Not only is it legal, it’s much more common than you’d think. Companies charge different prices based on your browser fingerprint.
Some of the examples here will surprise you: simplifiedprivacy.com/browser-fingerprints-lead-t…
I’m sure a lot of this is going on … but this article is pretty poor.
First of all, they are hawking a VPN product. So it is in their interest to make the problem seem big.
Second, they argue VPN can shield against cookies. That’s to do with the browser, not the connection.
Third, their frequent use of the loaded “artificial intelligence” just bothers me … most of the algorithms they describe has nothing to do with AI/ML, but sounds like fairly simple, rules-based decisions. In fact, if I was interested is giving a discount to people who lived close to a competitor of mine, training an ML algorithm to do it sounds error-prone and poor.
We are recommending VPNs in general, but are not “hawking” or selling a specific one.
Second, we did not say a VPN hides against cookies. Cookies can easily be erased in the browser. This article is discussing browser fingerprints, which neither a VPN nor cookies deal with. Your reading comprehension is shockingly low.
“Simplified Privacy is here to help with a VPN solution that can obscure your browser fingerprint and enable you to step back and more clearly see discrimination.”
That sounded like hawking a specific product; I’m sure you could understand why.
You are arguing in the article that a VPN helps obscuring your browser fingerprint - and then say in your response to me that it can’t.
Don’t get me wrong - I support the aims of what you’re trying to achieve. My criticism is to address specific points in the article, not reject your noble aim.
Ah ok, that was meant for someone who wants to setup OpenVPN on a VPS that they can SSH into. But this person does not want to do the work. So the company can provide the service of setting up what you like on a VPS
This has been going on for years, including inside the EU, for those wondering. You can test to see if it happens for you by going to a flight website, getting a price for a flight, then go back a few times to search for the same flight.
The question of what you do to fight it is by clearing the cookie for the website, using a different browser and/or changing your location/block tracking (use a VPN or tor). Usually clearing the cookie is enough.
If clearing the cookie works, then this is not browser fingerprinting. Browser fingerprinting is about storing information about your browser (screen size, languages enabled, user agent, canvas rendering, and more) you can find whether this information is unique for your browser in amiunique.org
You have to understand that that number is grossly skewed and completely meaningless. Think of the person who would be most likely to use that website. It’s logical to assume that many of them are Firefox users, who tend to be more privacy oriented. I doubt your average chrome or safari user is worrying about their privacy. Probably only Reddit or Lemmy users (or other tech forum users) have even heard of this website. The actual market share of Firefox is low as fuck. I think it was like 1% lol. So uea, of coirse that website is going to show a ton of Firefox users by % of total users.
Edit: Just in case it wasn’t clear. The 42% is the % of firefox users out of THE USERS OF THAT WEBSITE, not actual Firefox user %.
How badly does resist fingerprinting break sites? And what is the best way to fix it when it breaks? Is using Firefox but not using resist fingerprinting stupid?
Standard tracking protection and total cookie protection are the default settings. I believe it includes a very minor use of fingerprint tracking protection, but not the resist fingerprint settings.
Not sure but this sounds like it would already be illegal in Europe but I can’t find anything concrete. Prices are the same when checking different stores via VPN though.
Some of the behaviors in the article are illegal in the USA too, but the companies continue doing it, even after losing multiple court battles. It must be more profitable to break the law for them, which is a problem of its own.
It is illegal in Europe as GDPR doesn’t talk about cookies but about collecting and trakcing user data and granting permission for it. So, if the user refuses the form and you still collect their browser fingerprint, then that’s illegal.
You can try chameleon on ff but I haven’t fully tested it myself. Could also modify config value if u don’t want an extension but u need to look up the values and it can be quite tedious.
I guess my issue is that I want an extension to automatically plug in all the different user agents, geolocations, etc. to find the cheapest one. Having an extension to enable me to change these things myself is nice but not what I’d find most useful, you know?
I dont see that as an possibility given all the complications. You can make a custom extension work for a particular site to fetch the price and go through a shit ton of possible variations of browser, os, screen resolution and all those sht that goes in the fingerprint, reloading the page everytime but that would be awfully ineffective and slow. And making a generalized extension that can do the same for every website is pretty much impossible.
Someone posted about a website called canvas blocker to your original comment that could find the fingerprint, I haven’t got a chance to test it myself but you can try it out and let me know if it was any good.
If it’s for a specific website, it shouldn’t be that hard to whip up a python script using selenium. It might not work for everything but you can change location and user agent from what I remember
I’m guessing someone will have to figure out the algorithms through reverse engineering for each site then put together an extension. I will need to have some kind of vpn to change the ip address though.
updateThe best way to fight this is to make it illegal.
If you use firefox (desktop), you dont need a plugin. Go to about:config find privacy.resistFingerprinting
Double click and flip from false to true.
Done.
Go to browserleaks.com/canvas and check your fingerprint.
On android, firefox doesnt have the same option. But, you can use a browser like Mull (a firefox fork) which has all rhe same options as desktop, with the privacy settings of tor browser enabled by default - no fingerprints. (They’ll be fake and new every time)
Firefox has an experimental feature to block your fingerprint. A few things I’ve seen make me think it works (Google thought I was running Windows NT not Linux, among other things):
If I remember correctly, changing my location to the places I’m booking a flight to, and contrary to what the article says, certain less wealthy nations would sometimes have a cheaper price.
I know a lot of organizations do so, but not as a home user.
I have had to do so professionally due to some old yet expensive equipment that only output to software that only runs on 98 or XP, but those machines are not allowed on any networks, not even local ones.
Actually not sure if XP can even use a modern enough browser to access most of the web.
I’ve seen this happen with flights in a different way - I repeatedly check the same flights over and over and have noticed the price going up across multiple views even on the same day.
Try using a different browser. Try canvas blocker/fingerprint blocker plugins. Try deleting history, cache, cookies,and site settings. Try ublock origin to block 3rd party scripts and frames.
I tried that, and it didn’t seem to make a difference. My guess is they count the searches and use that data, or my number of privacy tools has made my fingerprint more unique ky the lack of trackers.
Add comment