Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Biggest Privacy Erosion in 10 Years? On Google’s Policy Change Towards Fingerprinting (blog.lukaszolejnik.com)

submitted 5 days ago by perishthethought@lemm.ee to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

While I once hoped 2017 would be the year of privacy, 2024 closes on a troubling note, a likely decrease in privacy standards across the web. I was surprised by the recent Information Commissioner’s Office post, which criticized Google’s decision to introduce device fingerprinting for advertising purposes from February 2025. According to ICO, this change risks undermining user control and transparency in how personal data is collected and used.

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[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 60 points 5 days ago (4 children)

just a step or two removed from what's probably their ultimate goal: a unique guid for every device, that you can't change, can't remove, can't decline, and is always with you--including linking multiple devices when you log-in to the same account somewhere across googleland from them.

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 17 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Surely it does this already?!

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 16 points 5 days ago

You don't need to.

By using metrics like IP address , age, gender, race, religion, city, workplace, application, website, favourite song, colour and flavour, throw in a few more questions and you can lucratively target specific groups of people.

By COMBINING those metrics you can target extremely small groups of people, groups with precisely ONE member.

No need for a unique GUID at all.

[–] 0oWow@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago

Microsoft already does this with Edge. Google has advertising ID. Similar in principle.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I’m so happy I don’t use any Google products or services

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

oh yeah this will totally not affect you or any future devices you use, you're safe

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I will continue to not use any Google products or services in the future

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Your browser is likely Firefox (which I believe is heavily influenced by google's demands on the web), and your phone OS is likely Android (open source, but influenced heavily by google devs) or iOS (in which case you have other problems). You can't escape the reach of a giant by pretending you don't see its footsteps

[–] Landfill@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago

Bro that hits hard

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 5 days ago

cool

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 0 points 5 days ago

Well always be able to install our on software that doesn't do that.