7 ms·

To be honest though, for the general public not using adblockers, is FloC not better privacy wise than your traditional cookies?

manuelflara 6y ago
I'll leave this quote from the EFF article on FloC[1] > Google’s pitch to privacy advocates is that a world with FLoC (and other elements of the “privacy sandbox”) will be better than the world we have today, where data brokers and ad-tech giants track and profile with impunity. But that framing is based on a false premise that we have to choose between “old tracking” and “new tracking.” It’s not either-or. Instead of re-inventing the tracking wheel, we should imagine a better world without the myriad problems of targeted ads. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-idea https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-...
- jnxx 6y ago
  > But that framing is based on a false premise Another false premise is that the "old tracking" will stop because of the "new tracking".
  - halflings 6y ago
    Chrome is entirely removing third-party cookies by 2022. https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21064698/google-third-party-cookies-chrome-two-years-privacy-safari-firefox https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21064698/google-third-par...
    - Macha 6y ago
      Fingerprinting and connecting to logins has been a thing forever, just look at advertising companies offering cross-device targeting. Or just how aggressively google wants you to login to youtube these days.
      - halikular 6y ago
        Facebook Instagram and Linkedin is worse in that it is impossible to use these sites without logging in.
    - gkbrk 6y ago
      Chrome is also hard-coding exemptions to Google and DoubleClick domains from their so-called privacy features. This includes things like clearing the cookies leaving Google cookies alone, to sending a header with a browser ID to Google domains. I really doubt Google will get rid of all theirs methods to tie in their scripts on third-party websites to one user ID, as that will greatly reduce the effectiveness of Google Analytics or ReCAPTCHA.
    - jnxx 6y ago
      That's very generous. However, with the plethora of browser fingerprinting techniques, cookies today have become almost irrelevant: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://scrapebot.com/browser-fingerprinting-techniques/ https://scrapebot.com/browser-fingerprinting-techniques/
      - creata 6y ago
        Regardless of how simple fingerprinting is, I'm pretty sure that cookies are still the main way in which advertisers track users. Why make their job cheaper than it has to be?
        jnxx 6y ago
        I agree. What I wanted to point out is that this is not intended as a privacy-enhancing move by Google. More that they make life a bit harder for their own competitors.
    - bombcar 6y ago
      I wish there was a way to whitelist SOME third party cookies in Safari - the only options seem to be all/none. Many “enterprise” integrations (Box in Salesforce for example) break if third party cookies are blocked. Maybe Chrome doing it will get them assed to fix it.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    The old tracking is stopping whether sites want to or not, since users are now wise to uBlock Origin and browsers have finally started pushing for privacy.
    - ArneBab 6y ago
      Too few.
- discordianfish 6y ago
  This isn't a false premise. Either you get the ad supported industry behind some solution or whatever privacy respecting solution will be incompatible with these sites.
  - ArneBab 6y ago
    Or the ad supported industry finds ways to be supported without ads. That would be the ideal outcome. It would align them with the needs of their customers.
  - bnj 6y ago
    To paraphrase something I saw on twitter recently: The ad supported industry needs to track users; users don't need the ad supported industry. If the effort to increase user control and privacy continues, sites that can't support themselves without targeted ad revenue will either adapt or fold.
- remus 6y ago
  To me it seems FLoC is more about trying to stop a fingerprinting arms race between browsers and adtech, as will happen if third party cookies are removed and no other alternative is provided. In an ideal world adtech companies would just hold up their hands and say 'games up, on to something else' but it's an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars so if the more honest players leave the shadier companies will be only too happy to cash in.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    Part of the problem is that I don't believe FLoC will stop a fingerprinting arms race. FLoC in many ways makes it easier to fingerprint users, and I don't think that advertisers are going to look at the brand new opportunity FLoC-enhanced fingerprinting presents and just leave it sitting there untouched. There's nothing built into the FLoC spec that prevents advertisers from adding in additional fingerprinting on top of FLoC, and we've been down this road already with stuff like DNT. If any technology at all can be abused for fingerprinting, they'll abuse it. The market they're in doesn't allow them to have restraint, somebody will cross the line and then everyone else will follow under the excuse of being competitive. So I'm just not willing to give advertisers the benefit of the doubt anymore, or to assume that if we meet them halfway they'll be satisfied. They've already burned that bridge, I'm not inclined to keep offering them new bridges to burn.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > we've been down this road already with stuff like DNT Let's not forget that Microsoft deliberately murdered DNT by making it the default value. Had they not made that move, there's a good chance, we'd have seen DNT honored and eventually codified. > They've already burned that bridge, I'm not inclined to keep offering them new bridges to burn. I agree, if you give them no option whatsoever, there will never be legislation reining them in. With FLoC, you could outlaw other forms of tracking and add significant fines. Without it, politicians will not move a finger over concerns to damage the industry.
      - danShumway 6y ago
foxhop 6y ago
Google is trying to vilify browser cookies and slip in their proprietary tracking and profiling as a safe alternative. It's not better they simply want a monopoly on the dark arts of privacy intrusion, they want to build a moat and burn the bridges of the old way.
- freebuju 6y ago
  As does Apple. And any other hardware/software maker with a monopoly. This is the new playbook.
  - foxhop 6y ago
    Sure.

manuelflara 6y ago

I'll leave this quote from the EFF article on FloC[1] > Google’s pitch to privacy advocates is that a world with FLoC (and other elements of the “privacy sandbox”) will be better than the world we have today, where data brokers and ad-tech giants track and profile with impunity. But that framing is based on a false premise that we have to choose between “old tracking” and “new tracking.” It’s not either-or. Instead of re-inventing the tracking wheel, we should imagine a better world without the myriad problems of targeted ads. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-idea https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-...

jnxx 6y ago
> But that framing is based on a false premise Another false premise is that the "old tracking" will stop because of the "new tracking".
- halflings 6y ago
  Chrome is entirely removing third-party cookies by 2022. https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21064698/google-third-party-cookies-chrome-two-years-privacy-safari-firefox https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21064698/google-third-par...
  - Macha 6y ago
    Fingerprinting and connecting to logins has been a thing forever, just look at advertising companies offering cross-device targeting. Or just how aggressively google wants you to login to youtube these days.
    - halikular 6y ago
      Facebook Instagram and Linkedin is worse in that it is impossible to use these sites without logging in.
  - gkbrk 6y ago
    Chrome is also hard-coding exemptions to Google and DoubleClick domains from their so-called privacy features. This includes things like clearing the cookies leaving Google cookies alone, to sending a header with a browser ID to Google domains. I really doubt Google will get rid of all theirs methods to tie in their scripts on third-party websites to one user ID, as that will greatly reduce the effectiveness of Google Analytics or ReCAPTCHA.
  - jnxx 6y ago
    That's very generous. However, with the plethora of browser fingerprinting techniques, cookies today have become almost irrelevant: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://scrapebot.com/browser-fingerprinting-techniques/ https://scrapebot.com/browser-fingerprinting-techniques/
    - creata 6y ago
      Regardless of how simple fingerprinting is, I'm pretty sure that cookies are still the main way in which advertisers track users. Why make their job cheaper than it has to be?
      - jnxx 6y ago
        I agree. What I wanted to point out is that this is not intended as a privacy-enhancing move by Google. More that they make life a bit harder for their own competitors.
  - bombcar 6y ago
    I wish there was a way to whitelist SOME third party cookies in Safari - the only options seem to be all/none. Many “enterprise” integrations (Box in Salesforce for example) break if third party cookies are blocked. Maybe Chrome doing it will get them assed to fix it.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  The old tracking is stopping whether sites want to or not, since users are now wise to uBlock Origin and browsers have finally started pushing for privacy.
  - ArneBab 6y ago
    Too few.
discordianfish 6y ago
This isn't a false premise. Either you get the ad supported industry behind some solution or whatever privacy respecting solution will be incompatible with these sites.
- ArneBab 6y ago
  Or the ad supported industry finds ways to be supported without ads. That would be the ideal outcome. It would align them with the needs of their customers.
- bnj 6y ago
  To paraphrase something I saw on twitter recently: The ad supported industry needs to track users; users don't need the ad supported industry. If the effort to increase user control and privacy continues, sites that can't support themselves without targeted ad revenue will either adapt or fold.
remus 6y ago
To me it seems FLoC is more about trying to stop a fingerprinting arms race between browsers and adtech, as will happen if third party cookies are removed and no other alternative is provided. In an ideal world adtech companies would just hold up their hands and say 'games up, on to something else' but it's an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars so if the more honest players leave the shadier companies will be only too happy to cash in.
- danShumway 6y ago
  Part of the problem is that I don't believe FLoC will stop a fingerprinting arms race. FLoC in many ways makes it easier to fingerprint users, and I don't think that advertisers are going to look at the brand new opportunity FLoC-enhanced fingerprinting presents and just leave it sitting there untouched. There's nothing built into the FLoC spec that prevents advertisers from adding in additional fingerprinting on top of FLoC, and we've been down this road already with stuff like DNT. If any technology at all can be abused for fingerprinting, they'll abuse it. The market they're in doesn't allow them to have restraint, somebody will cross the line and then everyone else will follow under the excuse of being competitive. So I'm just not willing to give advertisers the benefit of the doubt anymore, or to assume that if we meet them halfway they'll be satisfied. They've already burned that bridge, I'm not inclined to keep offering them new bridges to burn.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > we've been down this road already with stuff like DNT Let's not forget that Microsoft deliberately murdered DNT by making it the default value. Had they not made that move, there's a good chance, we'd have seen DNT honored and eventually codified. > They've already burned that bridge, I'm not inclined to keep offering them new bridges to burn. I agree, if you give them no option whatsoever, there will never be legislation reining them in. With FLoC, you could outlaw other forms of tracking and add significant fines. Without it, politicians will not move a finger over concerns to damage the industry.
    - danShumway 6y ago

foxhop 6y ago

Google is trying to vilify browser cookies and slip in their proprietary tracking and profiling as a safe alternative. It's not better they simply want a monopoly on the dark arts of privacy intrusion, they want to build a moat and burn the bridges of the old way.

freebuju 6y ago
As does Apple. And any other hardware/software maker with a monopoly. This is the new playbook.
- foxhop 6y ago
  Sure.