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

Apple highlighted privacy concerns with Google’s Topics API, citing research that claimed significant fingerprinting risk—claims later tempered when a Google engineer identified a randomization bug in the study’s code that had inflated reidentification rates. Corrected simulations show about 2–4% unique reidentification across observations rather than ~57%, suggesting a lower but still material privacy risk, as Google maintains Topics alongside third-party cookies amid ongoing debates over web tracking and user privacy.