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Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting • The Register
(www.theregister.com)
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this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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They're not stealing browser history. The site requests a list of topics and Chrome parses them based on the local history and returns a list of topics.
It's more secure and private than third party cookies.
The technique they use does not really change to the issue.
It's also not necessarily more secure than third party cookies like you claim? You can refuse those cookies and not all website use them, while all website ends up in browsing history.
I might be wrong but as far as I understand Google's topics API only gives websites access to information like "here is a user who likes the topics IT and gardening", which is a LOT less than what is possible with cookies. With cookies a website can get information like "here is a user who visited your website yesterday and two times last week. Also they recently visited websites A, B and C, and frequently visits website D. On website D they are logged in as X." They make all your visits to a website and, with third-party cookies, also to other websites connectable. Google's topics do not.