Topics essentially works like this: rather than using cookies to track people around the web and figure out their interests from the sites they visit and the apps they use, websites can ask Chrome directly, via its Topics JavaScript API, what sort of things the user is interested in, and then display ads based on that. Chrome picks these topics of interest from studying the user’s browser history.
Isn’t this completely immoral? They are literally stealing the users private browsing history and uses it to boost their own profits.
The topics API filters the domains of your browsing history through an algorithm in your machine and tries to guess basic topics from them.
“Stealing your private browsing history and using it to boost their own profits” is what advertisers and trackers are currently doing, and this is an attempt to stop that.
Google desperately wants to block third party cookies and other common history tracking mechanisms but advertisers all around the world threw a hissy fit when they announced that, because they claimed Google, as an advertiser, was abusing its browser.
So, Google came up with a compromise; the browser supplies the topics that ad stalking would normally provide, and the browser can block third party cookies and other web stalkers without getting sued into oblivion. As an additional feature, users get control over the topics they’re interested in (so women suffering miscarriages can actually get rid of the pregnancy ads when they were supposed to be due).
Nobody is stealing your browser history. Nobody is spying on you in any novel ways. Everyone wants to get rid of all tracking and advertising (without paying for online services, of course!) but that’s not going to happen. The internet isn’t willing to pay for services and with the recent financial downturn the investor money is drying up, so you’re either getting bombarded with ads or you’re told to pay for the services you use.
Even if this API doesn’t solve all the problems with advertising today, this is a clear improvement in terms of privacy.
This is incorrect. A user who uses chrome but uses another search engine and blocks cookies and tracking scripts is not providing Google with information about what they are doing online.
With the topics api, Google reads your actual browsing history which is incredibly private information that they have no right to look at whatsoever.
I don’t know what world you are living in when you think Google wants to desperately stop third common cookies and other means of tracking - Google is an ad company!
The internet not wanting to pay for Google services sounds like a Google problem, not a problem for the users. Google doesn’t have some universal right to exist and be preditory to it’s users.
If they can’t sell their services, they should get off the internet instead of surviving by invading their users privacy and offering “free” services. Fuck Google.
A user who uses Chrome is definitely providing Google with their browsing information. You can turn them all off (though some settings are very difficult to find and don’t have UI elements anymore) but that’s not how nornal people use Chrome.
With the topics API, Google doesn’t read shit. Your browser reads your browser’s history if you don’t visit Google’s websites, Google won’t know anything.
Google has clearly indicated their desires to kill third party cookies. Multiple times, that’s why they’ve spent years on FLoC and other mechanisms to provide ad companies with an alternative. These programmers don’t work for free, you know, especially the overpaid FAANG programmers.
You’re right that Google doesn’t have a special right to exist per se, but neither do you have a right to demand Google make a browser that suits your exact wishes. Google does what’s in the best interests of Google, and users do what’s in the best interest of users, and the two usually align. Any Chrome user can download Firefox if they don’t want Google’s code on their computer, or use Edge, or use Safari, or Konqueror, or whatever other browser you can come up with.
Google’s most expensive features are actually being put behind a pay wall (Youtube’s 4K and high bitrate 1080p video, Google Drive cloud storage, especially for business) and the internet is absolutely seething about it. It’s not just Google either, Netflix has decided to make everyone pay as well, and tons of apps and websites are now adding subscriptions to stay afloat.
Most people don’t give a fuck about their privacy if it means they get Youtube videos, messengers, social media, and apps for free. Everyone hates ads, but everyone hates paying for things more than they hate ads.
Fuck ads, use an ad blocker, problem solved.