Google will stop selling targeted ads based on individuals' browsing histories and won't invest in ad tech that uniquely identifies web users.
Search giant Google (GOOGL) - Get Report on Wednesday said it would not track individuals on the web after it phases out existing ad-tracking technology from Chrome browsers, amid rising concern about privacy.
Shares of the Mountain View, Calif., unit of Alphabet at last check dropped 1% to $2,043.
In a blog post, David Temkin, Google's director of product management for ads privacy and trust, said, "Today, we’re making explicit that once third-party cookies are phased out, we will not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products.
"Instead, our web products will be powered by privacy-preserving APIs which prevent individual tracking while still delivering results for advertisers and publishers."
Google clocked an increase of 22% in advertising revenue to $46.2 billion in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier. The result exceeded Wall Street estimates.
Google first said early last year that it would get rid of third-party cookies, which for decades have enabled online ads. The move was designed to meet growing data-privacy concern in Europe and the U.S.
"Advances in aggregation, anonymization, on-device processing and other privacy-preserving technologies offer a clear path to replacing individual identifiers," Temkin added in the blog post.
Google said that next year it planned to stop using or investing in tracking technologies that uniquely identify web users as they browse the internet.
"This points to a future where there is no need to sacrifice relevant advertising and monetization in order to deliver a private and secure experience," Temkin said.
Google accounted for 52% of last year’s global digital ad spending of $292 billion, according to Jounce Media, a digital-ad consultancy, The Wall Street Journal reported.
happy_jack_turnt on March 4th, 2021 at 06:54 UTC »
I'd like to take the opportunity to point out a privacy issue about reddit itself, which likes to hold itself up as a protector of privacy and upholder of EFF principles.
There are two interesting things about reddit on this front.
1) They engage in browser fingerprinting. Reddit tracks you far beyond your IP or cookies. The take a fingerprint of everything available from your browser (canvas hash, audio hash, plugins, resolution, user agent string etc.) and store it. This gives them a unique id they can tie to your browser/computer even if you are hiding your IP by VPN, and also gives them a manner of linking seemingly separate accounts together. This is nasty shit usually reserved for shady websites and the worst ad tracking networks. It is opposed by the EFF.
2) They abuse the html5 dom storage in order to create a super cookie which they use to store this fingerprint. It is rewritten every time you connect to reddit. This is shady because they do it to prevent you from clearing it by clearing your browser cookies. Cookies are the intended method for that to happen. html5 dom storage is intended for stuff like storing website configs, but reddit is also using it for storing your browser fingerprint and making it so the user can't clear it.
If you'd like to see the hash value of your browser print and confirm what I'm saying, connect to old.reddit.com, press F12 in firefox, go to the storage tab, and go down to local storage. You'll find the hash of your browser fingerprint labeled "fp". I haven't done extensive looking on the new reddit to find where they're storing it there, but I can say that they are printing on it as well.
w0lfwood on March 4th, 2021 at 04:20 UTC »
*third-party cookies
AlphaWolfKane on March 4th, 2021 at 04:09 UTC »
Reminds me of the first time I ever used Amazon to buy some socks. The two ads that came up were for Minecraft and PvZ Garden Warfare 2. The ONLY 2 games I was really playing at the time.
Kinda freaked me out.