3xblah · HackerTrans

"I believe that privacy policies should describe how the data will be used, not how it could be used."

Google's policy does not tell the user how her data will be used by Google's customers. The policy states Google will use the data to "provide better services". That is deliberately vague. That is the "purpose", but how exactly is the data used to achieve that purpose. There are no specifics with which a user could object.

Google does not only serve the search engine user, the email user, the YouTube user, etc. Its business is not free services. As such the policy is misleading as to what are the "Services" it may use the data to improve. Google's business is providing online ad services.

The truth is that Google collects data to provide better services to advertisers. The policy reads as if it only collects data to provide better services to users. The "free" services are just bait to draw users in. The data is collected to improve online ad services.

3xblah

6년 전discuss

The Google employee argues that through UA-CH Google wants to disincetivise "allow" and "block" lists.

After many years of testing HTTP headers, IMO this really is a non-issue. Most websites return text/html just fine without sending any UA header at all.

What is an issue are the various ways websites try to coax users to download, install and use a certain browser.

Another related issue with Google Chrome is users getting better integration and performance when using Chrome with Google websites than they would if they used other clients. ^1 Some make the analogy to Microsoft where it was common for Microsoft software to integrate and perform better on Microsoft Windows whereas third party software was noticably worse to integrate and perform on that OS.

This leads to less user agent diversity. Users will choose what works best.

UA diversity is really a more important goal than privacy, or privacy in Chrome. The biggest privacy gains are not going to come from begging Google to make changes to Chrome. They could however come from making it easier for users to switch away from using Chrome and to use other clients. That requires some cooperation from websites as well as Google.

Those other clients could theoretically be written by anyone, not just large companies and organisations that are dependent on the online ad sales business. It would be relatively easy to achieve "privacy-by-design" in such clients. There is no rule that says users have to use a single UA to access every website. There needs to be choice.

For example, HN is a relatively simple website that does not require a large, complex browser like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc. to read. It generates a considerable amount of traffic and stands as proof that simpler websites can be popular. Varying the UA header does not result in drastic differences in the text/html returned by the server.

1. Recently we saw Google exclude use of certain clients to access Gmail.

3xblah

6년 전discuss

Right-click in the Name column, select "Save all as HAR with content". Then grep for the headers, e.g.,

   sed -n '/headers\":/,/\]/p' example.com.har

While running Chrome, try

   ps ax |grep -o field-trial-handle[^\ ]*[0-9]

Handle to the shared memory segment containing field trial state that is to be shared between processes. The argument to this switch is the handle id (pointer on Windows) as a string, followed by a comma, then the size of the shared memory segment as a string.

Also, can try typing "chrome://versions" in the address bar

https://superuser.com/questions/541466/what-is-the-variation...

https://www.ghacks.net/2013/04/05/field-trials-in-chrome-how...

Further reading:

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/comp...

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/comp...

3xblah

7년 전discuss

Although in that case, it was criminal RICO. Lesser burden of proof, but with civil RICO the plaintiff has to also prove causation.

3xblah

7년 전discuss

The complaint looks remarkably similar to the Nessmith complaint in Florida.

https://www.classaction.org/media/nessmith-v-juul-labs-et-al...

3xblah

7년 전discuss

https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-...

3xblah

7년 전discuss

The question the media should be asking Facebook is why can't they just stop tracking those users?

Why must they fight a government trying to protect its citizens?

Whose side is Facebook on? The side of advertisers? It cannot be the side of users, at least not ones in Belgium. They cannot claim they are "neutral".

They must have persuasive answers prepared for such questions.

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