> So in effect, the previously open internet becomes a product belonging to Google, where every site with adsense on it may as well be a Google property, in the sense that it's Google who is the ultimate benefactor of the fact that I viewed multiple sites in its "network."
You're saying this like it hasn't already happened. We're already long past this point because of third party cookies and browser fingerprinting. Because of third party cookies, not only can Google do this (and they have), Facebook, Amazon, and really anyone with enough money and incentive to get their scripts added to other sites can do this.
Everything you're talking about in your response seems to assume that we're living in this world where, right now, no one can track your activity once you leave their specific site and Google adding the Topics API will be some watershed moment. It's not, we're already there and we have been for almost a decade.
The entire point of my original question was how is what Google is proposing worse than what is out there now. Since you seem to keep ignoring what is possible right now through third party cookies, I think I'm done with this discussion.
It has already happened! Exactly. But while other browser vendors are taking measures to "put the genie back in the bottle," like removing third party tracking cookies, enabling declarative native content blockers, prominently displaying which "trackers" you've been exposed to, etc. - Google is an outlier, in that it's finding ways to circumvent the privacy preserving measures introduced by other browsers, while still disingenuously claiming its new "privacy preserving" (oxymoron) tracking technology aligns with the "spirit" of the changes.
So yes, it's "already like that." But it doesn't have to be. That's why browsers are differentiating themselves by actually preserving user privacy, by declaring war on hostile features like third party cookies, and empowering the user with tools for monitoring and customizing content blockers. It's only Google that is going out of their way to introduce unnecessary complexity under the guise of "preserving privacy" - because they've been caught with their pants down tracking you, and now they want to gaslight you into thinking they're wearing pants - preserving your privacy - when in reality their entire narrative is built on a false premise that tracking is necessary, and if only it can be done "privately enough," then not only should you be okay with it but Google should be commended for its efforts to protect your privacy!
It's all a bit rich, and reminds me of Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal. Somehow they were able to convince the media that Cambridge Analytica was the bad guy, even though they never did anything that wasn't explicitly documented with sample code in the Facebook API docs. Facebook created a platform that is almost by definition designed for relinquishing your privacy (by asking you to publish your personal data to the internet), and then tried to retroactively define its boundaries by insisting there is some notion of "published to your 1000+ friends, but still private." In reality they created the walled garden, collected all your data within it, and then gave developers tools to read the data they collected. And when caught with their pants down, they insisted the problem was that the rules weren't "private enough" - when in reality the problem was that Facebook had any of this data in the first place. The same applies here to Google. The question is not how the tracking "works," but rather why the tracking exists.
You're saying this like it hasn't already happened. We're already long past this point because of third party cookies and browser fingerprinting. Because of third party cookies, not only can Google do this (and they have), Facebook, Amazon, and really anyone with enough money and incentive to get their scripts added to other sites can do this.
Everything you're talking about in your response seems to assume that we're living in this world where, right now, no one can track your activity once you leave their specific site and Google adding the Topics API will be some watershed moment. It's not, we're already there and we have been for almost a decade.
The entire point of my original question was how is what Google is proposing worse than what is out there now. Since you seem to keep ignoring what is possible right now through third party cookies, I think I'm done with this discussion.