DuckDuckGo, one of the technology companies that makes available to those who are concerned about their privacy on the Internet a series of solutions for the protection of their privacy online, just announced what your apps and browser extensions will now start blocking sign in with Google popups that appear on third-party websites.
Of course, the new protection mechanism will not affect those third-party websites that are affiliated with Google, that allow the login with Google integrated into the home page.
As we know, there are many online platforms that offer users the ability to create and log into accounts through a number of identity providers, such as Google and other companies, so they can save themselves the hassle of create user accounts from scratch, and have different login credentials for each website they register on.
But this practice, despite the fact that Google ensures that login data with Google accounts on third-party websites will not be used for advertisements or purposes other than security, from DuckDuckGo they observe that this is not the case, having carried out tests in which they came to observe that under this mechanism, the company still collects some data.
In this sense, from DuckDuckGo they share with BleepingComputer the following statement:
For example, at investing.com, many requests are made to https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads? (…) This includes the full page URL in the request parameters. In testing, if we don’t sign in to the website with Google, the DSID cookie sent with these requests has a value of NO_DATA. If we log into the website with Google, the DSID cookie sent with these requests has a long hexadecimal value
Therefore, faced with the potential temptation to create and use Google accounts on third-party websites, DuckDuckGo now begins to block Google login pop-up windows.
It’s about the latest solution focused on privacy protection to datecurrently having its own privacy-focused search engine, email service, tracker-blocking system, and is also working on a standalone web browser, currently in beta version for macOS.
This new mechanism is already integrated into applications and extensions, and the only way to disable it is to disable all privacy protections. And let’s remember that this mechanism does not affect logins with Google integrated into the home page of third-party websites.