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.
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.
Surely it does this already?!
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.
Microsoft already does this with Edge. Google has advertising ID. Similar in principle.
I’m so happy I don’t use any Google products or services
oh yeah this will totally not affect you or any future devices you use, you’re safe
I will continue to not use any Google products or services in the future
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
Bro that hits hard
cool
Well always be able to install our on software that doesn’t do that.