On Mozilla’s weblog, engineer Martin Thomson explores Google’s “Privateness Sandbox” initiative (which proposes sharing a subset of personal person data — however with out third-party cookies).
The weblog put up concludes that Google’s Protected Viewers “protects advertisers (and Google) greater than it protects you.” However it’s not all unhealthy — in idea:
The concept behind Protected Viewers is that it creates one thing like another data dimension within your (Chrome) browser… Any web site can push data into that dimension. Whereas we usually keep away from mixing knowledge from a number of websites, these guidelines are modified to permit that. Websites can then course of that knowledge with the intention to choose ads. Nonetheless, nobody can see into this dimension, besides you. Websites can solely open a window so that you can peek into that dimension, however solely to see the advertisements they selected…
Protected Viewers is perhaps flawed, however it demonstrates actual potential. If that is potential, that may give folks extra of a say in how their knowledge is used. Relatively than simply have somebody spy in your each motion then use that data as they like, you would possibly have the ability to specify what they’ll and can’t do. The expertise might assure that your alternative is revered. Possibly promoting is just not the very first thing you’d do with this newfound energy, however possibly if the promoting trade is keen to fund investments in new expertise that others might finally use, that may very well be an excellent factor.
However here is a number of the weblog put up’s key criticisms:
- “[E]ntities like Google who function massive websites, would possibly rely much less on data from different websites. Shedding the knowledge that comes from monitoring folks would possibly have an effect on them far much less once they can use data they collect from their many companies… [W]e have an organization that dominates each the promoting and browser markets, proposing a change that comes with clear privateness advantages, however it is going to additionally additional entrench its personal dominance within the massively worthwhile internet marketing market…”
- “[T]he proposal fails to satisfy its personal privateness objectives. The technical privateness measures in Protected Viewers fail to forestall websites from abusing the API to find out about what you probably did on different websites…. Google loosened privateness protections in plenty of locations to make it simpler to make use of. After all, by weakening protections, the present proposal supplies no privateness. In different phrases, to assist make Protected Viewers simpler to make use of, they made the design even leakier…”
- “Numerous these leaks are momentary. Google has a plan and even a timeline for closing a lot of the holes that had been added to make Protected Viewers simpler to make use of for advertisers. The issue is that there is no such thing as a credible repair for a number of the data leaks embedded in Protected Viewers’s structure… In failing to realize its personal privateness objectives, Protected Viewers is just not now — and possibly not ever — an excellent addition to the Internet.”
