
Stop tracking me: Austrian citizen files complaint over Android Advertising ID - newsreview1
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/13/google_android_gdpr_complaint/
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kerng
Surprised that Google didn't take proper pre-cautions here to not run into
this.

If there is indeed such an identifier, enabled by default its pretty obvious
that its technically possible to track a user. And with all the other data
Google has, they also can link to the actual identity pretty easily.

~~~
JadeNB
Surely it's easier for Google to ask forgiveness than permission. Why _wouldn
't_ they do this if they want to track you, especially if they can muster even
a shred of plausible deniability to allow them to keep it in place longer?

~~~
thoraway1010
Plausible deniability? They put it there so you can be tracked - that is what
it is for.

Have you confirmed that the click through agreements and privacy policies
don't mention anything like this?

~~~
JadeNB
> Have you confirmed that the click through agreements and privacy policies
> don't mention anything like this?

No …? I'm not sure why I would have; I was just responding to @kerng's
surprise at its presence
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23180801](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23180801)).

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ckastner
The title should have mentioned the person by name: it's Max Schrems [1].

He has a legal background, and has fought a number of high-profile privacy
cases in Europe.

The day the GDPR came into effect, he filed violations complaints against
Facebook and Google in four different jurisdictions. He's a spearhead figure
in this regard.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems)

~~~
chrisseaton
> The day the GDPR came into effect, he filed violations complaints against
> Facebook and Google in four different jurisdictions.

When people do this it comes across as malicious harassment rather than a
genuine legal complaint for harm caused. Why so many jurisdictions, and why on
the very day it came into effect?

~~~
foepys
Oh no, somebody save Google, please. A single lawyer is harassing this poor
trillion dollar company.

He has any right to use all existing laws to file complaints. When a new law
is being introduced it should be followed immediately, especially when it
impacts the lives of many. Would you argue that a speeding ticket is
harassment when the fines were raised just the day before? No, you wouldn't
because that would be ridiculous.

~~~
chrisseaton
> When a new law is being introduced it should be followed immediately,
> especially when it impacts the lives of many. Would you argue that a
> speeding ticket is harassment when the fines were raised just the day
> before?

When there's a new law or a new speeding limit on an existing road the police
_do_ usually spend a while just politely warning people about it before they
charge anyone.

He's an activist. Not someone who's genuinely been harmed and seeking a legal
resolution as a last resort after trying to resolve in good faith first.

~~~
foepys
As another poster pointed out, GDPR had a 2 year (!) period where it was
already a law in all EU countries but was not enforced for exactly that
reason. Try telling a cop that you need to be notified 2 years in advance.

Privacy advocates have been saying for years that Google is building profiles
for every user on the internet. You were not able to get to know what Google
knows about you. This changed and it is really good that it changed.

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chipperyman573
For anyone complaining about this: __the advertising ID is a very good thing
for us tech people __

Nobody know how to change it or turn it off. That means a lot of developers
and advertisers assume it is actually a good way to track users. So if _you_
go in and reset/disable it, you'll be in such a small minority that you'd
become an edge case and they'd lose the historical data on you.

Obviously this isn't true 100% of the time but if it didn't exist then
advertisers would use a hardware fingerprint probably, which is a lot harder
to spoof

~~~
Nextgrid
There's no reason they can't do both especially considering privacy-conscious
people and those adverse to advertising are the very people advertisers would
pay a lot of money to reach.

~~~
ivanfon
> privacy-conscious people and those adverse to advertising are the very
> people advertisers would pay a lot of money to reach.

Why? Not trying to be snarky, just genuinely curious, I'd expect that those
people would generally be less susceptible to advertising.

~~~
Nextgrid
My theory with this is that someone privacy-conscious, ad-adverse and those
who block ads signal both that their time is too valuable to be wasted by
advertising and they have the skills to install technical countermeasures
against them. This correlates favourably with developers and similar positions
that typically have higher than average salaries (thus more purchasing power)
and the possibility of influencing purchasing decisions at their company for
enterprise products.

