New! From Google! "Enhanced" ad privacy!
Got this notification when I opened Chrome when coming back to my desk after lunch.
"We changed our privacy settings to allow us to snoop on what you're looking at and shove you ads accordingly. Feel free to opt out, but we'll probably opt you back in when you aren't paying attention."
I'm always a bit amused when these sites and apps say things like, "If you turn off ad personalization, the ads you see won't be as useful to you."
My dude, I don't think I've ever willingly clicked on an ad in my entire life. "Personalizing" them won't change that.
I used to sometimes. When there was a simple, clean ad for something I was interested in, I would click through.
Mind you, this was in an era when the internet amounted to strings and cans because I'm a fucking dinosaur. Since then, ads first went obnoxious and loud, then they got plastered everywhere, then they started being invasive.
Fuck ads at this point. There's nothing good in them for us at all.
I don't even click those. I'll rarely navigate to their site manually.
In a way I kind of miss the old banner ads. Smack the monkey and win $1,000,000 or whatever it was. I swear I hit that monkey so many times.
Now I can’t even read a page without pop up after pop up on top of the embedded ads in between every two sentence paragraph.
Even if any of these companies were any good at ad targeting, I wouldn't want "personalized" ads anyway cuz I'd just spend more money.
but but but but you'd get something good for it! You would never have missed it, but maybe you just didn't know you wanted it? Come on, I'm sure consuming shit that will make you happy twice for two minutes each (once when clicking buy, once when getting and opening the package) will fill that hole in your soul! Spending money on stuff you don't actually need is good!
(That was sarcasm, if it wasn't clear enough.)
I used to click on ads back in the day when you'd get paid for it (I was a poor school student, don't judge. :p).
I don't think I've ever willingly clicked on an ad in my entire life
Same here and I've certainly never purchased anything through an ad. You'd think there'd be some advantage for advertising networks to identify people (there are dozens of us!) who never click on ads and refrain from serving any to them - and use this as a selling point for ad buyers so that their expenditures are not wasted.
Just because you don't click on an ad doesn't mean it didn't work though. If you see an ad for Coke you may not click on it to order a case of Coke online right away, but when you go out to lunch maybe you'll fill your cup with Coke.
I mention food ads because I feel they are particularly effective for this type of behavior. You don't need to click on a food ad, but I know I've had a craving for a certain restaurant or food from seeing it mentioned online (whether an ad or just a comment/post) and then gone to get that food for dinner.
Of course, this type of ad result is very difficult to track.
it's not about your clicks, it's to influence you, it can influence people in multiple degree, maybe next type when you go buy something think about it
Ads work on the general population or else these companies would stop paying for them.
Only did it once. The Rest EverCool comforter ad I kept seeing. Looked up a bunch of reviews and as someone who is a very hot sleeper. I can't recommend it enough. It's the softest coolest blanket I've ever felt. Every square inch is as cool as the other side of the pillow.
The only time I click on ads are on websites that actually have people buying ad space on websites that make sense.
Like... Fountain pen ads on fountain pen blogs. Or Linux product ads on Linux learning websites.
Basically the only times I click on ads is when I'm searching for something and the search engine I'm using has paid ads for the thing I'm searching for at the top.
Beyond that I can't think of any times I've ever clicked on an ad intentionally.
"new privacy feature" and then "sites you visit can determine what you like"
translated: "this new privacy feature reduces the amount privacy you have!!! what a great thing you like!!!"
Idk why the heck you just got downvoted into oblivion for pointing out the irony in google calling this a "privacy feature." Good old reddit moment it seems.
lol it's no worries. actually I have the privilege of being bot-downvoted by CCP sympathizers because of comments on this post https://lemmy.world/post/2338419, there is also the possibility that I’m just an asshole.
It's funny how small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up to a world where the largest advertising firm in the world basically is the internet for the vast majority of people. Everyone uses chrome and rarely types in a web address, they just type the name of the thing into Google and trust mommy to show them what's appropriate. They've back doored the entire population into basically what AOL was trying to be 20 years ago.
"we are going to help protect your privacy" from WHO Google? Is it from you? Because it seems like we need protection from you most of all. Constantly being gaslit by mega-corporations is the new American dream. It's okay because they love us, deep down, and we know that even though they don't show it.
It's funny how small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up to a world where the largest advertising firm in the world basically is the internet for the vast majority of people.
In a microcosm of the same kind of creeping normalcy, Bethesda charging a few bucks for horse armor in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was once a reach too far, until it wasn't.
Now we have Star Citizen levels of grifting as well as ActiBlizz "buy a currency to get a currency that is leveraged as currency to get credit toward a currency in a battle pass" layer cake grifting.
EDIT: Typo'd on the sequel count.
small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up
I (and many others I presume) has been saying Chrome is shit since the beginning. It didn't feel like nothing was happening, it felt like we were slowly getting to the old days of IE and Netscape.
There are always a few that see this stuff coming, but they usually get looked at like a crazy person shouting about the sky falling.
It also feels like they really push a lot of the terrible on mobile first, get people used to concepts with the "that's just how mobile is, it's a different world" and then when most are accustomed to it they move to regular pc enshitification.
They gotta their digital peasantry, I mean users, from other feudal lords, I mean corporations, to maximize their power over them and ability to exploit them, I mean ... No wait that's right.
This is why I use Linux at home, along with TOR and a VPN. I'm not doing anything other than looking up woodworking and camping stuff, but fuck all ya'll for being nosy.
Literally Ron Swanson
There are worse fates.
My dude. All the feels right here.
Same here I only do mild stuff like look at computer parts, servers and burglar tools. Damn nosy bastards.
What's the benefit of Tor and a VPN? Isn't a VPN sufficient?
That really depends on what you're trying to do.
A VPN just makes it look like you're somewhere else, but it doesn't really add any amount of anonymity. You'll still get tracked around the Internet like you normally would, but sites will just think you're somewhere else.
Tor is an anonymizing network, so your traffic gets mixed with a bunch of other people's traffic so websites get really confused about where you are. It's almost impossible to track someone using Tor because Tor will change how your packets are routed from request to request.
So if you just want to get access to different Netflix shows, a VPN is probably what you want. If you want to truly be anonymous, you need Tor. Just know that anonymity through Tor comes at a price, a lot of sites block Tor traffic, and performance is nothing to write home about because your traffic is routed through a bunch of other people's machines.
Use Firefox
This is the way.
stop using chrome
Well, you see, our work environment is optimized to use chrome so there is really no other choice.
I wouldn't sacrifice my irl income just to tell google to go fuck itself.
fair
Caught by the Jaffa's
I have converted over to Linux for a huge portion of my work flow but there is still the 20% I either can't efficiently replicate or there is just not the software I need.
Where possible I choose to work outside of Microsoft, Google and Apple but to keep a roof over one's head, I must endure too.
Stop using Chrome outside of work then. Unfortunately we usually can't control the software environments we work in, but separate your work computing from your home computing. The stuff that Google would gain about your personal life is mostly gained from your personal browsing anyways, assuming you don't use your work computer for personal browsing (that's what phones are for).
I'm already seeing all the ads I want to see.
Fucking. None.
Firefox ftw
With uBlock origin!
Just want to point out that Firefox has sponsored links, sponsored articles, and Mozilla ads that randomly pop up. Is it way better than Chrome and anything Google? Absolutely, by miles and miles. Is it completely innocent in the ad game? No.
I use LibreWolf. It's a Firefox fork with enhanced privacy and it gets rid of the built in adware. Combine with uBlock Origin for an ad-free experience.
I just use ublock with Firefox, I'm fine with the baked in ads on Firefox I don't mind supporting them. Considering what the other option is, I want to support them.
Mozilla at least goes to great lengths to ensure any advertising they do is about as privacy friendly as it can be, plus it's easily disabled in the settings
From where comes the idea that personalised ads are good? I hate this timeline.
Google is a large company, they need to pay their employees and server. It's pretty entitled of you to expect them to work for free. /s
I read this everywhere these days. Shilling has become culture.
No I understand why websites show ads. I don't understand why whenever I disable personal ads, I get a message saying "Are you really sure? If you disable this you won't see your favourite ads anymore and only see ads for things you probably don't want to buy. That'd be awful wouldn't it?" and expect me to change my mind because that's definitely not why I wanted to disable it in the first place.
They act as if people like to see ads because then they can buy stuff they think they want/need. And I'm getting afraid that's actually true for a lot of people too.
Sadly it hasn't become culture, that was a thing even back in the days when the internet was just gamefaqs, new grounds, and whatever Message Board your mates went to.
From the fact that they can sell them at a higher price.
They are good on paper
But not in execution
If you're going to show me ads thag I give a shit about they may be less annoying.
We wouldn't have gotten this far if they weren't good in execution. Ads may not work on you or many people in this thread, but it works on enough people to make this worth it.
more choices over ads you see
Who in their right mind want to see ads
I want for very little. Therefore I clearly want ads personalized to me that try to make me feel inadequate so that I do want more.
People who are used to ads somehow just glaze over them and seem to not actually see them. It's quite Impressive really
"More useful ads" Well the best ads is no ads.
This is why I use Firefox
Please disable firefox telemetry if u care abt ur privacy
I mean, at least FF allows that. Hardened FF is a blessing.
I've never, not once in my life, saw an ad which managed to make me buy something.
It doesn't matter what it's selling. The fact that it's disrupting whatever I'm doing or making my experience worst makes me refuse to buy whatever it's selling, and it doesn't matter how personalized it'll get. I will never be influenced to buy something just because I saw it on an ad.
This feature will literally do nothing for me. I'll still block ads, or if they are unblockable for any reason, I'll just ignore them until they're done.
true, but remember the ads are mostly subconcious. you often wont think about buying something after seeing an ad, but in the back of your mind you might have a slightly better opinion, or mental association to the brand. so next time you go to buy a product your more likely to remember that brand and buy from them. as much as i would like to believe otherwise, no-one is immune to propaganda
If only it worked the other way as well:
Doctor: "Your blood cholesterol is abysmal. Your blood is more similar to maple syrup than blood."
Subliminal advertising: "Mmm, Coca-Cola means DEATH."
It's mostly unsettling and a bit creepy. Like you'll be doing something during the day and then later you'll see it on Google. Like someone's watching you.
At this point I assume everything about me is known to all the corporations. When stuff like that happens, I just go "yeah that tracks".
I’m just like this too, but you have to remember that for every person like us, there’s a person like my wife, who’s buying garbage that she sees on instagram ads nearly every week.
I beg her to at least search for the item and buy it directly so that the website she’s on isn’t getting revenue for ads. It’s petty but makes me feel better.
Many friends of mine are like saying why would i care i'd rather see ads that are relevant than ones that arent. Like dude i dont want ads at all and i dont want my data to be used to influence my buying behavior.
I don't care if I have to see unobtrusive ads (not overlays, not popups, not unskippable videos) ads help keep many web services free, sometimes I even find it helpful when ads are relevant to my recent searches or the page I am looking at. But having companies build up profiles about me and then share that between themselves is bullshit, that kind of behavior would be treated as stalking if done by an individual, why is it ok for a business?
While this is an understandable desire my question is as follow:
If you don't want ads, and don't want to pay for every service, how's all the internet system supposed to be sustainable on the long run? How should things be financed?
Honestly that's not our problem to solve. If we disagree with a business model we can choose not to use it, the onus isn't on us to find another one for the business.
If your product isn't worth paying for that's a you problem and if your business goes under because it wasn't sustainable that's also a you problem.
Is pretty likely that the business offered nothing new or innovative at a price people would part with their money for and just because you want to start a competing business in a market means nothing.
Competition is great but no business is entitled to a piece of the market solely because they want to exist. There's no point being a carbon copy of an existing service if you expect people to pay when your offering already exists somewhere else and if you want people to pay your business instead of another you need to improve something or create something of benefit for them to at a price point both sides can work with.
Honest answer: by op's friends!
Most people don't mind the parasites? Great! Let those who wanna be part of the system subsidise those of us in the margins who don't.
Why don't businesses do away with free and go to a completely paid model?
Let's continue on this path of thinking: Customers already pay using their data. So if you want to show ads you have to pay customers since you are scrapping their data?
Unfortunately, a majority of the population like the ad based free service model, so here we are.
Wonderful, my day is complete. Thank you Alphabet for providing me a choice in which flavor of dystopian nightmare I'd prefer.
Cherry vanilla for me! What do you mean, “that’s not an option!?”
They are good times indeed.... Good times.....
Question: if personalized ads are so great, why can't I just go into my google account's settings and put there all the info about me? My income, my interests, ages of my children, my favorite food... Since personalized ads are so good every google users will just fill it in to get the best ads possible, right? Why not give people this option instead of implementing all this trackers?
Because everyone in the game is making money off those trackers. Just because you give them your address and general interests doesn't mean they know you're shopping for a new fence for your house or different daycares for your kids at a specific given time.
They are also scarily accurate too. To the point where some people were finding out their teenage daughters were secretly pregnant when Target would send them an infant coupon package in the mail that was intercepted by them. That was guessed solely on data Google and other entities sold them, that's crazy.
I love how targeting yourself with ads relevant to your interests is presented as something advantageous for us. Sorry, I don't desire to be constantly prodded to take interest in new gadgets and cat foods.
They do give you that option for a lot of it: https://myadcenter.google.com/
You can set whether information like income, profession, education, etc is used, + or - different topics/brands, as well as see the ads you've been shown in the past.
This feature that the OP posted about however is about doing all this in the browser instead of doing the tracking on their servers and across various websites with embedded analytics/tracking code. The end goal is also to get rid of third-party cookies entirely, hopefully shutting down that method of tracking, while still being able to provide targeted advertising.
I'm joking of course but if people really wanted relevant adds they would just set it up like they create playlists in spotify. Spotify doesn't have to track your browser history to guess what music will you enjoy because people just tell them that. Obviously no one wants personalized ads. Google knows this but they keep pretending that all this tracking is to improve your experience.
You actually can in Google ad settings, not that you should give them more info though.
It really is unfortunate that almost all their users are asleep at the wheel and don't care.
The mundanes/normies whatever you wanna call em.
They won't understand anything without a song and dance number
That describes all of us in at least a few areas beyond our competencies and interests.
The only time I see ads is when I look into someone else's screen
This must be some new use of the word 'privacy' I wasn't previously aware of.
I'm so confused by the 1-2 people in here casting downvotes to comments critical of chrome
This is why I decided to migrate to Firefox a few days ago
Next stop Linux.
+1. People often don’t realise they can just try it on a usb stick (and often easily install alongside windows osx)!
I am already on Linux so I am ok on that side 😎
Great choice, it pairs well with uBlock origin
Yep and PiHole just to cover other devices too
You should swap to something else. Anything else, tho ideally something that actually respects your privacy like Firefox. If more people did, maybe WEI would not be on the horizon.
Fuck google
Privacy
Chrome
Yeah..
I'm poor and I hate stupid bullshit. The only way to personalize ads for me is to make them go away.
Chrome is now - and has been for a while - actively a threat towards its users (on top of being one towards the web itself). Here is a recent list of hostile moves, for example.
In terms of threat towards users Windows 10/11 is even worse, by a large margin - it actively and very aggressively spies on you.
Use firefox and switch to Linux (I suggest Debian), comrade
Debian is my go-to on my home box. Lol.
enhanced privacy
Why does it need to be enhanced?
"Give us your preference data to prevent your preference data from being used in advertising."
Why tho? Just block ads at all. They just want to be "friendly" when the web drm changes hit
It is the illusion of choice granted in order to minimize the Damage Done by experts pointing out why Google is trying to kill the internet
💯
“We changed our privacy settings to allow us to snoop on what you’re looking at and shove you ads accordingly. Feel free to opt out, but we’ll probably opt you back in when you aren’t paying attention.”
-Me wiping the coffee I spat after reading this. Hilarious 😂
Serious question: Why do you use Chrome, a browser made by the world's largest advertising and spying company, when you give the slightest f about privacy?
At least use Ungoogled Chromium if you're not gonna switch to something actually privacy-focused. Basically the same functionality, but without Google's spyware.
I use it because of inertia. I jumped from Firefox to Chrome back when Chrome was new and came with hot features, like tab isolation, or being ultra fast. Google has gone through enshitification though, and FF has gotten much better since those days. I've started the migration back to Firefox now though.
Personally, I use Chrome because it and Edge are the only browsers installed on my work PC.
At home, it’s either Safari on my Mac or TOR on my Linux box with a VPN.
I swapped to Chrome a long time ago, probably around Firefox 7 or so, and never really looked back. I didn't really have an issue with being part of the Google ecosystem, and they were still in their embrace phase. It's been a while.
I have both browsers installed at the moment and under Linux/Wayland/Nvidia, Firefox definitely performs miles better (actual HW acceleration!) but Chrome still feels more practical to use, in my opinion. I think my main hang-up is that Chrome's "Tab Groups" suit my approach to web browsing better than Firefox "Tab Containers", even factoring in how Multi-Account Containers can make them more useful.
me hugs Firefox
Which is literally kept alive by Google. They have a monopoly, stop deluding yourself intot hinking there are any good guys (except maybe the Librewolf, Mullvad, and Tor devs)
Librewolf is based on FF, you know right? Mozilla does receive Google funding (that's why their default search engine is Google), but adopting FF and derivatives is also about Chromium not being the single dominant engine: that would only strengthen Google's monopoly.
As long as we don't use Chromium-based browsers (and Google services) we're doing good against Google's monopoly already.
Why are you using Chrome?
At work I can choose between Edge and Chrome as my only two options. I use Edge, but there’s really no benefit for me to use one over the other. Technically I think I can request Firefox, but it’d have to go through VP-level approvals or something stupid like that.
Based on the “coming back from lunch,” I’d assume this person is on their work computer.
You will use the internet and I will creep on your every move because you are a pleb.
Ain't creepy at all imho
Who the duck thinks ad personalization is a good thing. I'm glad YouTube shows me ads for seniors on Medicare. It keeps me disaffected and hating ads.
If you weren’t aware uBlock will block YouTube ads
Ah, Enhanced, the folks that brought us interrogation.
My android phone showed me something similar yesterday. Not even in Chrome. I think it's account based.
Fuck Google
Soo enhanced privacy means "Give as more data"? I'm so happy I moved to firefox. It was pain, but worth it.
I'm in the process myself, definitely feeling good about it; the plugins alone make it worth it.
i'd like to smack them on the nose with my government
Saw this pop up at work today and thought it was a bit too on the nose for a parody
Does anyone know if this is coming to (Chrome based) Edge?
For the last year and for all of the crap Google has been changing in Google Chrome, I've actually been pretty happy with Edge (never thought I'd be saying that).
My guess is that it's unlikely, Microsoft doesn't want to empower Google even more, and running your OS is everything they need to plunder your data
Side chat... am I the only one who has started finding Bing more useful than Google? I never thought I would type that statement out in my life...
It's truly shocking but yes, I don't immediately change search engine preferences when Edge defaults to Bing now.
Just opted in.
Am I supposed to disable uBlock Origin and Pihole now? 😈
Suffering, now with more customization!
"More useful ads"
How kind of it to think about your privacy. Such a nice google. /s
I think wanting stuff for free and not wanting ads don't go together. Either we pay or we watch ads or use open source.
That's like saying we should gouge out our eyeballs if we don't want to see banner ads in real life. Fuck that noise.
I think a balance can be struck. Early internet ads didn't have to watch you all across the internet. As far as I know DuckDuckGo ads are just old school keyword matches, too. Newspapers don't feel the need to know the last 10 stores you visited. It's this obsession with personalized, targeted ads that brings up all this spyware crap.
Saw that, immediately reinstalled Firefox, saw the tab bar was still a mess and reuninstalled Firefox. Is there a non-chromium browser with a decent UI. Firefox is a disaster after 3 tabs.
I am genuinely curious what is your issue with the tab bar? I got a long list of issues I have with FF (still my main browser anyways) but the tab bar is not one of them and I always have 20+ tabs open. Not saying your opinion is wrong, just trying to understand why you think so.
Not OP but I really dislike the way Firefox handles multiple tabs. When there are too many tabs, Chrome would shrink the tabs to icon size, but Firefox insists on keep a weird minimum tab size and make you scroll the tabs awkwardly.
I stopped using Firefox for a long time because of that, until I discovered Sidebery (vertical tabs).
