On March 30, Bennett Cyphers wrote: Today, Google launched an “origin trial” of Federated Learning of Cohorts (aka FLoC), its experimental new technology for targeting ads. A switch has silently been flipped in millions of instances of Google Chrome: those browsers will begin sorting their users into groups based on behavior, then sharing [Read More…]
Brian X. Chen writes: … Unlike mainstream web browsers, private browsers come in many forms that serve different purposes. For about a week, I tested three of the most popular options — DuckDuckGo, Brave and Firefox Focus. Even I was surprised that I eventually switched to Brave as the default [Read More…]
Laura Dobberstein reports: TikTok is likely no more of a threat to users than Facebook, according to an analysis by academic research group Citizen Lab that analyzed the video-sharing social networking service’s app to probe for security, privacy and censorship issues. The report was published online on March 22 by the [Read More…]
Malathi Nayak and Joel Rosenblatt report: Google failed to kill a lawsuit alleging that it secretly scoops up troves of internet data even if users browse in “Incognito” mode to keep their search activity private. The consumers who filed the case as a class action alleged that even when even they [Read More…]