<ul><li>Apple criticized Google's ad tech Topics system that serves ads based on Chrome history.</li><li>Apple cited a research paper by professors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.</li><li>Apple claimed that Topics aids digital fingerprinting, which could be used by advertisers.</li><li>The fingerprinting risk is overstated due to improper randomization code in research paper.</li><li>Topics provides a privacy-preserving way for advertisers to target people based on their interests inferred from their browsing activity.</li><li>Topics originally intended to replace third-party cookies, but privacy concerns caused Google to reconsider.</li><li>Many different web APIs can be used for browser fingerprinting and reducing the potential for misuse is an ongoing effort.</li><li>Google Topics engineer Josh Karlin found a bug in the worker pool code which reduced the potential for fingerprinting risk.</li><li>The revised simulation shows a much reduced fingerprinting risk.</li><li>Apple's criticism of Topics is reasonable, but the privacy risk posed by the API is less than initially assumed.</li></ul>

Oops. Apple relied on bad code while flaming Google Chrome's Topics ad tech

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