Thread · 7 tweets · 23 Mar 2021

"Google’s planned changes address (…) the Peeping Tom theory of privacy, (…) the right to not have random strangers snooping on you. This is a totally inadequate definition, because it overlooks the collective dimension of digital privacy." wired.com/story/google-f…

I think @GiladEdelman tees up a very crisp summary of the noise coming out of Google about privacy: it is a shift from not caring about privacy to "privacy theatre". But so far we've seen very little in terms of meaningful change.

When Google announced its pivot to privacy, I thought they would at least signal some, likely imperfect, changes to their own practices. How else would the project have any credibility? Instead, all I've seen so far is denial that they're doing anything even slightly wrong.

The most recent example is Sync. It's well established that adtech consent dialogs are designed to trick users into sharing data they would rather not share — for one site. Chrome has the exact same thing — for the whole Web — and Googlers are all "I don't see the problem!"

If all the publishers in the world formed a co-op and shared your data across all of them, would that be okay? No. Would Chrome allow it? No. But Google does it? "I don't see the problem."

Of course, Big Tech being hypocritical is hardly news. But I also know the Chrome folks are sincere in wanting to improve things. So the question is: how are we supposed to take the Sandbox seriously when Google is making zero changes and remains the biggest privacy issue?

We're at a good juncture to change some core dynamics of privacy on the Web, the industry is having good conversations. But without meaningful change from Google, the Sandbox is to privacy what taking your shoes off for TSA is to security: pure theatre.