Google is getting ready to test a new "IP Protection" feature for the Chrome browser that enhances users' privacy by masking their IP addresses using proxy servers.
    • m-p{3}@lemmy.caEnglish
      19·
      1 year ago

      User ➡ Google ➡ Cloudflare ➡ Hosting Provider ➡ Web Server

      Google just want to get that sweet user data to sell to advertisers that Cloudflare would get otherwise.

  • Nik282000@lemmy.ca
    281·
    1 year ago

    Google doesn’t want to keep your information private, they want to keep it private from everyone else.

  • vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de
    23·
    1 year ago

    by making it so that it is hidden to anyone, except for google. It is not possible to hide your ip completely online. Your ip address is the only way for anyone to reach you. The only way to hide your ip from someone is to have someone else (who does know your ip address) make the request on your behalf, and forward data forward and back between the two endpoints. Everything has to go through the middleman.

    Google will be that middleman

    • 0xD@infosec.pub
      32·
      1 year ago

      Yeah but Google will know it either way, so it really doesn’t matter. Not that IPs really matter anyway.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Google wouldn’t know it either way. What even is this sentiment? Google doesn’t own the internet. Don’t use their services and use a VPN.

      • vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de
        31·
        1 year ago

        they know your ip anyway. everyone does. It’s your only identifier online. I’d rather not send all my data through them anyway.

            • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              It’s a Google VPN, which means they own it, which means they see literally everything you do if you use it, rather than just seeing what you do if you visit a page with their tracking and you don’t block their cookies and scripts.

                • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  The difference is that those companies presumably don’t run the biggest advertising agency in the world, don’t cooperate with governments, and don’t log your history or original IP address. Using Google as a VPN provider in oppressive countries that punish free speech online could present a serious hazard. Plus there’s just the overall privacy issue too.

  • sir_reginald@lemmy.world
    212·
    1 year ago

    my comment on the same topic:

    Since most of Google’s revenue comes from tracking users across the internet and offering them personalized ads, it will be interesting to see how the company strikes a balance between user privacy and revenue generation.

    Isn’t it obvious? Google own’s the proxies. And judging by the look of this, they are going to act as a a Man In The Middle for HTTPS, so they will be actually able to see everyone’s plain text connections. This is not a privacy feature, but a privacy nightmare. Like everything else on Chrome, tbh

    Edit: I don’t know if they will be breaking HTTPS or no, since I didn’t see the details of how this works. But even if they don’t see your plain text traffic, they are logging your every request, which is scary.

  • ono@lemmy.caOPEnglish
    162·
    1 year ago

    We have every reason to be skeptical of Google where privacy is concerned, but the design described here looks interesting. In particular, proxying only the off-site resources, and running them through two proxy layers from different providers.

    I still won’t use Chrome, but if the design holds up to scrutiny, something like it on Firefox (with configurable independent proxy providers) could be appealing.

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
      9·
      1 year ago

      So, instead of companies tracking your IP address, they will have to pay Google to buy your IP address, along with your Google account info and demographics.

      • astray@lemm.ee
        3·
        1 year ago

        They stopped caring about your ip address and have moved to profiling, so they’ll gladly help you change your ip address to get more from you.

    • nathris@lemmy.ca
      1·
      1 year ago

      At least it’s only the off site resources. As someone who works with credit card processing online and has to deal with BIN attacks those proxy IPs would get banned pretty quickly both by us and the credit card processor. We already have issues with people using free proxies.