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."

Comments

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.

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.