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Comment by jackjeff | Hacker News Reader

In the long run Google probably does not care that much. They’ve been busy moving the tracking into the browser itself with the Protected Audience API.

Technically they don’t track you personally and nobody has a database of your preferences. The browser does and just runs auctions to serve you ads.

This kind of tech renders the DMA, GDPR and cookie banners moot, while keeping the money printing machine that is Google Ad business running.

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>nobody has a database of your preferences

They absolutely do. They're merely not necessarily labelled as your preferences.

> Technically they don’t track you personally and nobody has a database of your preferences. The browser does and just runs auctions to serve you ads.

The law does not care about technicallities. GDPR, for example, doesn't specify a medium in which the personal data must be collected.

That’s the thing. No tracking occurs. And no personal data is collected or sent anywhere. It stays in your browser. In a way it’s like your browser history. The browser knows your interests and runs auctions for advertisers. And as per GDPR you can review it, correct it and opt out at any time. It’s basically the same horrible adware thing but without tracking and fully compliant with all EU laws.

At some point Google will turn off 3rd party cookies (a decade after Safari) and adtech will have no choice but to adopt their stuff. By end of 2024 if all goes according to plan.

Sounds great, where's the catch? And how is this going to affect non-Chrome browsers that won't support these new advertising APIs?

"Ads 2.0 aren't supported in Firefox, please use Chrome to view them" would be one hell of a selling point :)

Once websites don’t get monetized on Firefox, they will do their best to push people to Chrome themselves. This website “Best Viewed in Chrome”.

I guess you'll still get ads, they just won't be personalized. Just like how windows does it when you opt out of tracking.

> At some point Google will turn off 3rd party cookies (a decade after Safari) and adtech will have no choice but to adopt their stuff. By end of 2024 if all goes according to plan.

Sounds like an antitrust crackdown waiting to happen (both on the adtech side and the browser side)

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