(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Google's New "Privacy" Measures Again Show Why Personalized Ads Should Be Banned [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-21 Google is introducing new privacy features that will not actually make your life any more private when using their service. In fact, the opposite might be true: The "Privacy Sandbox" on Chrome has at least some roundabout argument for improving privacy, since Google claims it will one day block third-party tracking cookies in Chrome once the system rolls out. On Android, the Privacy Sandbox tracking is in addition to all the usual individual tracking methods; it's not being pitched as an alternative to anything. The Privacy Sandbox on Android is toothless, and Google has no plans to reduce tracking on Android. The company said last year: "We plan to support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes." So even in the best-case scenario, Google has no plans to answer iOS's 2020 tracking reduction until at least 2024. Android launches yet another way to spy on users with “Privacy Sandbox” beta | Ars Technica Google is building a tracking system right into the browser that requires you to opt-out of being tracked, in addition to the myriad of systems they already use to tack you. This new system is coming at a time when they intend to disable ad-blockers, and will appear well before they implement their promise to block third party cookies (third party cookies are tracking cookies that are on web sites but do not belong to the owners of the websites -- they track you on behalf of third parties like ad networks, Facebook, etc. Ad networks rely heavily upon them.) Yeah privacy. And before anyone smugly announces that they are fine because they use an iPhone, Apple captures an enormous amount of data on you: This data has the potential to be extensive. “Everything is monitored and sent to Apple almost in real time,” says Tommy Mysk, an app developer and security researcher who runs the software company Mysk with fellow developer Talal Haj Bakry. In November, the Mysk researchers demonstrated how taps on the screen were logged when using the App Store. Their follow-up research demonstrated that analytics data could be used to identify people. “The App Store is special because there’s no other option,” Mysk says. “There is no other choice. If you don’t like the privacy statement of Apple Music, fine. You can use Spotify—there are alternatives. To the App Store, there is nothing.” All the Data Apple Collects About You—and How to Limit It | WIRED That is in addition to your health information, location data, and search data that apple collects. I am not claiming that Apple is just as bad as Google or Facebook. They are not. But they are not the paragons of privacy that their advertising and PR people would like you to believe they are -- and for the same reasons that Google, Facebook and other tech companies are not: personalized advertising. Apple has, since 2016, expanded its advertising business. It primarily focuses on contextualized ads --knowing where you are and what you are doing -- and personalized ads -- knowing who you are -- to make money. Both types of advertising have privacy implications. Contextual ads generally do not require knowing exactly who the person is, but ads based on age, gender and location can still provide a wealth of information about an individual, especially if such information can be tied back to a specific phone. Apple and other providers claim to take steps to prevent such connections, but we have seen examples in the past of anonymized data being used to identify individuals. Still, contextual ads, especially those not tied to location and limited to broad categories, are superior to personalized ads. The problem is that personalized ads are still a very desirable market. Facebook recently authored an ad campaign to get people to feel good about personalized ads, and TikTok has stopped letting people opt-out of personalized ads. And, of course, as we can see above, Google is still trying to collect a ton of personal data about you. These companies see personalized data as both a means of increasing their ad revenue and increasing their ability to engage you. And that is why this kind of data needs to be banned. First, having your private life available to the highest bidder is not something that should generally be allowed. You cannot live a free life with every detail available to everyone who wishes to know it, for good or ill. And these companies use it for quite a bit of ill. From the mundane, like exposing a teenager's pregnancy to her potentially abusive parents, to the more large-scale societal damage that personalization has inflicted upon us in the last decade: Facebook is withholding certain job ads from women because of their gender, according to the latest audit of its ad service. The audit, conducted by independent researchers at the University of Southern California (USC), reveals that Facebook’s ad-delivery system shows different job ads to women and men even though the jobs require the same qualifications. This is considered sex-based discrimination under US equal employment opportunity law, which bans ad targeting based on protected characteristics. The findings come despite years of advocacy and lawsuits, and after promises from Facebook to overhaul how it delivers ads. Facebook’s ad algorithms are still excluding women from seeing jobs | MIT Technology Review That is just one example, but there are many more. Facebook uses personalization and micro-targeting to spread extremist content in order to drive engagement. Google allowed job ads to be kept from people who refused to specify a gender. Twitter allowed you to target ads to such keywords as "white supremacists" and "anti-gay". These companies make bank on personalization and do not care what harm they cause in the process. And they cannot be trusted to change their ways voluntarily. As we see, Google is making things worse under the guise of giving users more control. When confronted with Apple preventing them from gathering the data they needed to personalize ads, Facebook did not try and find a new revenue stream -- they spent money trying to get small businesses and consumers to shame Apple into going back on their privacy enhancements. Apple, when faced with stagnant hardware markets, branched into the very advertising spaces that they ostensibly try to protect their users from. All of the major tech players rely to one degree or another on personalization, on harvesting everything they can about all of your most intimate details, to make their money. They are not your friends. These companies will not change -- their paychecks depend upon them not doing so. You are merely the raw material upon which they build their fortunes. They strip mine your life for its intimate details and then use those details to create ads, discrimination, misinformation, and division. All of which is good for their bottom line. None of which is good for you or your society. If we want a better internet, and hence a better society, we have to ban these kinds of ads once and for all. Otherwise, imagine the future as an ad-man selling us our own lives twisted into hate, discrimination, privacy-destroying revelations, and division. Forever. Want more oddities like this? You can follow my RSS Feed or newsletter. 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