taking over - ChatGPT with Search is already more reliable than Google, not to mention Deep Research

So I've read the article and I even read the Google post they linked in and yet can't understand what exactly are these changes.

It mentions fingerprinting but what exactly is Google changing ?

They speak about "advances in privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs)"

and then later on

"Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are already commonly used in the broader ads ecosystem to help marketers reach people across their customer journey and measure how their ads are working, especially on CTV. At Google, we have already been using these signals responsibly to fight against spam and fraud for years. Now, with new innovations like PETs to mitigate risks, we see an opportunity to set a high privacy bar on the use of data like IP. We can do this by applying privacy-preserving protections that help businesses reach their customers across these new platforms without the need to re-identify them. And because we’re looking to encourage responsible data use as the new standard across the web, we’ll also partner with the broader ads industry and help make PETs more accessible"

I consider myself fairly smart and used to read between the lines of the usual corporate bullcrap but here it's so convulated. That got to be a new high.

Take a look here https://support.google.com/marketingplatform/answer/15732590...

Not sure even Gemini ai can unbullshitify that :)

I think this should be interpreted as "we have become so good at identifying users without the traditional tracking signals that we are confident if privacy-preserving protections kick the industry in the nuts, it would massively lower CPI/CPC for all actors ... except Google", and therefore be really helpful.

So they will now do what they can to help anyone who claims "data like IP" needs strong privacy protections.

This is why googletagmanager.com and googleapis.com need to be kicked in the nuts.

The difference is now Google will pass on user-identifying information to the advertisers who use its services.

Google always has this info. Now they are going to share it with their customers.

I too am struggling to understand.

The key sentence seems to be:

> These details along with someone's IP address - the unique identifier used by internet devices - were previously prohibited by Google for ad targeting.

I don't understand how fingerprinting can be used for ad targeting, however? Fingerprinting is used to build a profile, and you've always been able to target profile categories. Is this about targeting specific previous visitors to your website?

This article presents absolutely zero information about anything that has actually changed. It says:

> Changes which come in on Sunday permit so-called "fingerprinting"

But fingerprinting isn't something that is permitted or not. It just exists. It can't be stopped on the modern web.

If anyone knows what concrete change Google made that supposedly takes place today, it would be great to know.

From what I understand, and there's some extrapolation so I may very well be wrong, the difference here is that rather than basing targeting on identification cookies and Google Ad Id, they're now using stuff like fingerprinting and ip addresses to identify and cross reference people.

I find it so extremely disingenuous to call that "privacy enhancing technology" and lay it heavy on the fact that it's less intrusive, when the difference is that instead of inserting a tracker in your browser they do the same tracking without the tracker, and in a less bypassable way.

Company puts profits over...

I'm shocked.

Shocked? We had surveilance for silly stuff like ads, now we will have the one of 1984 variety. Ted K. is more like a futurist at this point.

It’s literally an adtech company…

Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43067021

Why did HN Submit not notice, I wonder.

bbc.com rather than bbc.co.uk

Ah. Thanks.

Not surprised.

A public company like Google doesn’t have to put profit first - but without competition there’s not much else to go for.

If even the BBC feels obliged to publish tepid headlines on the subject, then you know things are getting bad!

What a surprise!

If X% of people despise ads, then can we have X% of the year with a ban on ads?

Maybe this will wake up more people.

These types of survey questions do not connect with what we want them to. “Do you hate ads?” is very different than “would you rather be nickle and dined for everything at every turn?” and even that is different than how people behave when they have to pull out their wallet.

At this point, pay for use has clearly lost to ad supported. People prefer ads to paying.

> People prefer ads to paying.

Eh. Spotify has 250 million subscribers. Netflix has 300 million. Amazon Prime has 180 million. Heck, there's something like a million people paying Twitter for a checkmark, and half a million paying Reddit for nothing at all.

People don't seem to be opposed to paying for online services. They were just never given choice. I have no doubt that publishers prefer ads because it just lets them extract value "for free" - which is probably why you're increasingly seeing ads in paid services, too (Netflix, etc).

Fair point, although the ad supported platforms are all 10x bigger.

Meta has network effects which is a different issue. But what’re your thoughts on consumers using Google for free versus the paid search models? There, at least, there are good alternatives and people clearly prefer ads.

Counterexample: TextNow offers a "free"(ad-supported) mobile phone service, yet people overwhelmingly prefer to pay for T-Mobile.

Interesting, I’d never heard of text now. I wonder if it’s an awareness thing, or is it aligned with previous conditioning? (Eg I always paid for cell service and it’s cheaper and better now than it’s ever been… whereas Google has always been free)

> They were just never given choice.

There was Google Contributor[1], which they tried three launching three different times before giving up on it. It seems like nobody was interested in paying to remove ads on the web.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor

Reading your link, it basically launched twice, with the second time you couldn't even pay to remove adverts but you could bid as your browsed to drive up the price of advertising.

So you paid, and you still saw adverts, it was never available outside of the USA, and didn't last very long for each launch.

Not that people weren't interested. However this is the first I've heard of it, so there's that too.

> People prefer ads to paying.

People's use of ad-driven services should not be taken as a true expression of their preferences, or as consent. The data that is collected in the name of ad-tech is used for many things other than to display ads. But most people have zero awareness of that. The true price we are paying is kept hidden from us.

People who would prefer paying with money rather than data are not given the opportunity to express that preference. There is no premium version of YouTube where my viewing history is not tracked. No "AT&T Platinum" subscription where my location history is not sold to third parties.

Maybe it’s just my social circle, but for about 20 years I’ve been having these conversations and approximately 0% of people care about this stuff. They just want cheap or free crap.

The human mind seems to, as a default state, only care about visible and immediate cost, filtered through a lens of many other biases.

At this point, I feel we need to judge based on observed behaviors rather than armchair psychology of what people actually want but have been given no chance to try. Alternatives to Google exist only as a niche; to me, this feels like pretty conclusive evidence about what most people prefer.

In addition, with the ad-based monetization model the user actually pays _more_ than if they paid the content publisher directly. Because ads make products more expensive, and more than you'd expect. The ad-watcher is basically subsidizing the existence of companies like Google.

Hacker News is shocked - Shocked! - to learn that gambling happens at this establishment.

Baby murderers murder babies. I'm still shocked by them. I still think it's worth expressing it.

Commenter on HN is shocked by hacker news being shocked. This is becoming a trope.

in a breaking discovery scientists report that water is wet

More news at 11

investigative journalists conclude that water is, in fact, wet

Public companies have to put profit first. We need to solve this with regulations, we can't count on their goodwill.

Shareholder primacy is legally dubious at best.

Long-term profitability can be a goal, too. A lot of short-term profit behaviors can hurt long-term profits.

Does being publicly traded imply a company shouldn't have a moral code to stand by?

Is it because the dumb ruling that companies are supposed to have the single goal of making money? Even if at the expense of cautiously ignoring or disregarding the law where it essentially acts as a fee?

> Does being publicly traded imply a company shouldn't have a moral code to stand by?

Yes. The appearance of a moral code is all that is necessary.

And btw, companies cannot be moral, any more than any other object (chair, house) can be. People however, can be moral.

Also, people at Google decided to drop their previous "don't be evil" motto, so perhaps that tells you something.

> companies cannot be moral

I don't buy this. Companies _are made_ of people. The ones that set the direction can be more or less detached from the outcomes of those decisions, but are people nonetheless. Shareholders? People as well.

I assure you, that a company cannot have a morality. It also cannot have a preference for chocolate ice cream, basketball or have children. Companies are not made of people either. Similarly, if you want to speak to a company, you will speak to someone whose job it is to represent the company - you will not speak to the company itself - its a legal fiction.

Companies are legal paperwork that real people engage with to get money - such is the way our society is organised.

If you were to argue that some animals exhibit morality - I would see what you mean.

Yes but who/what dictates the tone the company will use to answer you? Ultimately, a person. Even if they are just following a style manual, that was written by a group of people as well. And reviewed by some C-level, probably.

Individuals can take on groupthink idea (ie a company) - they can re-interpret the information in a relatively coherent way. Think of the idea of say 'Christians' - there is a relatively coherent idea there being animated in all those minds. But then, at an individual level, there is difference in what is believed (eg 'the Father' idea will be be different in each). Its just assumed that the groupthink idea is the same in all. Its a pleasing illusion for an individual to believe.

There is no company morality - as companies and groups cannot feel or register value. The value is entirely in the individual. Yes, one individual can affected and be affected by another. Yes, an individual can say 'We at Google blah blah' and mean what they are saying, and still be wrong.

The idea of a 'group' with feelings, morality etc is just an illusory projection.

I agree, companies nor computers for themselves can't be moral, and instead need to rely on rules that model morals, but in order for them to interact with the world they need humans that allow them to interact with the world, and that must be held accountable for the morality of their systems.

This is why the AI world were, "sorry, computers says no" pretending to cut people off the loop is kind of scary, as people want to pretend this indirection frees them from accountability.

It'll be important for the law to reflect this, but ultimately just being lawfully right, but morally wrong can get you shot in the back anyways.

> Does being publicly traded imply a company shouldn't have a moral code to stand by

Shouldn’t? no

won’t? yes

Regulation is a taboo word under the current administration.

JD Vance has criticized EU during AI summit. Criticized to the point of threatening not to share "Americans" AI bandwagon to EU.

He’s forgotten the EU has ASML clearly.

No. ASML is on the list after Greenland and Gaza.

He and his ilk forget all too quickly why we have regulations in the first place. People wanted them, because they were tired of polluted waterways, bank runs wiping away their life savings, and dangerous poisons being sold as medicine. Now that a functioning democracy has voted for privacy protections, it's a pretty "mask-off" moment that these regulations are the ones he rails against.

Conflating bureaucratic red tape with regulations that actually protect citizens is the deceitful, immoral strategy, by people who are basically... evil.

Simplifying bureaucratic rules can be beneficial and can take countless forms (digitizing trivial manual work, removing duplication, applying materiality thresholds etc. etc.) The result is clearly a win-win for all.

Removing protective regulations is instead a zero sum game. Each fradulent bank behavior not persecuted is siphoning wealth from their clients. Each further exploitation of personal data collection is enriching the surveillance capitalists at the expense of the user-product (and ultimately our very democracies).

Society and politics has a lot of gray areas. This is not one of them.

It wasn't that the people requesting certain things politely that brought regulation. It was when things turned nonprofitable or outright violent. The New Deal was the ideal of Roosevelt but other politicians knew very well what people did to the Tsar and his family. It didn't end well for them but it did scare quite a lot developed governments in the world.

Companies don't have to put profit first. But profit in a for profit is important.

This is a common myth, but is false. Direct quote from the Supreme Court:

> “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.”

More information: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

It's not a myth. The person you are replying to did not say that corporate law requires companies to prioritize profit.

Coroporations need to prioritize profit because that's what they're for. Whenever it looks like a company is not prioritizing profit, what you're seeing is the employees and owners of a corporation using it as a tool to express their personalities and preferences. This is usually not good, it is corruption. There's no reason to think that the personalities and preferences of arbitrary employees and owners are good, or that they would tend to do good things.

The idea that companies have moralities, and that besides bringing in profit they also have some hazy duty to do things that I agree with personally is the myth. It's self-regulation propaganda. It's better to just have rules that keep companies from doing the things that we don't want them to do, instead of hoping that they will suddenly realize that money doesn't buy love, and that the only important things in life are health and family. That's not what they're for. That's what you're for. They're not real people.

> Coroporations need to prioritize profit because that's what they're for.

I disagree. Corporations do things (e.g. provide goods and services): that's what they're for. The whole "money" thing is just a means-to-an-end: a system of accounting to allow the corporation to continue to do what it's supposed to do. Money, after all, is inherently valueless: it's only worth anything because it can be exchanged for goods and services.

If powerful entities exist solely for making money, we risk the economy becoming completely decoupled from anything that actually matters.

> If powerful entities exist solely for making money, we risk the economy becoming completely decoupled from anything that actually matters.

welcome to reality

Interesting opinion, but slightly besides the point made here. Nobody here said it was "legally had to", did they?

It's common for people to say things like that and throw in the phrase fiduciary duty. That's what's being referenced here.

I don't think the supreme court opinion matters in my opinion. I think it is the question of incentives. We should not be surprised if companies optimize for profits, especially if they are owned by shareholders who mainly care about profits. Because of that it is unreasonable (in my opinion) to rely on goodwill. We should instead ensure the regulations are such that unacceptable behaviour is not allowed.

Yeah, one point-of-view is Japanese companies and (mainly) American activist investors. Japanese management are usually cautious in their dealings and store (activist investors think it's hoarding) money, but activist investors are pressuring them to act faster and to operate on a relatively-lean budget.

It's not a problem of regulation but a problem of market capitalism. Executives in public companies are voted in by shareholders (even if so indirectly by the board). Shareholders seek return on their investment by increase in the value of their shares, which is directly linked to the revenue and profit of the company.

As a CEO of a public company, if you're not ready to do what increases profit, you will get replaced by someone who will. The main reason why it won't be profit "above everything else" is when there is a risk that the "above everything else" reduce either of profit or market cap: potential legal ramifications, bad press, etc.

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