Google May Replace Cookies With Unique AdIDs

markjhood2003 writes "According to a story published in USA Today, an anonymous source at Google familiar with the plan has revealed that Google is developing an anonymous identifier for advertising tracking, replacing the function of third party cookies currently used by most major advertisers. The new AdID supposedly gives consumers more privacy and control over their web browsing, but the ad industry is worried about putting more power in the hands of large technology companies. Sounds like the idea could have some promise, but at this point the proposal is not public so we will probably have to wait until Google reaches out to the industry, government and consumers to provide the details."

Google is a targeted ad company

[Joining Yet Again]

If it were concerned about giving consumers "more privacy" on a scale unprecedented in human history, in terms of reducing the amount of data stored about them, it could simply... wipe its hard drives and close its business.

Re:Anyone else smell bullshit?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Google instant search is a keylogger, plain and simple.

You're obviously presenting only the cynic's side of the argument, but even so, it's even more obvious now than ever that combining the address and search text boxes in a web browser really is a security/privacy risk.

Advertising ID?

[camperdave]

I thought cookies were for storing session independent settings, not for advertising.

Re:Give consumers more privacy?

[M. Baranczak]

That CNET article is just a summary of the one in USA Today. Both of them are pretty light on information.

Does anybody know (or at least want to take a guess) how this shit's supposed to work? How do you store this unique ID without using cookies, or something that works just like cookies?

Re:Give consumers more privacy?

[StripedCow]

Article doesn't say much about how the new ID is supposed to work.

They closely cooperate with the NSA. It's all give and take.

Ads and Trackers?

[utkonos]

I haven't seen ads or trackers for a very long time. Every once in a blue moon one slips through my combination of AdBlock and Ghostery, but I always report it so they can add it to the block list. All I see is a little number representing how many cooties were blocked for the page I'm on. Hopefully everyone does something like this and the commercial internet dries up and withers away.

Re:Google is a targeted ad company

[fermion]

This is certainly a ploy to compete with Facebook and the like. Right now Facebook has probably has more tracking cookies set in more machines than google. I know that I don't allow facebook cookies, but I have also been more restrictive on the Google cookies, simply because they are not providing as many services. Facebook will win on the cookies front. Google need a proprietary technology to lock advertisers into Google.

Re:Give consumers more privacy?

[Bite The Pillow]

Google has not made the proposal public â" although the company plans to reach out to industry participants, government bodies and consumer groups in coming weeks and months... ... the new tool will give users the ability to limit ad tracking through browser settings... ...The AdID may be automatically reset by the browser every year, and users will be able to create a secondary AdID for online browsing sessions they want to keep particularly private, the person explained.

It's pretty clear to me this is going to be implemented client-side in the browser, just based on the limited information available. Just like Windows Media Player's "send unique player id to content providers" option.

Firefox (funded largely by by Google) and Chrome are slightly under 40% market share, and Chrome is increasing.

All you need is Microsoft on board, or the advertising industry. They won't get the ad industry, so they need Microsoft. Or a plugin for IE that pops up an installer bubble when you use google search, gmail, or youtube. And I'm pretty sure Microsoft is on board, given their media player thing.

I expect an additional header in the HTTP request. I also expect an uptick in the number of people using a customized FireFox or Chromium that does not send this, or better yet sends a random number (leave the PRNG jokes and asides out of this, that's not the topic).

You asked for a guess.