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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by redfox@infosec.pub to c/technology@lemmy.world

This episode of Security Now covered Google's plan to deprecate third party cookies and the reaction from advertising organizations and websites.

The articles and the opinions of the show hosts are that it may have negative or unintended consequences as rather than relying on Google's proposed ad selection scheme being run on the client side (hiding information from the advertiser), instead they are demanding first party information from the sites regarding their user's identification.

The article predicts that rather than privacy increasing, a majority of websites may demand user registration so they can collect personal details and force user consent to provide that data to advertisers.

What's your opinion of website advertising, privacy, and data collection?

  • Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?
  • What's all the fuss about, you don't care?
  • Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?
  • Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?
  • Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?
  • Is this no different from using any other technology platform that's free (If it's free, you're the product)?
  • Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from privacy invasive practices of the past?
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[-] orclev@lemmy.world 169 points 9 months ago

Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?

Yes, I already do. I don't visit Instagram because you need to login to view posts.

What's all the fuss about, you don't care?

I definitely care.

Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?

Ah, now this is an interesting question. I can certainly see an argument that ads are necessary to support "free" content, although personally in many cases I prefer to pay a subscription to support content rather than being subjected to ads.

Really though this is kind of a red herring because it's predisposing that violating your privacy and collecting personal information is a prerequisite to serving ads. It's required for individually targeted ads, yes, but they don't need to traget ads to the individual, they could target the ad by site or the contents of the page hosting the ad.

Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?

I would not visit any site that sold my details to an advertiser.

Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?

Yes, this is very bad.

Is this no different from using any other technology platform that's free (If it's free, you're the product)?

There's a reason I don't use most "social media" sites.

Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from a privacy invasive practices of the past?

Yes, or find a different revenue model that doesn't invade people's privacy.

[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 86 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Ah, now this is an interesting question. I can certainly see an argument that ads are necessary to support "free" content

I understand the need for ads, but having lived through popups, bonzi buddy, and "punch the monkey", advertisers blew any chance of me not using an ad-blocker.

[-] Eggyhead@kbin.social 25 points 9 months ago

Ads don’t bother me as much as their invasiveness. I block ads because…

  1. if a business is dirty enough to resort to interference with popups to get attention, I’m not spending money there. Period.
  2. I don’t want to support mass surveillance perpetrated by the industry.

Give me simple tech ads on tech sites, grocery ads on store fronts, travel ads on travel articles, etc.

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[-] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE WON A FREE APPLE IPOD! as it wakes up half the neighborhood.

[-] Maven@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 9 months ago

Ah, now this is an interesting question. I can certainly see an argument that ads are necessary to support “free” content, although personally in many cases I prefer to pay a subscription to support content rather than being subjected to ads.

On the other hand, not everyone can afford a subscription, so offering a both ad-supported and paid-for options is ideal, imo. Well, at least as ideal as it gets in a "grind your hustle or you'll starve" economy.

[-] orclev@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yes, having a free ad supported option and a paid ad-free option is best, although I would say only if the ad supported option isn't using individually targeted ads. You should be able to see the content with ads without needing to login or provide personal data.

[-] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 7 points 9 months ago

Plus all of those subscription transactions have individual costs. 3% just to the credit card companies alone. We either need to actually make low-cost microtransactions an actual thing - no Bitcoin is not that thing - or we need to publicly subsidize artists for the sake of art.

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[-] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 9 months ago

Yes, or find a different revenue model that doesn’t invade people’s privacy

Agreed. The business model is unsustainable, and toxic. As much as I hate paywalls, it's better than the alternative.

Nobody could seriously believe that the viability of journalism should be dependent on the public's malleability and willingness to buy McDonalds burgers. And yet that's the status quo, more or less.

[-] redfox@infosec.pub 6 points 9 months ago

I would also like to avoid ads, and pay streaming services rather than cable or anything with ads. Oddly, this hasn't been the case for any online news sites. The Indy Star is begging and pay walling for subscribers and for some reason, I don't want to. But I don't want ads. I admit it's unreasonable to have neither. They need to pay people like anyone else.

[-] orclev@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

I think it boils down to the difference in how we consume these things. You typically go directly to a streaming service with the intent to browse and consume its content, but few people directly consume news sites. More often you'll either end up on a particular site from a web search or from a link from an existing content aggregator like facebook, reddit, or lemmy. Since you don't seek out a particular news platform for regular consumption you feel less inclined to pay an ongoing subscription.

That does raise an interesting idea to me though. What if instead of a normal month to month subscription a news service offered a pre-paid per article account. So, say 25 cents an article say and you can purchase 40 articles for $10, then each article you view deducts from your account. When you get low on remaining articles it can prompt you to top up your account or you can have it auto-renew. Personally I think I'd be far more inclined to something like that because the cost would scale based on how much I actually used the service rather than being an ongoing monthly cost for something I use very sporadically.

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[-] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 89 points 9 months ago

Constantly being brainwashed to consume is one of the great evils of our time. Consumerism is bad for mental health and the environment. But advertising also creates many biases in content creation.

When was the last time you heard anything about bad effects of advertising? Not just superficial "stupid ad" but as a massive corrosive force on society? That is how much freedom of speech we have.

[-] redfox@infosec.pub 27 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeah, large portions of economies are being driven by consumption. I feel like so much stuff is just landfill fodder.

Massive affects of advertising

I was hoping you might have some examples, I'm not sure.

[-] treefrog@lemm.ee 26 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Here's an example.

I was advertised camel smokes as a kid.

Everytime I relapse it's on camels. Camels are shitty and cheap.

I relapse and then switch to a brand that's not garbage. Then figure out again how to beat the addiction.

It's a substance use disorder directly caused by advertising. And cancer causing (so my physical environment).

Here's another mental illness that's very easy to trace back to advertising.

Eating disorders.

[-] redfox@infosec.pub 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I think those are good examples, thanks.

Off topic: I don't smoke, but do generally hate smoking so much. I dislike the smell, and the affects on people around the user, like you said. I appreciate vaping. Not because of some hopeful idea that it would be safer, but cause I either can't smell it, or it smells like cotton candy. Who doesn't love the smell of cotton candy?

Also, props for quitting all the times you have. I'm probably majorly addicted to caffeine. Like smokers tell me they have one first thing in the morning, coffee is the first desire after I'm out of bed. I've already limited myself to two-ish cups/day, but I don't think that helped. Coffee also has negative effects on others...fortunately, my wife has coffee breath too :)

[-] iquanyin@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

just to say, it's about 95% less full of harmful chemicals. even opponents admit that. vaping is safer. not safe but safer. and unlike the 200+ times i tried to quite over 45 years (hypnosis, gum, patch, groups, acupuncture, and a heap 'cold turkey), it took me just a few years to quit by first switching to vapes. and within a month of the switch, i felt better in every way. all the bs restrictions in place are so dumb.

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[-] hcbxzz@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The entire goal is to use money to change your behavior. They're inherently manipulative by definition. It's literally weaponized mass manipulation. There's no way to spin that as a positive effect.

If you think about it in terms of it's effects, advertising is the closest thing we have to mind control: companies are paying money to change the behavior of millions of people. Even without any concrete examples, you can easily see how dystopic it really is when you just think about the intention alone

[-] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Sorry I don't have any great sources on this. It's rather speculation because how could you research this scientifically? Even if you could, an experiment like that would actually be unethical! And who would fund this, there is no way to talk in mainstream about advertising without running against massive financial interests. There are some search results but most of those articles look like mental garbage.

My guess is that because we're constantly being told what to consume our minds work quite differently from what they would without advertising.

Our minds constantly have to resist intrusive advertising and psychological manipulation which means we constantly have to switch between and adversarial mindset and whatever content we were watching / reading. Or we become obedient and just "let the advertising wash through us". And advertising constantly has to find new ways to activate our emotions.

Just as massive is the effect on content produced, there is a "natural selection" that any content that helps sell advertisement is more successful on the market. It's not just that you can't piss off your advertiser but that generally you want the consumer to be in a certain mood - or that content producers who do this naturally are more successful and grow.

Then there are privacy concerns which reduce humans to machines and creates a powerful system that can and is abused for political control (public relations).

How can any of that not have massive societal impacts, since it's being done on a massive scale and is near ubiquitous? How can anyone assume these effects are not incredibly bad?

You could have a country banning advertising that has a kind of "content tax" that is funded publicly and administered independent from the government through separate elections. And that has strict mandates and distributes the money to news papers, websites, movies and video creators dependent on views - similar to music rights agencies. But none of this is even talked about. We've completely lost the ability to even think seriously about how to improve our society. I believe in large part this is due to advertising.

PS: There is a film called "Branded (2012)" about the "horrors of advertising".

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[-] yamanii@lemmy.world 76 points 9 months ago

So, internet users may soon need to create accounts on sites they currently access for free. As Laporte worries, "We thought those cookie permission popups were bad, but things may be getting much worse" regarding being forced to hand over personal information just to browse sites.

Good way to kill your site, this is the one thing everyone hates, from the enthusiast to the casual user, making an useless account for 1 service that you barely use.

[-] mr_satan 15 points 9 months ago

Slap Google SSO on that and you're good. Honestly that's worse than regular registration.

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 35 points 9 months ago

Yeah, if I see a "register an account on this random website" I roll my eyes or close it/back out. If I see "sign in via Google/fb" I recoil with a "fuck no".

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[-] T156@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

Especially considering all the data breaches that you hear about.

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[-] kayazere@feddit.nl 7 points 9 months ago

On mobile it is pretty common to force the user to create an account before being able to use the app, so people may already be trained on it.

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[-] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 46 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?

Lots of sites require a free account these days. I don't visit those sites.

What’s all the fuss about, you don’t care?

I care.

Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?

I like advertising - how else are you supposed to find out what products/services are available? Regularly visit every website of every company I might be interested in? That doesn't work.

It's data collection I dislike, nothing wrong with ads as long as they're a reasonably short interruption. Make ads relevant to the content, not the visitor.

Unfortunately under the current system I don't see ads, because the only way to block tracking is to also block most ads. Sorry, but ad networks have burned that bridge. It's going to take time to rebuild it.

Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?

A website would need to offer some really valuable service for me to "trade personal details". Even sites where I have an account (e.g. YouTube) I generally don't log into that account.

Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?

I think anything that gives users control over wether or not they're tracked is a good thing - and forcing people to sign up / agree to terms before using a site does that. If websites want my personal details to access them... that's fine with me. I just won't use those sites. Other people will make a different decision. It's how it should be.

I also think I'm not alone, and plenty of major sites will choose to just not do any tracking. I look forward to using those sites.

Is this no different from using any other technology platform that’s free (If it’s free, you’re the product)?

I reject that premise. Lemmy is free. I don't feel like "the product" when I use lemmy. The product is the content and the discussions. If Lemmy has a few ads on every page, I'd be fine with that. I think it'd be a good idea - as long as it's done right, without invading privacy.

Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from privacy invasive practices of the past?

It's their business, choose whatever revenue model they want. Just be honest and open about it.

[-] Nudding@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago
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[-] grue@lemmy.world 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I vehemently oppose Google having hegemony over web standards, but I'll still happily enjoy the delicious schadenfreude of propagandists -- excuse me, "advertisers" -- getting screwed by that hegemony.

[-] redfox@infosec.pub 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Google having hegemony over web standards

You're not wrong here. I think chrome browser is basically the Defacto browser, and it obviously allows google to do whatever it wants. Not great. The Mozilla / Brave options are barely that. I struggle to even call them competitors at this point.

I definitely appreciate some of the EU's recent privacy/monogoly focused legislation. Also, thanks EU for forcing a common sense charging cord standard and killing off the stupid lightning plug. IMO, if apple would have not been so greedy, they could have unlicensed it and maybe everyone would have used that. EAD apple :)

[-] nintendiator@feddit.cl 10 points 9 months ago

The Mozilla / Brave options are barely that.

You mean "The Mozilla option". Brave is just Yet Another Chrome Reskin.

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[-] SpaghettiYeti@lemmy.world 27 points 9 months ago

I dabble in marketing for my company. Let me just say advertisers don't need a damn cookie to know who you are to serve you ads. Even across multiple devices. There are so many methods.. literally over a dozen when cross referenced tells companies exactly who you are, even on vpn, even incognito.

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[-] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 25 points 9 months ago

The secret trick here: nobody will make a new username and password - nor should they. They'll only log in if they have a convenient login with Google/FB/MS button. Which gives Google premium position in tracking.

[-] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Nothing convenient about those for me. Browser extensions/etc that block tracking cause all of those services to direct me to "are you a robot" and "something looks strange about your login" auth bounces which are getting increasingly difficult to wade through.

A simple username/password, saved in a password manager, is so much easier.

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[-] ReallyKinda@kbin.social 23 points 9 months ago

I already click right back out of websites that don’t make it easy to reject cookies or ask for an email. I certainly won’t be registering anywhere and will find other ways to get the information I need. At this point I am immediately turned off by anything that relies heavily on ad-revenue to exist anyway.

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[-] femboy_bird@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 9 months ago

posted February 13 2024

"Google recently announced that its dominant Chrome browser will phase out support for third-party cookies by the end of 2023"

"AI Written Human Edited"

We can tell

[-] danielfgom@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago

This is great news! But I'm sure Google is probably using it as a way to get all the cookies for themselves and then sell that data to these companies.

The companies will still get their data but they'll have to buy it from Google only as Google will probably be considered a 1st party cookie vendor.

If any site wants me to sign up to use it, I'll just not use it. No big deal.

[-] Rottcodd@kbin.social 18 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?

I already generally do.

What’s all the fuss about, you don’t care?

I honestly don't much care, but that's because western civilization is circling the drain, warped and undermined at every turn by wealthy and powerful psychopaths, and it's just not worth it to care, since there's absolutely nothing I can do to stop them

Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?

Some sort of revenue stream is potentially necessary, but that's the extent of it. Advertising is just one revenue stream, and even if we limit the choices to that, there are still many different ways it could be implemented.

The specific forms of advertising to which we're subjected on the internet are very much not necessary. And they don't exist as they do because the costs of serving content require that much revenue - they exist as they do to pay for corporate bloat - ludicrously expensive real estate and facilities and grotesquely inflated salaries for mostly useless executive shitheads.

Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?

Again, that's what I already do, so it would just add more sites to those I won't visit.

Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?

At this point, the two are almost always one and the same. Internet technology is primarily harnessed to the goal of maximizing income for the well-positioned few, and all other considerations are secondary.

Is this no different from using any other technology platform that’s free (If it’s free, you’re the product)?

This is cynically amusing on Lemmy.

Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from privacy invasive practices of the past?

Of course they should, but they won't, because they're psychopaths. They'll never give up any of their grotesque and destructive privilege, even if that means that they ultimately destroy the host on which they're parasites.

[-] OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 9 months ago

I don't quite understand the leap from "No third party cookies" to "You need to create an account".

If you're visiting a site and they drop a cookie, that's a first party cookie. You don't need to log in for that to happen, and they can track you all the same. Taking identifiers from a first party cookie and passing them to advertisers will still be a thing, it'll just require closer coordination between the site and the advertiser than if the advertiser dropped their own cookie.

Now yes, that first party cookie won't follow you around to other websites and track your behavior there, but creating an account wouldn't enable this anyway. Besides, Google's Privacy Sandbox product suite is intended to fill this role in a less granular way (associating k-anonymized ids with advertising topics across websites).

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[-] kby@feddit.de 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I am not sure if advertising is a necessary evil. I guess I do not like being sold something constantly, and when I am in the market for anything, I will expose myself to advertising willingly, but it is, in way, a matter of consent. I can imagine that there is also people who like being sold things unsolicited, you know, they might say that they like discovering new products through advertisements.

[-] redfox@infosec.pub 6 points 9 months ago

people who like being sold things unsolicited...discovering new products...

That is a good point, I can definitely understand.

I do not like being sold something constantly

I must agree.

A short version rant about advertising: In my opinion, it causes either mental exhaustion or prevents people from reflecting. It's a constant and invasive distraction, robbing people of peace.

Why? Thinking of all the ways you can't go ten minutes without seeing ads, unless you're intentional. They started putting screens in gas pumps! Billboards on the roads, some that are giant LED screens (which I thought should be illegal), ads all over buildings, buses, in the subway, on the bench.

Back to websites: I personally think in their current form, they're so distracting, they're unreadable. I refuse to visit websites that require registration, and also leave if I can't get the simple/reader mode/ on edge/chrome. At least that way, its forced darkmode, and eliminates all the ads, social media links, everything but words. I can deal with some of the pictures not being shown. I wish I could find a browser that only displays websites in that stripped down mode.

 

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[-] JustUseMint@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago
  1. I already have been for some time.

  2. I care immensely

  3. Maybe, but I'll keep fighting it tooth and nail with ad blocking and other privacy Security tools. I've been much much more receptive to sponsorships from YouTubers I enjoy than traditional ads. I'll intentionally try stuff just to support the YTber.

  4. Yes, I already do.

  5. Primarily, yes it is to be. This is next in line for restrictions upon the internet, it goes in hand with that garbage website and browser attestation shit from Google and chrome. I don't like any of this direction with ads, it's gotten worse in everyday life too.

  6. I can't draw a comparison in my head.

  7. I will be loyal to companies that do actually respect my privacy, mullvad being one of them. I recommend them everywhere, and there are others that deserve the same recognition, like Mozilla and many others. I will do my best to not support businesses that do not respect privacy.

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[-] doesnt_use_lemmy@lemmings.world 6 points 9 months ago

This is great news! I hope this ends the era of subversive psychological targeting that's given rise to so much of the division in our culture.

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this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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