All for-profit tech eventually yields to enshittification.
Google is really damned if they do, damned if they don't here. Third party cookies are very privacy invasive, but replacing it with Chrome watching everything you do and acting as an ad broker is also not great. As long as Google is providing targeted advertising (which you could opt out of in privacy sandbox) then there's not a really great solution.
I do think they dragged this along enough that all sites now operate properly with third party cookies disabled, so that's a benefit at least.
start using firefox or firefox derivatives like librewolf. I know people will say "but they don't have x feature" or "chrome is faster" well until they have the market share they won't be able to put the development cycles in to fix that stuff. google owning chrome and everyone using chrome based browsers is lining up a huge issue for the future.
From my experience, it's almost always "Chrome doesn't have feature x". It's the most feature poor browser currently in wide use. The only advantage that comes to mind is web dev tools, which: a) 99% of people don't care about, because they aren't web devs. b) Chromium also has, and it's like the considerably less infuriating twin.
Floorp is a nice one to use and deserves a mention.
Absolutely there are plenty of good niche ones. I think zen is based on Firefox as well and lots of people like it.
Every once in a while I will try something like degoogled chromium because hey it’s probably a bit faster or works in a few more places.
But then nope, right back to librewolf. It works on everything I need it to work on, and I use the browser all day. I use Linux at work so all the Microsoft suite like outlook, teams, and onenote are webpages.
Can I ask who even clicks on these Google ads? Who is making Google ads valuable by interacting with them?
it's rarely about clicks when it comes to banner ads, it's about impressions (the ad was visible in a user's browser). as with most advertising, it's about keeping the user aware of a brand name or product.
while clicking on them does lead to a destination page of some kind, and it may be valuable to the advertiser for you to end up there (back on a product page for some thing you previously looked at but didn't buy for example) the ad networks and publishers hosting the ads on their pages are mainly getting paid by impressions.
I think for most Google Ads the default is still CPC, so Google probably wants you to click on ads.
interesting. I guess I've only seen it from publisher settings where cpm might be the preferable model.
For Google Ads at least, it’s pay per click not impression
My wife loves the shopping ads and always complains when the Pi-Hole blocks them.
Thankfully (weird to say), the current political climate has her worried about being tracked online and she's finally opening up to the idea of proper privacy.
🤢
I used to work for a company that made most of its money from shitty ad pages you get if you type a url wrong and you’d be shocked to see their monthly Google revenue. It’s in the millions.
The same kinds of people who buy the new FIFA every year.
adnauseam but seriously I did seen people using chrome, not blocking ads and clicking the first result even when it is labelled as ad. The worst is that they keep interacting with the website in a hope they find what they looking for.
The same type of people who fall for scams. And older people, although that's redundant.
The goal of the Privacy Sandbox initiative is to develop new ways to strengthen online privacy while ensuring a sustainable, ad-supported internet.
Like, that's all you need to know about what it ever was.
Also, the article is essentially a bunch of barely meaningful corporate blubber in an attempt to disguise the main message.
As pointed out elsewhere around these comments, this looks like another classic example of enshittification. Just like everything that's invented, it often starts out with a fairly solid design--it couldn't succeed without that. Once the success is captured, they can start dissecting the design and figure out what parts can be made with cheaper materials (common example: replacing metal w/plastic) and/or cheaper tech. From that point it's iterations of further cuts to material and tech until it's the cheapest, flimsiest version that can still function well enough to outlast the warranty. I've been in my field long enough (appliance repair) to see generations come and go and it often runs that route. Sometimes design flaws get fixed during the process, but rarely does the product itself get better or more durable in the long run.
It's all to perpetuate a cycle of abuse.
I've noticed that it has nothing to do with the absolute amounts of currency being exchanged by either party. It's all about seeing how low people's standards are, and then trying to nudge them just a bit 🤏 lower.
This has been going on for generations. Every time a generation lowers its standards, a new normal is achieved and businesses immediately try lowering standards further.
Advertising should be straight up illegal, but we've been conditioned since birth to accept it as normal. Youtubers aren't just rewarded with money for putting extra ads in their videos, they're rewarded with money for contributing to a new normal and lowering our standards.
This is why there are no good deals anywhere.
I wonder if it has anything to do with them possibly having to sell off Chrome
possible. theirs might just become 'third party' cookies.
but i think they're confident that they will not have to give up anything tangible in the current proceedings. toss a little more money into the diaper pail, case is mysteriously dropped or government remedy neutered to a "try not to do that again".
It might. If some day they don't control the browser, whoever does control it might be hesitant to build in features that are only there to spy on users for Google. Cookies do at least have some other uses.
Or, Google would be the one blocked by the new owner (who would have all the info that Google would’ve in the past ) not the one blocking.
Imagine a world where browsers were primarily funded by donation, with every release bringing something new and exciting to the table to entice new donators, rather than milk the customer for ad revenue.
That was nice... Oh well, back to hell, I guess.
I've been on Firefox for a very long time because of shit like this. I run FF on my phone as well. Might look into Fennec.
Does this apply to manifest 3 extension changes as well or is this something different
How dare you think Google would listen to its users and not the advertisers. Fr though I'm not sure, manifest v3 does use a sandboxing feature but it's unclear at first glance if they are directly related
This is good actually, "privacy sandbox" is like baked in ad targeting service. Better to just block third party cookies. I've only needed third party cookies for microsoft 365 stuff.
Wait, isn't this actually a step in the right direction? Can someone eli5?
Google has been kicking the can on ending third party cookie support for years. Chrome has such a large market share that whatever they decide to do has a huge impact on the ability to monetize content with ads.
There’s no clear direct replacement for identifying users for ad targeting outside of 3pty cookies. Lots of competing ‘privacy preserving frameworks’ but they all need buy in from many players at scale to be effective.
Add it to the pile
What is chrome - Firefox
Stop using Chrome
I was afraid they were going to kill work profiles for Android.
Fuck Chrome.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
