Greetings in 2025 — you will be tracked.
Updated on January 10th with new reports on user location data breaches with significant privacy implications.
An ironic battle broke out in the world of Big Tech this week. Less than three weeks after being accused of “reducing people’s choice and control over how their information is collected”, Google has responded to Microsoft’s new digitalization plans by “confusing users and giving them less choice.” attacked Microsoft for its “long-standing trick of restricting.” Fingerprinting a user’s device, as well as Android and Chrome, is a regular target of such criticism. There are only six weeks left to track that.
Two unrelated stories only two weeks apart, but not entirely unrelated. The common theme is that users are pawns at the whims of the incredibly vast ecosystem they rely on every day.
Google has accused Microsoft after it was discovered that the Windows maker was “spoofing” the Google homepage when users searched for Google on Bing.com. Latest version of Windows The company, which first discovered the spoof, called it a “genius move to keep users away from Google Search.” Bing has been featured in Microsoft vs. Google bets on Windows PCs before, but mostly in Chrome vs. Edge. That search is the prize should have been abundantly clear when Apple went to court to help Google protect its default search spot on 1 billion iPhones. It wasn’t that long ago that iMaker released a video inspired by Hitchcock’s films. birds This was essentially a warning to iPhone users to avoid Chrome.
It is reported that this is “a clear attempt by Microsoft to make Bing look like Google for this particular search query.” The Verge. “Google’s results include a search bar, an image that looks a lot like a Google Doodle, and even a small piece of text below the search bar, just like Google.” Bing automatically scrolls the page down slightly to hide the search bar.
Chrome and Google Search aren’t exactly the same, but they both carry privacy risks. That’s why iPhone users are better off using Google Search within Safari than Chrome. However, this does not apply if you are signed in to your Google Account. But Chrome doesn’t play a leading role in the latest Google tracking warning that made headlines just before the holidays. Nevertheless, Chrome has dominated Google’s tracking headlines in recent years, with cookies and incognito mode and its privacy sandbox playing recurring roles.
The latest problems began as Google pushed through updates to its advertising ecosystem. The change was driven by “the broader scope of what ads can be served to (such as connected TVs and gaming consoles)” and means “there will be less prescriptiveness for partners about how ads are targeted and measured.” ‘ says the company. ”
Fingerprinting is no longer just a browser issue.
Britain’s information regulator was quick to point out that “this is digital fingerprinting between connected devices.” “Fingerprinting involves the collection of information about a device’s software or hardware that, when combined, can uniquely identify a particular device and user. Fingerprinting is a fair way to track users online. The ICO’s view is that Google’s policy changes could potentially reduce people’s choice and control over how their information is collected. It means.”
And given the nature of these other devices and the user’s lack of awareness of what’s going on, there are serious implications. identity week “Organizations using Google’s advertising technology can implement fingerprinting without violating Google’s policies or complying with data protection law requirements. ” Even if your data is “permanently” deleted, your identity can still be detected and recognized through fingerprinting. ”
An interesting parallel between the resurgence of digital fingerprint authentication, which is notoriously difficult for users to detect, and the unprecedented leak of new user location data. This also reveals a huge number of apps that collect data from users’ devices. The Gravy Analytics breach highlights the sheer scale of the location data industry, another user tracking ecosystem operating behind the scenes, difficult to detect, and ideally likely to be disabled by most users. is high.
as 404 media To put it neatly, “ [Gravy Analytics] This news is a crystallizing moment for the location data industry. For years, companies have been collecting location information from smartphones through regular apps and advertising ecosystems, building products on that data or selling it to other companies. Those customers often include the U.S. government…but that data collection makes them an attractive target for hackers. ”
More than the scale of the breach, I think it’s the number of popular apps contributing to the data in the first place that prompts users to sit up and take notice. “Candy Crush, Crater” [and] My Fitness Pal” wired According to the report, they are among “thousands of apps that have been hijacked to spy on your location… Some of the world’s most popular apps are It may be used by fraudulent members of the advertising industry to collect data at scale.”
Suffice it to say, a diverse list of these apps is currently being explored and is extensive. Hit wiredwhich includes the dating sites Tinder and Grindr. Massive games like Candy Crush, Temple Run, Subway Surfers, and Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells. Transportation app Moovit. My Period Calendar & Tracker has 1,000 MyFitnessPal is a popular fitness app that has been downloaded over 10,000 times. Email client for Yahoo. 365 Office apps. Includes religious-focused apps such as Islamic prayer and Christian bible apps, various pregnancy tracking apps, and many VPN apps. Ironically, some users may download these to protect your privacy.
Users don’t like to be tracked behind the scenes. That’s why gravy leaks make headlines and why digital fingerprinting is doing the same. And there is another new development, according to the following reports. Reuters: “Google failed to convince a federal judge to dismiss a privacy class action lawsuit that claims it collected personal data from the phones of people who turned off the stop tracking button.” This led to Summer may go to trial. This follows Google’s destruction of billions of data records last year following a similar lawsuit over data collection when using Chrome’s incognito mode.
Nevertheless, the timing is interesting, with two warnings, a legal judgment, and a privacy-compromising data breach all occurring within two weeks. Of course, that risk falls on all of our millions of users, whether they use Chrome, Edge, Android, Windows, or all of the above. I’ve asked Google and Microsoft for comments on various aspects of all this, but haven’t heard anything yet.
Digital fingerprinting will begin on February 16th. In the meantime, keep all this in mind.
