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Yeah what is the cohort size and how many cohorts can a person be part of? This sounds like an underhanded way Google can say they don't track individuals whil

Yeah what is the cohort size and how many cohorts can a person be part of? This sounds like an underhanded way Google can say they don't track individuals while in practice it is almost the same.

jefftk 6y ago
> what is the cohort size? "The browser ensures that cohorts are well distributed, so that each represents thousands of people." > how many cohorts can a person be part of? It's just: cohort = await document.interestCohort(); See https://github.com/WICG/floc https://github.com/WICG/floc (Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, speaking only for myself.)
- josefx 6y ago
  Only thousands? The x-client-data field all google owned servers get from chrome has over 65000 possible values. Wouldn't that make a combination of both unique again?
  - jefftk 6y ago
    The X-Client-Data header is for evaluating the effect of Chrome changes, not ad targeting: "Additionally, a subset of low entropy variations are included in network requests sent to Google. The combined state of these variations is non-identifying, since it is based on a 13-bit low entropy value (see above). These are transmitted using the "X-Client-Data" HTTP header, which contains a list of active variations. On Android, this header may include a limited set of external server-side experiments, which may affect the Chrome installation. This header is used to evaluate the effect on Google servers - for example, a networking change may affect YouTube video load speed or an Omnibox ranking update may result in more helpful Google Search results." -- https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html
    - josefx 6y ago
      > The X-Client-Data header is for evaluating the effect of Chrome changes, not ad targeting: And my personal browsing habits are for me, that doesn't seem to stop Google from inventing new and imaginative ways to use them for ad targeting. The id is also long enough to be unique in a group of thousands, which is a size range in which the groups created by this new way of targeting ads apparently are.

Yeah what is the cohort size and how many cohorts can a person be part of? This sounds like an underhanded way Google can say they don't track individuals while in practice it is almost the same.

jefftk 6y ago

> what is the cohort size? "The browser ensures that cohorts are well distributed, so that each represents thousands of people." > how many cohorts can a person be part of? It's just: cohort = await document.interestCohort(); See https://github.com/WICG/floc https://github.com/WICG/floc (Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, speaking only for myself.)

josefx 6y ago
Only thousands? The x-client-data field all google owned servers get from chrome has over 65000 possible values. Wouldn't that make a combination of both unique again?
- jefftk 6y ago
  The X-Client-Data header is for evaluating the effect of Chrome changes, not ad targeting: "Additionally, a subset of low entropy variations are included in network requests sent to Google. The combined state of these variations is non-identifying, since it is based on a 13-bit low entropy value (see above). These are transmitted using the "X-Client-Data" HTTP header, which contains a list of active variations. On Android, this header may include a limited set of external server-side experiments, which may affect the Chrome installation. This header is used to evaluate the effect on Google servers - for example, a networking change may affect YouTube video load speed or an Omnibox ranking update may result in more helpful Google Search results." -- https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html
  - josefx 6y ago
    > The X-Client-Data header is for evaluating the effect of Chrome changes, not ad targeting: And my personal browsing habits are for me, that doesn't seem to stop Google from inventing new and imaginative ways to use them for ad targeting. The id is also long enough to be unique in a group of thousands, which is a size range in which the groups created by this new way of targeting ads apparently are.