this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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Privacy

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Anyone know exactly what info Youtube captures from you from its browser version (and by what means)? (lemmy.world)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by LagrangePoint@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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I know the prevailing sentiment for a long time in the privacy community has been "DAE Youtube bad?" though I have always thought that it is kinda overblown. Besides, I am using Firefox which is supposed to isolate tabs so they can't speak to each other, so I felt a small amount safer using Youtube.

You can take my post with a grain of salt since all I have are anecdotes, but can anyone else confirm encountering creepiness similar to my experiences:

-Typing anything in another window that is not my browser, sometimes these words seem like they get picked up by the Youtube suggestion algo and then boom, I get suggested videos based off of those keywords. Recent example, I was copypasting the words "trans" and "talking" over and over for some nerd spreadsheet I am making (read: not transgender purposes) and what do you know, transgender videos about "How to change your voice" start popping up in my feed. Please know I have zero interest in transgender politics/culture/anything, it is not something I have ever searched for or engaged in online. Possible that Youtube is reading my clipboard? Reading my keystrokes?

-Listening to an album via VLC, while Youtube is open in my browser. Suddenly, more tracks from that album start showing up in my suggested feed. Possible Youtube is reading the titles of other apps current open on my machine? (VLC changes its active title to the name of whatever file is currently open)

-Have a Discord channel open in another tab, people there start posting things I am uninterested in and don't click on, but lo and behold, videos related to those things start appearing my feed. Tbh, I am the most jaded about Discord's privacy security because there is probably a direct communications pipeline between the Discord and Youtube where they link accounts to each other, even creating shadow accounts similar to how Facebook does. So while not surprising... still at least a little bit creepy, yes?

edit: let me add a small bit of context. I use Youtube all the time as my personal version of Spotify. Adblock+Youtube still works for me and is very nice. So all of my Youtube video suggestions are always music related. If anything weird shows up in that feed (you know, not music-related stuff) it sticks out to me immediately.

edit2: thanks for the replies, even if you are disagreeing with me. I promise you I am not the person downvoting everyone lol.

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[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 24 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

firefox doesn't hide your ip.

google/YouTube probably knows who is watching what from where and when unless you use tor or a vpn with a browser that leaves no traces, leaks no information (probably not the default firefox)

but youtube in firefox having access to what you type on another app? i don't think that's possible

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Your IP is only a small unreliable data point

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago

don't say that! it may be offended

[–] Melody@lemmy.one 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I think I can explain some of the "inexplicable creepy" moments you mention here. Note that I'm not advocating for YouTube's favor; I'm just explaining how things tend to work in general.

  1. Your spreadsheet seems to contain two key words or terms that are trending in the current year/week/month/day in your area. I wouldn't be too creeped out about this, it's just a lucky guess; Firefox cannot access your clipboard history, nor does it allow websites to do so. Furthermore websites cannot read your clipboard unless you have them focused as the active window and you click on a text field in that web page. Once again Firefox here is protecting you and most browsers behave the same way anyways. They don't get data about clipboard contents at all until they're focused. CAVEAT: If you were using Google Sheets or a spreadsheet application ONLINE that IS IN YOUR BROWSER then we have a different story. For sake of simplicity I assume you are using something like LibreOffice Calc or Microsoft Excel.

  2. Second verse, same as the first! Your musical tastes are probably highly similar to many people in your vicinity and Google is using that to suggest content to you. This can even get spookily accurate if it even only knows your gender and age range based on what you watch. RECOMMENDATION: Clear your Watch History and keep it Paused.

  3. Discord actually does load the video embed / information from the YouTube API. But unless you're living in SF; this is not linking back to you unless you are clicking on those videos at all. However, if you are loading Discord in your Browser; YouTube might be able to make some weird fingerprinting connections. The solution is simple: Download Discord Desktop and install it...or if you don't like Discord software you can always use Beeper ( https://www.beeper.com/ ) which is slightly more privacy preserving, but has limitations. Alternately you can isolate Discord tabs to a Private Window.

[–] Lemongrab@lemmy.one 3 points 7 months ago

Or isolate discord with a tab container in Firefox. Invidious is still preferable though.

[–] sordid@procial.tchncs.de 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@LagrangePoint@lemmy.world I am literally begging you to use Invidious

[–] Ward@lemmy.nz 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Maybe with the Materialious frontend

https://github.com/WardPearce/Materialious

Cough cough might be a plug

[–] sordid@procial.tchncs.de 4 points 7 months ago

Good plug if so! I had not heard of it. It is right up my alley.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 7 points 7 months ago

Chances are you just are the same as someone else that happened to listen to the same music. Its the "algorithm" at work.

First, check your browser fingerprint. Next, switch to invidious and don't look back

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Typing anything in another window that is not my browser

Which windows exactly? The apps you're typing things into might be spying on you.

M$ and their 738 parters really value your privacy, so if you're typing things into Excel...

copypasting the words "trans" and "talking"

What applications were running on your computer while you did this? Any of them could be recording clipboard history; it requires no special privilege.

Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Windows itself was recording this and sent it to daddy M$ to train LLMs and maybe sell it as a little multi-billion side hustle.

transgender videos about "How to change your voice" start popping up in my feed. Please know I have zero interest in transgender politics/culture/anything, it is not something I have ever searched for or engaged in online.

Maybe Google knows something you don't? JK.

A more plausible explanation is that Google knows that you're in the Fediverse (ever Googled it?) which has a far above average concentration of queer people.

What is also plausible is that someone living with you (i.e. your family) or a friend is trans and you're obviously associated with them.

Google doesn't recommend queer content because they think you're queer but because it's what their data-defined statistical algorithms (""AI"") predicts you are likely to be interested in and therefore watch ads for. If you know a queer person or are often in contact with them, you are simply quite a bit more likely to be interested in queer people than the average and therefore more likely to click on queer content.

Possible that Youtube is reading my clipboard? Reading my keystrokes?

Youtube itself? Near impossible.

Other applications? Possible but likelihood unknown.

Listening to an album via VLC, while Youtube is open in my browser. Suddenly, more tracks from that album start showing up in my suggested feed. Possible Youtube is reading the titles of other apps current open on my machine? (VLC changes its active title to the name of whatever file is currently open)

Again, Youtube itself directly isn't doing anything like this. If that album is related to what you were listening to on YT or is even simply also popular with people who listed to the same things on YT as you do or are just generally similar to your person; that's all it takes for YT to attempt to show it to you.

Also note again that any application on your Windows or Linux PC can read the window titles of any other application or even simply scan your media library or other files.

Discord does this for instance for their rich presence function for instance and I would again not be surprised if there was a little multi-billion side-hustle going on.

I use Youtube all the time as my personal version of Spotify.

If you're not reliant on YT's recommendations, I'd recommend you to download the songs you want to listen to and listen to them on a local player.

[–] LagrangePoint@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for reading my post and replying individually to a lot of the things I wrote.

I still think the trans thing sticks out like a weird red flag to me. Literally never before has Youtube ever suggested anything trans related to me. Then for a day and a half after I was working on that spreadsheet, it showed up at the top of the suggested videos. Since then, I have never seen it again. So in short: years of nothing, nothing, nothing, TWO DAYS OF TRANS VIDEO SUGGESTIONS, and then since, nothing, nothing, nothing.

It is bizarre and very fucky. Even after reading a lot of people telling me that it is just The Algo^TM^ at work, that incident seems so razor specific to activity I was simply doing on my computer at the same time Youtube was open rather than anything that could be related to my personal interests.

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

Then for a day and a half after I was working on that spreadsheet, it showed up at the top of the suggested videos.

Again, which applications had access to your clipboard and user files at that time? If any of the applications running on your computer was stealing your data and selling it for financial gain, Google would likely be buying it and obviously using it against you.

You also have to consider side-channels. Were you or your friends talking about that spreadsheet project via Discord or some other known abuser? Did you talk about it with a person in your room while daddy Google or Amazon were listening? (Alexa in the room, Google assistant on your phone etc.)

in short: years of nothing, nothing, nothing, TWO DAYS OF TRANS VIDEO SUGGESTIONS, and then since, nothing, nothing, nothing.

This might simply be expectation bias. You may have been shown such suggestions in the same pattern before and simply didn't notice because, contrary to the present, the topic wasn't on your mind and simply forgot about it because you're being shown irrelevant suggested topics all the time.

Even after reading a lot of people telling me that it is just The Algo^TM^ at work, that incident seems so razor specific to activity I was simply doing on my computer at the same time Youtube was open rather than anything that could be related to my personal interests.

That's how "The Algo^TM^" works. Google gathers data on you directly through its applications, from 3rd parties selling data they stole from you and indirectly through the same process from people you associate with.
It's even possible that some data broker simply made up the fact that you're trans. Google could have then assumed it's true because you associate with trans people here. I could very well see that happen in an enshittified system such as Google.

[–] PoliticallyIncorrect@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Take it easy mate, use a VPN and a good browser and that's it, don't be paranoid.. good luck 🙏🤞..

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

VPNs won't help you with Google

[–] PoliticallyIncorrect@lemm.ee 7 points 7 months ago

Definitely not if you are logged in..

[–] LagrangePoint@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Am I really being paranoid?

Some context I'll add to my main post in an edit: the only Youtube suggestions I get are music-related, since I use adblock+Youtube as my personal Spotify. It's why I have Youtube open frequently despite knowing that it is not a great platform and it is also why any suggestions in my feed that are explicitly not music-related stick out like a sore thumb.

[–] Syn_Attck@lemmy.today 4 points 7 months ago

No you're not being paranoid its how it works. No browser isolates tabs like you're talking about unless you use containers. Google owns the largest ad company on the internet, so any site that embeds their tracking scripts (most of the Western internet) will send the page you visited to Google, so they know what pages you're going to, and highly likely use that information to inform the YouTube algorithm about you. Even if you have a tracker blocker installed, like unlock Origin, if you use Google they still know which link you clicked and what you searched.

[–] PoliticallyIncorrect@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

"They" will recommend you irrelevant shit cos it's the way "they" manipulate public opinion, directing the people attention to what "they" want to, that's why you see irrelevant shit, it's not all about recommending you things based on the information "they" have about you.

These platforms don't make money just selling you stuff, "they" make money also directing your attention and manipulating it in the direction "they" want to.

If "they" make 10 bucks for selling you physical shit, "they" make 1000 bucks selling ideological shit following their owners agenda.

Maybe I am more paranoid than you haha..

Going to the point: not all the shit mainstream social media algorithm shows you it's about the information they have about you.

[–] rollingflower@lemmy.kde.social 2 points 7 months ago

Adblock doesnt help privacy.

You need to use a hardened browser with as little unique identifiers as possible. Then you need to delete cookies and use different or unified IP addresses, obviously.