Thread · 6 tweets · 5 Mar 2021

This is probably futile, but I'd like to ask: Can we stop talking about the "Privacy Sandbox"? I know Google used (uses?) the term but… I'm a Web & Privacy guy through & through and I have no clue what that name is supposed to mean. "Vague grab bag of specs that may help"? 🧵

There are different things: • The phasing out of 3P cookies. • A bunch of proposals from Google, some bad some good. • A bunch of proposals from others, some bad some good. These proposals are further influencing one another and making babies.

So sentences like "X will implement the Privacy Sandbox" or "Y only cares about the Privacy Sandbox" or "we need to audit/stop/support the Privacy Sandbox" make no discernible sense to me. Every browser will end up implementing some of the above. Hopefully the same "some".

It's entirely possible to think that the bird proposals have some interesting properties, whereas FLoC is an ethical train wreck begging to happen and if it ships it will be all data ethics scholars study for the next decade. (Hint: discrimination is against cohorts, too.)

You might disagree with my previous tweet, and that's perfectly fine, but at least it's coherent. Conversely, saying "I don't like the Privacy Sandbox" is like saying "I don't like the colour of socks." 👏 Which 👏 Fucking 👏 Socks? 👏

Anyway — I know most of you aren't going to stop. It's a complicated set of things and being precise is hard. I just thought that, since it's Friday, I should let you know that you're wrong on the Internet. Have a great weekend!