Online privacy

[Hunchman801]

So, what do you guys think of the recent advancements in online privacy? Last year, multiple browsers announced their intention to drop support for third-party cookies at some point in the future, and earlier this year, Apple announced that starting with iOS 14, they will ask for the user's permission when an app wants to access their device identifier. Now Google just made public their decision not to track individuals as they browse across the web once third-party cookies are phased out, and to instead rely on modeling and privacy-preserving APIs.

[Steo]

I think it's pretty long overdue, I don't think the majority of people who knew anything about computers have trusted Microsoft or Google very much for a long time now. Even the EULA always has all this stuff about collecting information and claiming it's for diagnostics, but there's no evidence to suggest that it's true, and you never know what they might do with your data.

[PluMGMK]

There's a People's Declaration doing the rounds now! Sounds like one of those "synthetic declarations" that Shoshana Zuboff was advocating a few years ago, so that's finally happening!

[Hunchman801]

Sounds like a bunch of far-left nonprofits making yet another vague call that no one will heed.

[PluMGMK]

You're probably right, but let's see!

[Elite Piranha]

I have seen some sites recently that show a button right away to reject all the obligatory cookies, before you had to disable them manually and confirm your choices. Also, I was reminded of this video:

[PluMGMK]

There is a reason that I tend to browse most sites with JS disabled

[Elite Piranha]

Disable Javascript? It seems WIRED agrees with you (years ago), however I think some browsers recommend you to not do that by default.

[PluMGMK]

Yeah, I think Firefox doesn't have that option built in anymore, but you can use the addon NoScript to apply rules for when it can and can't run.

Luakit and qutebrowser both have simpler controls for turning it on/off per-site (and qutebrowser also has it per-page and it's easier to do it temporarily).

[Elite Piranha]

I read somewhere that Firefox is the best mainstream browser for privacy. Apparently many extensions used for security are compatible with it. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the amount of extensions, browsers, configurations, VPNs, etc. that are out there.

[Flat Earth Society]

Yeah, I think Firefox doesn't have that option built in anymore, but you can use the addon NoScript to apply rules for when it can and can't run.

Luakit and qutebrowser both have simpler controls for turning it on/off per-site (and qutebrowser also has it per-page and it's easier to do it temporarily).

As for Firefox you can still set the javascript.enabled boolean to false, but it'll disable Js for every domains you visit. I don't recall Firefox having a built in function to disable Javascript per domain name, but I'm also an happy NoScript user, which perfectly helps to do this.

[Steo]

I've used Firefox for a long time ever since I got into using Linux. I made the mistake before of using Chrome, which literally smells imo. It's Google so I guess it's in the name.

[Elite Piranha]

I guess this is also privacy related. A new announcement from tumblr:

AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.

Full text.

There is a part that says: "We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner", but I'm glad other sites are taking measures about this.

I wonder if this is better or worse (or the same) than what DA offers you when you upload something:

Flag this deviation to inform third parties that you do not authorize it being included in datasets used to train machine learning or artificial intelligence models. Please note that DeviantArt cannot guarantee that it will not appear in any third party datasets.

[Hunchman801]

I think what they're saying is that they're getting paid by other companies for providing them with training data, but that users can opt out of this on an individual basis, so nothing to worry about here? Of course they're going to want to disallow crawling for all other companies, regardless of whether the user opted out, because it's just a lost revenue opportunity for them.

[lyndo64]

If you look up "Rayman the Board Game" on Google and go to images, my sig. will show up as one of the first results. Idk why but it kinda stresses me out a bit, and I've contacted Google about it. Why does only my sig ever show up? I think the universe hates me.

[Greengoop]

That’s insanely weird considering you haven’t even made 50 posts in regard to the board game. I see you’ve taken it off which is probably a good idea if you’re feeling anxious about this

[Hunchman801]

I'm not seeing any of that, but Google search results do depend on the user's location. Anyway, don't sweat it, this will soon disappear as more and more relevant content about the board game appears on the internet.

[Greengoop]

I don’t have a signature, so I’d assume only Master’s sig would come up if I searched it if you say results are region based