Your privacy...the last vestiges of it, that is, will cease to exist on February 16, 2025. That's when Google will start (really? I bet it's been going on for decades) fingerprinting every device accessing the net.
"Fingerprinting involves the collection of pieces of information about a device’s software or hardware, which, when combined, can uniquely identify a particular device and user." - Stephen Almond, I.C.O.
Google maintains that it now has "anonymizing" algorithms so effective your privacy is guaranteed.
"For its part, Google cites advances in so-called privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) as raising the bar for user privacy, enabling it to loosen the shackles on advertisers and the hidden trackers that underpin the internet and make the whole ecosystem work. This, it says, will unlock “new ways for brands to manage and activate their data safely and securely,” while “also giving people the privacy protections they expect.” The risk is that this simply rolls the dark side of tracking cookies forward into a new era, and in a way that is impossible for users to unpick to understand their risks." - Zak Doffman, Forbes
Rubbish.
- Privacy controls are built around existing technologies. When you choose an option on a consent banner or ‘clear all site data’ in your browser, you are generally controlling the use of cookies and other traditional forms of local storage.
- Fingerprinting, however, relies on signals that you cannot easily wipe. So, even if you ‘clear all site data’, the organisation using fingerprinting techniques could immediately identify you again. This is not transparent and cannot easily be controlled.
- Fingerprinting is harder for browsers to block and therefore, even privacy-conscious users will find this difficult to stop. - ibid
That's even if you're savvy enough to know how to do that stuff.
Don't think MS is any less deceptive, Machiavellian nor invasive. Windows Latest caught MS bing spoofing Google's search page if you use a Windows computer, Edge is your default browser...if you try to search via Google.com, you get a bing search page spoofing Google. Check it out here. It's unbelievable. Instead of making a stable, eye pleasing OS which makes using a computer a pleasure, they do that crap.
So...happy weekend, my friends. Enjoy your anonymity...lol...for a couple of more weeks, then just realize we're all no different than the goods on the shelf in any store, as your identity, choices, etc. all become We the Google's property to market as they will for their profit.
*all images are by Doc, AI and Ps...and not the fault of Stardock which has suffered my presence patiently lo these many years...