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1957 points apokryptein | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.65s | source
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ggm ◴[] No.42914523[source]
The thing I found I grokked, and think is important from this article is that private browsing doesn't end this information flow. It only marks the JSON data blob as "asked not to be identified or collated" and its substantively an honour system. There are penalties (lawsuit against google for misleading people on the fact data was still collected) but the walls to breach here are low, given that non-PII can be crossmatched, to confirm "who you are" in some sense.

There is no such thing as "private" browsing inside the factory installed browser, with factory installed DNS, and any kind of location data, or other cross-collating information along with your IP. The loss of privacy may be contextual and somewhat statistical, but it would be wrong to assume you weren't identified.

What it does do, is let you see how bidding mechanisms in services like flights and hotels will change bid when the same location as you comes to request service and doesn't have the prior search cookie state. Thats useful I guess.

"find things at a different pricepoint" cookie monster mode?

replies(1): >>42915991 #
1. ErigmolCt ◴[] No.42915991[source]
"Private browsing" is just a polite request for companies to pretend they didn’t see you before
replies(1): >>42921219 #
2. dangus ◴[] No.42921219[source]
“Private browsing” is just private mostly in the sense of your local device, as in, your browsing history and cookies aren’t saved to disk. That still has some use as cookies are more direct tracking than fingerprinting (e.g., keeping you logged in, or a Google analytics script seeing that you’re a logged in Google user with a real identity provided to Google).

“Ask app not to track” turns off Apple’s own device identifier, but doesn’t stop other types of identifiers from existing, as the article described by the way it showed how ad networks make their own device identifiers collected by various apps.

replies(1): >>42945153 #
3. ErigmolCt ◴[] No.42945153[source]
Most people assume "private" means something more