10 ms·

How to fight back against Google FLoC

158 points by rajeshrajappan 5y ago

eterevsky 5y ago
While I do understand that some people may not like it, I don't see how FLoC is particularly harmful. I've read several articles about it, and most of them just say something like "you are being put in a advertising cohort -- see how creepy it is", which doesn't really prove anything. One more specific argument against FLoC is that it will make help tracking users via fingerprinting. I don't really buy it. First of all, the estimations from [EFF article](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-idea https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-...) are just plainly wrong. They are talking about narrowing down to thousands of users, while in fact if Chrome has on the order of a billion users, and if FLoC has only 8 bits of entropy, the actual number of users in a cohort is on the order of millions. Secondly, from my understanding this cohort is based on your recent activity, so it will change over time.
- sanxiyn 5y ago
  FLoC is not particularly harmful, but Google is harmful, and harming FloC will harm Google. So I fully support fighting against FLoC.
- kemonocode 5y ago
  > While I do understand that some people may not like it, I don't see how FLoC is particularly harmful. Sure, I can give an example: it goes beyond simple basic fingerprinting, it allows you to be associated with a group of "others" (your cohort) in ways that can be dangerous to you. Suppose you live in a country where you may not enjoy certain freedoms or some behaviors may be outlawed; end up in the wrong cohort(s) and a state actor will be able to know these things rather easily, this is not to say there aren't already means to do it today, but why make the job even easier for them?
  - ranguna 5y ago
    > state actor will be able to know these things rather easily But state actors won't be able identity me individually, so I don't see the harm either. And you can actually reset you FLoC id at any time. I think advertisers (like Facebook) know that this will damage their revenue and doing mass brain wash to make people think this is harmful for everyone (Cambridge Analytica style).
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - aww_dang 5y ago
      https://web.dev/floc/ https://web.dev/floc/ Replace "hiking boots" with "dissent" in this example.
      - ranguna 5y ago
        I'm afraid I don't get what you mean.
    - feanaro 5y ago
      > But state actors won't be able identity me individually, so I don't see the harm either. Why wouldn't they be able to? FLoC tells them you're a dissenter, your IP tells them who you are. Just because you can reset it doesn't mean that you should have to be constantly afraid of your browser working against you. You're just listing ways in which FLoC is slightly less terrible than some maximally terrible hypothetical version. It doesn't make FLoC proper less bad. I would argue the very notion that your recent browsing history affects what you see in the present is a wrong and dangerous one.
      - ranguna 5y ago
        My browser is already working against me by allowing 3rd party cookies. When FLoC comes along 3p cookies will eventually be disabled by chrome as a long term goal. I see FLoC as less bad than 3p cookies in this case, because I can't tell trackers "hey, please reset all knowledge you have of the tracking of this specific cookie". > I would argue the very notion that your recent browsing history affects what you see in the present is a wrong and dangerous one. It already does, 3p cookies do exactly that and deleting them is a pain because you would also be getting rid of legitimate cookies, so you have very little or no control. Reseting your FLoC id is as easy as pressing a button and you don't have to worry about having to re-login everywhere.
  - eterevsky 5y ago
    As someone who lived in such country and has a lot of friends who still live there, I wouldn't care about it too much. The governments of such countries are usually not interested in find every single citizen who's interested in some topic. What they are interested in is suppressing people who are promoting "wrong" values. And you don't need a vague advertising identifier to find such people.
- papaf 5y ago
  and if FLoC has only 8 bits of entropy From the EFF article that you don't like: > Google’s experiment used 8-bit cohort identifiers, meaning that there were only 256 possible cohorts. In practice that number could be much higher; the documentation suggests a 16-bit cohort ID comprising 4 hexadecimal characters. Also, its since someone can belong to more than 1 cohort, the 8bits is a bare minimum and not a maximum. For instance, techie who likes hiphop, buys whisky and is looking for a washing machine is 32bits of entropy and covers the billion users with ease.
  - eterevsky 5y ago
    Ok, I agree that it is plausible that eventually more than 8 bits will be used. But in that case, the users will likely change their cohorts at a much higher rate, which will make them less useful for tracking. > someone can belong to more than 1 cohort I'm pretty sure you will only belong to one cohort at a time. Otherwise it would defeat the purpose of this change. It seems like k-anonymity is an express goal of FLoC.
  - htoiewur2434 5y ago
    > In practice that number could be much higher; the documentation suggests a 16-bit cohort ID comprising 4 hexadecimal characters. Yes, but Google already has atleast 32-bits from the ip address already (which I know for a fact that they don't use).
- edf13 5y ago
  From the article... > EFF brings up a second concern which is also novel and scary in terms of privacy. If you sign up to an online service with your email address, they can immediately tie your last week’s browsing data with the email address that you supply them (or physical address, phone nr, etc). It means any service you use now knows what you’ve been up to and not just in an anonymous way
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    How can they do that? They only have an ID, don't they?
    - feanaro 5y ago
      They only have an ID until you decide to deanonymise yourself on purpose by registering.
      - robertlagrant 5y ago
        Understood, but from that ID how can they query what sites people have visited? I thought it was just "I belong to this cohort" with no knowledge of what that cohort is?
- o_m 5y ago
  It can be a death sentence in countries where homosexuality is illegal. Say you are FLoC branded as being LGBT (sort of like the pink triangle in nazi concentration camps) and you visit a government website, they will know about your sexuality and can arrest you.
  - froh 5y ago
    Political tags are explicitly banned from the FLoC tagging data which identifies locally your 'secular', a-political preferences. in contrast to that Facebook can identify you as LGBT+ today based off your likes and dislikes and shares. https://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1036 https://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1036
    - feanaro 5y ago
      > Political tags are explicitly banned from the FLoC tagging data which identifies locally your 'secular', a-political preferences. Just because this is said to be so on paper doesn't mean it would actually be so. How would this work in practice with the LGBT example? Would every LGBT-related website be tagged as a "political" website in Google so that it is not included in the calculation? What about clearly non-problematic a-politicial categories which nevertheless serve as a good proxy for detecting LGBT members because of e.g. their increased interest in the topic? > in contrast to that Facebook can identify you as LGBT+ today based off your likes and dislikes and shares. This is irrelevant because we're not choosing. Facebook tracking is also terrible.
    - o_m 5y ago
      There are 33000 group IDs. A service with your identity could track how your group ID is changing over time a triangulate your political view or sexuality based on ID patterns of people they have arrested already.
  - htoiewur2434 5y ago
    Don't think floc tags be shared b/w domains
    - 5y ago
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  > While I do understand that some people may not like it, I don't see how FLoC is particularly harmful. FLoC, AMP, ... With Chrome, Google is hijacking the web in a more cunning way than Microsoft and IE. The revolt against that needs to happen now. When Firefox is dead, it will be too late...
- ehnto 5y ago
  > "you are being put in a advertising cohort -- see how creepy it is", which doesn't really prove anything. Are you wanting proof for how it is harmful? One possibility is that with a FLoC and a few other details, you can be fingerprinted as an individual not a cohort. So it's not effective at anonymizing the data advertisers are tracking from you.
isodev 5y ago
At what point enough is enough and Chrome and other data-collecting Google products can be called for what they are - spyware? It’s time to pick another browser.
- sanxiyn 5y ago
  Point is right now. Chrome is spyware, clear and simple.
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
    It really is, but oh how times have changed since that term actually meant something to web users.
  - babypuncher 5y ago
    Chrome has always been spyware. I have no idea why anybody uses it.
    - LimaBearz 5y ago
      I remember cause I refused to switch. When it first came out the argument was “it’s faster than Firefox”. I never got what that meant. What... a 200ms load time on Firefox was 180ms on chrome? Wow let me switch to skynet’s chrome! Pass
- 8128js8121 5y ago
  Chromium, the engine google "stole" and branded their own is still fine.
timdaub 5y ago
"You need my consent before you track me." What about this statement is so inherently difficult to understand for SEs at companies like Google? It's time to stop!
- korethr 5y ago
  Upton Sinclair supposedly said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." That would be why SEs at Google et. al. seem incapable of understanding. The business model, and thus, their salaries, is dependent upon tracking people, consent or no.
sanxiyn 5y ago
I want to suggest another thing you can do as a web developer. If you can afford it, block all Chrome users, and instruct users to download Firefox instead. Explain why your website is not available for Chrome.
- timdaub 5y ago
  yeah, like back in the old days! I wish we all did it. However, I think we're often obsessed with delivering our products to the broadest possible audience.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- andrei_says_ 5y ago
  Maybe notify instead of block? “You are using Chrome which tracks you without consent. Download a spyware-free browser here.” In red at the top of the page with links to brave and Firefox.
  - sanxiyn 5y ago
    This is also a good idea.
  - why_Mr_Anderson 5y ago
    Isn't Brave just attempt to copy Google? It's Chromium based, with their own ad system ... why choose lesser evil?
    - sanxiyn 5y ago
      Their own ad system which does not track users. An important difference.
  - 8128js8121 5y ago
    Good luck telling users apart from Chromium which is fine and Chrome which is a rip off and filled with shit
notum 5y ago
Would I be terribly downvoted if I said that I prefer targeted ads? I'd rather see GPUs than feminine hygiene products. FLoC seems like a method of saving my preferences locally, which is fine. I'm not interested. I won't use Google's browsers and I'll continue to filter my traffic. Internet privacy will always be an uphill battle, there's worse things going on, starting with centralized and monopolized DNS, I feel we should focus on fixing that.
- throwaway1777 5y ago
  From what I can tell if you don't use Google chrome then you're not affected by this.
- robin_reala 5y ago
  It’s not local, because your cohort id will be sent to advertisers, and they’ll back-reference that against what they believe you’re interested in. But either way, your initial statement assumes that ads will only be interesting to you if your browsing habits are tracked across the internet. There’s another option: if you visit sites that are focused on GPUs they can advertise GPUs to you. This is the way advertising worked from 1700-2000.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    From 1700-2000 you just had whatever adverts everyone else had. From 2000-2010 you had site/search based adverts From 2010-2020 you had tracking based adverts I can't think of even 1 time I've seen a useful advert though
    - berkes 5y ago
      I can. And almost without exception, those were relevant ads, not targeted. Relevant like getting a coupon code for digital ocean storage credits below an article on how to run your own IPFS host. Or relevant like getting an offer for pizzafriday on the 'where to eat' information section of a campsite in some unfamiliar city.
    - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
throwaway1777 5y ago
Motivation for me to use Brave and Safari more. The best way to opt out is to not use Chrome.
sanxiyn 5y ago
I want to suggest another thing we can collaborate on. File bugs against Apache and nginx such that Apache and nginx emit Permission-Policy header by default. People who want FloC can opt-in, but since Pervasive Monitoring Is an Attack (RFC 7258), it is clearly severe security bugs in Apache and nginx that they don't emit this header by default. This may need CVE.
- berkes 5y ago
  If your webserver security relies on sending a header to clients, your security is wrong. Not saying that filing issues against weservers is a bad idea. Just that the security angle is wrong. For one, because Google, or chrome, could just choose to ignore that header if too many servers fly it.
  - sanxiyn 5y ago
    That's like saying not sending Content-Security-Policy when it is needed to prevent XSS is not a security bug, since Chrome can start to ignore Content-Security-Policy (which it can). That is absurd.
    - andreareina 5y ago
      That's more like the case with the Do Not Track header being defaulted to 1 in some browsers and many (most?) sites using that as an excuse to not honor it.
      - sanxiyn 5y ago
        I think it is a good outcome too. If people really want relevant and targeted ads, they will opt-in to no-DNT and yes-FLoC. The fact that people don't, and that websites don't honor DNT, reveal their lies and hypocrisy.
        berkes 5y ago
        > ... and that websites don't honor DNT... This is the important part regarding "security". Websites choose to not honor "DNT" headers. Clients can just as easy choose not to honor no-floc headers. Which is why I'm saying that this is not a security-thing. If people can just choose to ignore your security-headers, they are not a security-feature. At most they are a suggestion that, when followed, make the client honor privacy concerns from servers.
jedwhite 5y ago
I'd recommend blocking FLoC on any websites you run. It is simple to do. Add this header to block FLoC: `permissions-policy: interest-cohort=()` See also this post on StackOverflow for information on how it adds a warning message in Chrome DevTools for browsers that aren't part of the current test [1] [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66997942/error-with-permissions-policy-header-when-using-chromedriver-to-a-headless-br https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66997942/error-with-perm... Edit for typo.
- Grumbledour 5y ago
  Why should I bother though? Privacy is really important to me, so I am not affected because I don't use chrome in the first place. All the people who use chrome, especially on this site, know damn well what they agreed to. You all already opted into this and everything google comes up with tomorrow. Why should I put in work to give you the warm fuzzy feeling of having staved of the google spying for another day? If you want protection from this, use another browser. At this point, blocking this from the website level just seems to support google even more, because it takes the pressure from chrome users to actually start thinking and stop being victims.
  - jedwhite 5y ago
    If you run any websites, you should do this because, although YOU might not use Chrome yourself, your website visitors often do. When websites block FLoC, the activity of their users on those websites are not available to Google's Cohort Assignment Algorithm. It's not about your personal privacy as the individual website operator. It's about your customers' privacy as visitors to your website.
    - Grumbledour 5y ago
      But THEY decided to use Chrome! So the WANTED this to happen. Now, you can rightly point out that they don't know, but we are on Hacker News here. I am not talking about someones grandparents, I am talking about users of this site, working in the IT industry. I am talking about my collegues at work. About IT professionals. We all should know, most of us do. Yet, many here always proclaim how they can't use privacy friendly alternatives because "minor reason". The whole industry regularly creates content that only properly works in chrome, reminding one of the old Internet Explorer days. It's not that "normal" people don't listen to "us" experts and use chrome regardless, it's that many so called professionals seem to care about privacy even less. And I am not getting complicit with this attitude in helping google make everyone feel save using their crap piece of spyware. Switch your browser now and tell the people who don't know why they should too, or stop complaining about "evil google" while enabling them with building shit that includes their tracking and only works in their browser.
mavhc 5y ago
"The web as we know it is evolving. Apple is pushing a privacy-first approach from its operating systems and Safari" Is that the Apple that uploads the MAC addresses of every device on your LAN and your GPS location without telling anyone?
- Ardren 5y ago
  I don't know, is this the same Apple that uploads the hash of every program you execute? https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.htm...
- jtsiskin 5y ago
  A quick reading of Apples own advertising policy gives me deja vu... “Segments We create segments, which are groups of people who share similar characteristics, and use these groups for delivering targeted ads. Information about you may be used to determine which segments you’re assigned to, and thus, which ads you receive. To protect your privacy, targeted ads are delivered only if more than 5,000 people meet the targeting criteria.” https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223
- ksec 5y ago
  My question, how is Google FloC different to Apple's Differential Privacy? Why is everyone championing Apple while shooting down Google if they are doing the same thing. Unless I am mistaken, I am reading a lot of double standards from people on the issue.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
robertlagrant 5y ago
> FLoC seems to be Google’s way of saving a dying business. ... > We need to ban targeted advertising to truly have a privacy-first web. Why ban it when it's a dying business?
- blue_box 5y ago
  It is dying and this is the way how Google is going to save it. If we ban, it will die.
usgroup 5y ago
Frankly I’m not sure I see a world where Internet advertising is not targeted . Sure it drives profit for Google et al but it does so because it drives profit for a million other businesses. It’s non existence implies a substantial economic cost. I’d like to see more written and more popularly known about effective, targeted but privacy respecting ad models. Then a good argument would be “why FloC when X is possible?” To me FloC looks like an attempt at a compromise. Whether we like the world we have or not, there is no going back to the “good old days”.
- patates 5y ago
  I don't like the defeatist attitude. Targeted advertising is an opportunistic reaction of the companies who lived the first-mover advantage to its fullest, lacking any regulation. The market is big enough and can survive regulation, and would evolve alternatives, and the associated deadweight loss would be an acceptable compromise. Not to mention, the targeted advertising is a game of Prisoner's Dilemma, where all parties lose, it's not even 100% sure if the regulation would cause inefficiency at all.
  - usgroup 5y ago
    Sure maybe but I can't think of any precedent for what you're saying. Countries have typically gone from some advertising to even more advertising. An example in which convincing people to buy stuff got harder and people bought the same amount or more stuff doesn't spring to mind.
aww_dang 5y ago
Opt-in, generate meaningless hashes and inject them into their test?
neatze 5y ago
If cohort profile is stored locally, why simply not spoof it ?
anfilt 5y ago
This is insane. So all sites with publicly routable IP addresses that a user visits are used for this cohort calculation! WTF Every http server project should include the header by default to disable this, and even back port it for older versions as a critical security vulnerability update, since old sites with sensitive information will clearly be still serving content, and the DEVs may not even be working on the site anymore, and basically an IT guy is just updating software (hopefully...).
ellinoora 5y ago
Plausible tracks visitors without their permission. This is illegal in Europe where notice or consent or is needed, regardless of how cookies are used/not used. More info: https://volument.com/learn/data-privacy https://volument.com/learn/data-privacy Note that I work at Volument.
- Booligoosh 5y ago
  I assume you're referring to the fact that they don't respect the Do Not Track header? In my opinion this is fine because they don't 'track' visitors around the web as such, respecting the original intent of this DNT option. I wrote a bit about this [here](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/issues/1346#issuecomment-798784371 https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/issues/1346#issuecommen...), pasted below: > I feel like a lot of this comes down to what "track" means, and what I as an average user am expecting when I enable "do not track". > Personally, I feel like "track" means following me across multiple websites, or keeping a detailed record of my individual browsing habits on an individual site. > If you think about what "tracking" means in real life, it means constantly following someone/something or monitoring it. If someone had one of those little infrared foot traffic counter things at the door to their shop, I wouldn't say they're tracking me as an individual. They're tracking how much foot traffic they get, but they're not tracking me. > Both Plausible and Fathom are just like this. They don't keep the same user identifiers for more than 24h, they just take an anonymous count when you walk in the door to a site (along with a few other anonymous things like referrer). In short, as a user, I don't feel like my individual activity is being tracked to create a profile of my browsing, I just feel like the website is counting me when I walk in the door. They're tracking their visit stats, but they're not tracking ME. > As cause enabling DNT, what I'm saying and expecting is "do not track ME". It's fine to track your usage stats, but don't track ME and build a profile of ME. So I would not expect services like Plausible and Fathom to do anything about this header, since they're not tracking me as an individual in the first place.
- alichapman 5y ago
  Does this change anything that the author has said? You haven't commented on whether or not you agree with them, you've just (rightly or wrongly) attacked their character.
rich_sasha 5y ago
I hate the data-grabbing business model as much as the next hacker. Equally, I feel reluctant to burn with the holy wrath of anger. It is, and has been, no secret that this is how Google works. They give you great services for 0 money and all your data. What’s unclear or unethical about it? Take it or leave it. What bothers me much more is Google’s et al crushing dominance over the competition, meaning that whatever shenanigans they come up with end up forced on {m,b}illions of users. This, and the sneaky hiding of data grabbing in “consent” boxes or 100 page ToS docs.
- patates 5y ago
  The whole point is they do everything they can not to allow us to leave it.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    But leave for what? I'm all for leaving Google, I use Firefox and OpenStreetMap as much as I can. I have a non-gmail e-mail account. DuckDuckGo sucked at searching last time I tried it - and I'd happily pay money for an alternative. Ditto for Google Docs. Google Scholar - another thing I use a lot. I think the root cause is not really FLoC etc. but Google's total dominance over the Internet, and with it, a lack of real alternative.
ThePhysicist 5y ago
Good that these marketing posts get ranked down by HN, Plausible in particular has been flooding the site with posts that are just SEO-optimized ad pieces for their service.

While I do understand that some people may not like it, I don't see how FLoC is particularly harmful. I've read several articles about it, and most of them just say something like "you are being put in a advertising cohort -- see how creepy it is", which doesn't really prove anything. One more specific argument against FLoC is that it will make help tracking users via fingerprinting. I don't really buy it. First of all, the estimations from [EFF article](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-idea https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-...) are just plainly wrong. They are talking about narrowing down to thousands of users, while in fact if Chrome has on the order of a billion users, and if FLoC has only 8 bits of entropy, the actual number of users in a cohort is on the order of millions. Secondly, from my understanding this cohort is based on your recent activity, so it will change over time.

sanxiyn 5y ago
FLoC is not particularly harmful, but Google is harmful, and harming FloC will harm Google. So I fully support fighting against FLoC.
kemonocode 5y ago
> While I do understand that some people may not like it, I don't see how FLoC is particularly harmful. Sure, I can give an example: it goes beyond simple basic fingerprinting, it allows you to be associated with a group of "others" (your cohort) in ways that can be dangerous to you. Suppose you live in a country where you may not enjoy certain freedoms or some behaviors may be outlawed; end up in the wrong cohort(s) and a state actor will be able to know these things rather easily, this is not to say there aren't already means to do it today, but why make the job even easier for them?
- ranguna 5y ago
  > state actor will be able to know these things rather easily But state actors won't be able identity me individually, so I don't see the harm either. And you can actually reset you FLoC id at any time. I think advertisers (like Facebook) know that this will damage their revenue and doing mass brain wash to make people think this is harmful for everyone (Cambridge Analytica style).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - aww_dang 5y ago
    https://web.dev/floc/ https://web.dev/floc/ Replace "hiking boots" with "dissent" in this example.
    - ranguna 5y ago
      I'm afraid I don't get what you mean.
  - feanaro 5y ago
    > But state actors won't be able identity me individually, so I don't see the harm either. Why wouldn't they be able to? FLoC tells them you're a dissenter, your IP tells them who you are. Just because you can reset it doesn't mean that you should have to be constantly afraid of your browser working against you. You're just listing ways in which FLoC is slightly less terrible than some maximally terrible hypothetical version. It doesn't make FLoC proper less bad. I would argue the very notion that your recent browsing history affects what you see in the present is a wrong and dangerous one.
    - ranguna 5y ago
      My browser is already working against me by allowing 3rd party cookies. When FLoC comes along 3p cookies will eventually be disabled by chrome as a long term goal. I see FLoC as less bad than 3p cookies in this case, because I can't tell trackers "hey, please reset all knowledge you have of the tracking of this specific cookie". > I would argue the very notion that your recent browsing history affects what you see in the present is a wrong and dangerous one. It already does, 3p cookies do exactly that and deleting them is a pain because you would also be getting rid of legitimate cookies, so you have very little or no control. Reseting your FLoC id is as easy as pressing a button and you don't have to worry about having to re-login everywhere.
- eterevsky 5y ago
  As someone who lived in such country and has a lot of friends who still live there, I wouldn't care about it too much. The governments of such countries are usually not interested in find every single citizen who's interested in some topic. What they are interested in is suppressing people who are promoting "wrong" values. And you don't need a vague advertising identifier to find such people.
papaf 5y ago
and if FLoC has only 8 bits of entropy From the EFF article that you don't like: > Google’s experiment used 8-bit cohort identifiers, meaning that there were only 256 possible cohorts. In practice that number could be much higher; the documentation suggests a 16-bit cohort ID comprising 4 hexadecimal characters. Also, its since someone can belong to more than 1 cohort, the 8bits is a bare minimum and not a maximum. For instance, techie who likes hiphop, buys whisky and is looking for a washing machine is 32bits of entropy and covers the billion users with ease.
- eterevsky 5y ago
  Ok, I agree that it is plausible that eventually more than 8 bits will be used. But in that case, the users will likely change their cohorts at a much higher rate, which will make them less useful for tracking. > someone can belong to more than 1 cohort I'm pretty sure you will only belong to one cohort at a time. Otherwise it would defeat the purpose of this change. It seems like k-anonymity is an express goal of FLoC.
- htoiewur2434 5y ago
  > In practice that number could be much higher; the documentation suggests a 16-bit cohort ID comprising 4 hexadecimal characters. Yes, but Google already has atleast 32-bits from the ip address already (which I know for a fact that they don't use).
edf13 5y ago
From the article... > EFF brings up a second concern which is also novel and scary in terms of privacy. If you sign up to an online service with your email address, they can immediately tie your last week’s browsing data with the email address that you supply them (or physical address, phone nr, etc). It means any service you use now knows what you’ve been up to and not just in an anonymous way
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  How can they do that? They only have an ID, don't they?
  - feanaro 5y ago
    They only have an ID until you decide to deanonymise yourself on purpose by registering.
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      Understood, but from that ID how can they query what sites people have visited? I thought it was just "I belong to this cohort" with no knowledge of what that cohort is?
o_m 5y ago
It can be a death sentence in countries where homosexuality is illegal. Say you are FLoC branded as being LGBT (sort of like the pink triangle in nazi concentration camps) and you visit a government website, they will know about your sexuality and can arrest you.
- froh 5y ago
  Political tags are explicitly banned from the FLoC tagging data which identifies locally your 'secular', a-political preferences. in contrast to that Facebook can identify you as LGBT+ today based off your likes and dislikes and shares. https://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1036 https://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1036
  - feanaro 5y ago
    > Political tags are explicitly banned from the FLoC tagging data which identifies locally your 'secular', a-political preferences. Just because this is said to be so on paper doesn't mean it would actually be so. How would this work in practice with the LGBT example? Would every LGBT-related website be tagged as a "political" website in Google so that it is not included in the calculation? What about clearly non-problematic a-politicial categories which nevertheless serve as a good proxy for detecting LGBT members because of e.g. their increased interest in the topic? > in contrast to that Facebook can identify you as LGBT+ today based off your likes and dislikes and shares. This is irrelevant because we're not choosing. Facebook tracking is also terrible.
  - o_m 5y ago
    There are 33000 group IDs. A service with your identity could track how your group ID is changing over time a triangulate your political view or sexuality based on ID patterns of people they have arrested already.
- htoiewur2434 5y ago
  Don't think floc tags be shared b/w domains
  - 5y ago
throw_m239339 5y ago
> While I do understand that some people may not like it, I don't see how FLoC is particularly harmful. FLoC, AMP, ... With Chrome, Google is hijacking the web in a more cunning way than Microsoft and IE. The revolt against that needs to happen now. When Firefox is dead, it will be too late...
ehnto 5y ago
> "you are being put in a advertising cohort -- see how creepy it is", which doesn't really prove anything. Are you wanting proof for how it is harmful? One possibility is that with a FLoC and a few other details, you can be fingerprinted as an individual not a cohort. So it's not effective at anonymizing the data advertisers are tracking from you.

isodev 5y ago

At what point enough is enough and Chrome and other data-collecting Google products can be called for what they are - spyware? It’s time to pick another browser.

sanxiyn 5y ago
Point is right now. Chrome is spyware, clear and simple.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  It really is, but oh how times have changed since that term actually meant something to web users.
- babypuncher 5y ago
  Chrome has always been spyware. I have no idea why anybody uses it.
  - LimaBearz 5y ago
    I remember cause I refused to switch. When it first came out the argument was “it’s faster than Firefox”. I never got what that meant. What... a 200ms load time on Firefox was 180ms on chrome? Wow let me switch to skynet’s chrome! Pass
8128js8121 5y ago
Chromium, the engine google "stole" and branded their own is still fine.

timdaub 5y ago

"You need my consent before you track me." What about this statement is so inherently difficult to understand for SEs at companies like Google? It's time to stop!

korethr 5y ago
Upton Sinclair supposedly said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." That would be why SEs at Google et. al. seem incapable of understanding. The business model, and thus, their salaries, is dependent upon tracking people, consent or no.

sanxiyn 5y ago

I want to suggest another thing you can do as a web developer. If you can afford it, block all Chrome users, and instruct users to download Firefox instead. Explain why your website is not available for Chrome.

timdaub 5y ago
yeah, like back in the old days! I wish we all did it. However, I think we're often obsessed with delivering our products to the broadest possible audience.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
andrei_says_ 5y ago
Maybe notify instead of block? “You are using Chrome which tracks you without consent. Download a spyware-free browser here.” In red at the top of the page with links to brave and Firefox.
- sanxiyn 5y ago
  This is also a good idea.
- why_Mr_Anderson 5y ago
  Isn't Brave just attempt to copy Google? It's Chromium based, with their own ad system ... why choose lesser evil?
  - sanxiyn 5y ago
    Their own ad system which does not track users. An important difference.
- 8128js8121 5y ago
  Good luck telling users apart from Chromium which is fine and Chrome which is a rip off and filled with shit

notum 5y ago

Would I be terribly downvoted if I said that I prefer targeted ads? I'd rather see GPUs than feminine hygiene products. FLoC seems like a method of saving my preferences locally, which is fine. I'm not interested. I won't use Google's browsers and I'll continue to filter my traffic. Internet privacy will always be an uphill battle, there's worse things going on, starting with centralized and monopolized DNS, I feel we should focus on fixing that.

throwaway1777 5y ago
From what I can tell if you don't use Google chrome then you're not affected by this.
robin_reala 5y ago
It’s not local, because your cohort id will be sent to advertisers, and they’ll back-reference that against what they believe you’re interested in. But either way, your initial statement assumes that ads will only be interesting to you if your browsing habits are tracked across the internet. There’s another option: if you visit sites that are focused on GPUs they can advertise GPUs to you. This is the way advertising worked from 1700-2000.
- mavhc 5y ago
  From 1700-2000 you just had whatever adverts everyone else had. From 2000-2010 you had site/search based adverts From 2010-2020 you had tracking based adverts I can't think of even 1 time I've seen a useful advert though
  - berkes 5y ago
    I can. And almost without exception, those were relevant ads, not targeted. Relevant like getting a coupon code for digital ocean storage credits below an article on how to run your own IPFS host. Or relevant like getting an offer for pizzafriday on the 'where to eat' information section of a campsite in some unfamiliar city.
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago

throwaway1777 5y ago

Motivation for me to use Brave and Safari more. The best way to opt out is to not use Chrome.

sanxiyn 5y ago

I want to suggest another thing we can collaborate on. File bugs against Apache and nginx such that Apache and nginx emit Permission-Policy header by default. People who want FloC can opt-in, but since Pervasive Monitoring Is an Attack (RFC 7258), it is clearly severe security bugs in Apache and nginx that they don't emit this header by default. This may need CVE.

berkes 5y ago
If your webserver security relies on sending a header to clients, your security is wrong. Not saying that filing issues against weservers is a bad idea. Just that the security angle is wrong. For one, because Google, or chrome, could just choose to ignore that header if too many servers fly it.
- sanxiyn 5y ago
  That's like saying not sending Content-Security-Policy when it is needed to prevent XSS is not a security bug, since Chrome can start to ignore Content-Security-Policy (which it can). That is absurd.
  - andreareina 5y ago
    That's more like the case with the Do Not Track header being defaulted to 1 in some browsers and many (most?) sites using that as an excuse to not honor it.
    - sanxiyn 5y ago
      I think it is a good outcome too. If people really want relevant and targeted ads, they will opt-in to no-DNT and yes-FLoC. The fact that people don't, and that websites don't honor DNT, reveal their lies and hypocrisy.
      - berkes 5y ago
        > ... and that websites don't honor DNT... This is the important part regarding "security". Websites choose to not honor "DNT" headers. Clients can just as easy choose not to honor no-floc headers. Which is why I'm saying that this is not a security-thing. If people can just choose to ignore your security-headers, they are not a security-feature. At most they are a suggestion that, when followed, make the client honor privacy concerns from servers.

jedwhite 5y ago

I'd recommend blocking FLoC on any websites you run. It is simple to do. Add this header to block FLoC: `permissions-policy: interest-cohort=()` See also this post on StackOverflow for information on how it adds a warning message in Chrome DevTools for browsers that aren't part of the current test [1] [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66997942/error-with-permissions-policy-header-when-using-chromedriver-to-a-headless-br https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66997942/error-with-perm... Edit for typo.

Grumbledour 5y ago
Why should I bother though? Privacy is really important to me, so I am not affected because I don't use chrome in the first place. All the people who use chrome, especially on this site, know damn well what they agreed to. You all already opted into this and everything google comes up with tomorrow. Why should I put in work to give you the warm fuzzy feeling of having staved of the google spying for another day? If you want protection from this, use another browser. At this point, blocking this from the website level just seems to support google even more, because it takes the pressure from chrome users to actually start thinking and stop being victims.
- jedwhite 5y ago
  If you run any websites, you should do this because, although YOU might not use Chrome yourself, your website visitors often do. When websites block FLoC, the activity of their users on those websites are not available to Google's Cohort Assignment Algorithm. It's not about your personal privacy as the individual website operator. It's about your customers' privacy as visitors to your website.
  - Grumbledour 5y ago
    But THEY decided to use Chrome! So the WANTED this to happen. Now, you can rightly point out that they don't know, but we are on Hacker News here. I am not talking about someones grandparents, I am talking about users of this site, working in the IT industry. I am talking about my collegues at work. About IT professionals. We all should know, most of us do. Yet, many here always proclaim how they can't use privacy friendly alternatives because "minor reason". The whole industry regularly creates content that only properly works in chrome, reminding one of the old Internet Explorer days. It's not that "normal" people don't listen to "us" experts and use chrome regardless, it's that many so called professionals seem to care about privacy even less. And I am not getting complicit with this attitude in helping google make everyone feel save using their crap piece of spyware. Switch your browser now and tell the people who don't know why they should too, or stop complaining about "evil google" while enabling them with building shit that includes their tracking and only works in their browser.

mavhc 5y ago

"The web as we know it is evolving. Apple is pushing a privacy-first approach from its operating systems and Safari" Is that the Apple that uploads the MAC addresses of every device on your LAN and your GPS location without telling anyone?

Ardren 5y ago
I don't know, is this the same Apple that uploads the hash of every program you execute? https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.htm...
jtsiskin 5y ago
A quick reading of Apples own advertising policy gives me deja vu... “Segments We create segments, which are groups of people who share similar characteristics, and use these groups for delivering targeted ads. Information about you may be used to determine which segments you’re assigned to, and thus, which ads you receive. To protect your privacy, targeted ads are delivered only if more than 5,000 people meet the targeting criteria.” https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223
ksec 5y ago
My question, how is Google FloC different to Apple's Differential Privacy? Why is everyone championing Apple while shooting down Google if they are doing the same thing. Unless I am mistaken, I am reading a lot of double standards from people on the issue.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

robertlagrant 5y ago

> FLoC seems to be Google’s way of saving a dying business. ... > We need to ban targeted advertising to truly have a privacy-first web. Why ban it when it's a dying business?

blue_box 5y ago
It is dying and this is the way how Google is going to save it. If we ban, it will die.

usgroup 5y ago

Frankly I’m not sure I see a world where Internet advertising is not targeted . Sure it drives profit for Google et al but it does so because it drives profit for a million other businesses. It’s non existence implies a substantial economic cost. I’d like to see more written and more popularly known about effective, targeted but privacy respecting ad models. Then a good argument would be “why FloC when X is possible?” To me FloC looks like an attempt at a compromise. Whether we like the world we have or not, there is no going back to the “good old days”.

patates 5y ago
I don't like the defeatist attitude. Targeted advertising is an opportunistic reaction of the companies who lived the first-mover advantage to its fullest, lacking any regulation. The market is big enough and can survive regulation, and would evolve alternatives, and the associated deadweight loss would be an acceptable compromise. Not to mention, the targeted advertising is a game of Prisoner's Dilemma, where all parties lose, it's not even 100% sure if the regulation would cause inefficiency at all.
- usgroup 5y ago
  Sure maybe but I can't think of any precedent for what you're saying. Countries have typically gone from some advertising to even more advertising. An example in which convincing people to buy stuff got harder and people bought the same amount or more stuff doesn't spring to mind.

aww_dang 5y ago

Opt-in, generate meaningless hashes and inject them into their test?

neatze 5y ago

If cohort profile is stored locally, why simply not spoof it ?

anfilt 5y ago

This is insane. So all sites with publicly routable IP addresses that a user visits are used for this cohort calculation! WTF Every http server project should include the header by default to disable this, and even back port it for older versions as a critical security vulnerability update, since old sites with sensitive information will clearly be still serving content, and the DEVs may not even be working on the site anymore, and basically an IT guy is just updating software (hopefully...).

ellinoora 5y ago

Plausible tracks visitors without their permission. This is illegal in Europe where notice or consent or is needed, regardless of how cookies are used/not used. More info: https://volument.com/learn/data-privacy https://volument.com/learn/data-privacy Note that I work at Volument.

Booligoosh 5y ago
I assume you're referring to the fact that they don't respect the Do Not Track header? In my opinion this is fine because they don't 'track' visitors around the web as such, respecting the original intent of this DNT option. I wrote a bit about this [here](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/issues/1346#issuecomment-798784371 https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/issues/1346#issuecommen...), pasted below: > I feel like a lot of this comes down to what "track" means, and what I as an average user am expecting when I enable "do not track". > Personally, I feel like "track" means following me across multiple websites, or keeping a detailed record of my individual browsing habits on an individual site. > If you think about what "tracking" means in real life, it means constantly following someone/something or monitoring it. If someone had one of those little infrared foot traffic counter things at the door to their shop, I wouldn't say they're tracking me as an individual. They're tracking how much foot traffic they get, but they're not tracking me. > Both Plausible and Fathom are just like this. They don't keep the same user identifiers for more than 24h, they just take an anonymous count when you walk in the door to a site (along with a few other anonymous things like referrer). In short, as a user, I don't feel like my individual activity is being tracked to create a profile of my browsing, I just feel like the website is counting me when I walk in the door. They're tracking their visit stats, but they're not tracking ME. > As cause enabling DNT, what I'm saying and expecting is "do not track ME". It's fine to track your usage stats, but don't track ME and build a profile of ME. So I would not expect services like Plausible and Fathom to do anything about this header, since they're not tracking me as an individual in the first place.
alichapman 5y ago
Does this change anything that the author has said? You haven't commented on whether or not you agree with them, you've just (rightly or wrongly) attacked their character.

rich_sasha 5y ago

I hate the data-grabbing business model as much as the next hacker. Equally, I feel reluctant to burn with the holy wrath of anger. It is, and has been, no secret that this is how Google works. They give you great services for 0 money and all your data. What’s unclear or unethical about it? Take it or leave it. What bothers me much more is Google’s et al crushing dominance over the competition, meaning that whatever shenanigans they come up with end up forced on {m,b}illions of users. This, and the sneaky hiding of data grabbing in “consent” boxes or 100 page ToS docs.

patates 5y ago
The whole point is they do everything they can not to allow us to leave it.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  But leave for what? I'm all for leaving Google, I use Firefox and OpenStreetMap as much as I can. I have a non-gmail e-mail account. DuckDuckGo sucked at searching last time I tried it - and I'd happily pay money for an alternative. Ditto for Google Docs. Google Scholar - another thing I use a lot. I think the root cause is not really FLoC etc. but Google's total dominance over the Internet, and with it, a lack of real alternative.

ThePhysicist 5y ago

Good that these marketing posts get ranked down by HN, Plausible in particular has been flooding the site with posts that are just SEO-optimized ad pieces for their service.