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ChatGPT now knows what you do on other websites via ad collector

764 points · 395 comments · lmbbuchodi

gruez · 1789928271 · focus · HN ↗
I spent 10 seconds skimming this blog post until realizing it's just AI generated (ironic) slop describing how third party cookie tracking works. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_cookies#Mechanism" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_cookies#Mechanism
Everyone would be far better off if the author just posted "OpenAI uses third party cookies [wikipedia link]", except maybe the author who wouldn't as many subscriptions for his "threat intel" newsletter.
1. buchodi · 1789928517 · focus · HN ↗
  There are specific details about how the mechanism works like the cookie name (__obi) that can help defenders.
  1. gruez · 1789928668 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not aware of any filter lists that blocks based on cookie name. It's almost always done at the URL level. Moreover it's bog standard 3rd party cookie tracking. At least for the purposes of "help defenders", there's nothing in the blog post that couldn't be found in 10s with browser devtools.
    zahlman · 1789928940 · focus · HN ↗
    > there's nothing in the blog post that couldn't be found in 10s with browser devtools.
    The audience of people who can read and understand an explanation like this one is probably quite a bit larger than the ones who can replicate the experiment themselves.
    TeMPOraL · 1789929391 · focus · HN ↗
    And larger still than the ones who would bother to replicate the experiment themselves.
    Yeah, I could tell few sentences in that it's Claude-written article. The style has become that distinctive. Hell, a third of the articles I opened on the HN front page today carried that distinctive style.
    Doesn't really matter if the content is worth it (and I just realized that recognizing Claude in this also makes me wary of ways this could paper over key details - at this point I start to recognize from my own experience where Claude may be papering over something it didn't actually bother to check).
    gruez · 1789929582 · focus · HN ↗
    That just goes back to my original point, which is that this is AI slop and everyone would be better off if OP referenced a canonical description of what's happening, rather than wasting everyone's time by generating 1200 words of AI slop for them to wade through, all for some "threat intelligence" newsletter.
2. zahlman · 1789928891 · focus · HN ↗
  > until realizing it's just AI generated
  I didn't look at the prose closely enough to check for that, but people wrote inflated explanations of basic things like this all the time pre-LLM. The Wikipedia article doesn't know the specific cookie name, and can't show the results of an experiment verifying that it is in fact being used for ad tracking, or identify specific sites using it in collaboration with OpenAI.
  1. gruez · 1789929806 · focus · HN ↗
    >but people wrote inflated explanations of basic things like this all the time pre-LLM.
    And those got a pass because at least you could defend them with some excuse about how it's some budding author trying to hone their writing skills, or trying to improve their understanding by putting pen to paper. Cases where those excuses don't work (think crappy content marketing pieces from random companies) got short shrift as well. Now for all you know, it's just some dude who prompted claude to "write a blog post about openai's ads".

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