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Digital Fingerprinting: Google launched a new era of tracking worse than cookie banners | Tuta (tuta.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm aware of fingerprinting techniques, thank you. The article is claiming that Google will start using some of those and I'm looking for the source for that claim, hopefully with specifics about which techniques are involved. Confusingly, the article does not appear to provide such a source.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think the true source is this one?

Some reactions to it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Thanks -- that's an announcement about policy updates. I already read it and it says nothing about fingerprinting. The only change to underlying technologies it mentions is the use of e.g. trusted execution environments (the doc for which, per a further link, is in fact on github). Those seem to claim that they let announcers run ad campaigns through Google ads while keeping their campaign data provably locked away from Google. So, basically, all these links are about purported "privacy-enhancing" techs, and you'd be forgiven for taking that with an enormous grain of salt, but either way, nothing in there about fingerprinting.

The Guardian article basically paraphrases the Tuta one -- or it's the other way around, maybe -- but does also not provide actual sources.

I just want a source on what fingerprinting Tuta is claiming Google will start using. I feel like the details of the purported fingerprinting techniques should be front and center to this discussion and I'm frustrated that the article entirely fails to provide that info.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah I also looked into it and there seems no concrete information on that, just speculation about the policy change, like this one:

“While Google doesn't explicitly state that IP addresses and other fingerprint methods are now allowed, the Privacy Disclosure section of Google's February 16th Platforms Program Policies now explicitly mentions ‘cookies, web beacons, IP addresses, or other identifiers.’”

When you dive into it, it does look more like companies that sell encryption and VPNs using some potential danger to get more subscribers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Ah, that Techlicious link is a great find, thanks. It does lay out clearly what the theoretical concern is. That's still a far cry from the "Google will start fingerprintint you" scenario that seems to have people up in arms.

Thanks for digging out this link, I really appreciate it.