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How to disable Chrome’s new targeted ad tracking

2 pointsby vikrumover 1 year ago

1 comment

1vuio0pswjnm7over 1 year ago
&quot;The Topics API was included in July&#x27;s Chrome 115 release, and if you don&#x27;t have it yet, you will soon.&quot;<p>Imagine that you are Google and you need to replace third party cookies with your own system so you can make more money on ad services.<p>But to do that you need to get people using Chrome to update. How.<p>(Assume for sake of argument that the update is really just for adding the Topics API, i.e., Google is not going to make&#x2F;lose money from any other change contained in the update.)<p>We&#x27;re seeing sites warning users that they need to upgrade soon, presumably because &quot;the site won&#x27;t continue to work&quot; unless they do.<p>Of course, that&#x27;s false. Every website works without the Topic API.<p>Changing the user-agent string in DevTools to match Chrome 115&#x27;s seems an easy workaround. Will Google try to prevent that.<p>Google cannot make Topics API an option and ask users if they want to install it. This is not a choice. If you ask users if they want ads, too many will say, &quot;No.&quot; Amazing business model.<p>&quot;... and if you don&#x27;t have it yet, you will soon.&quot;<p>Some users will not. Because they will not use Chrome. Others might try to disable it. To those users resisting this &quot;Topics API&quot;, I salute you.