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Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

490 points by estas 5y ago

arkitaip 5y ago
Stupid Google spying on Amazon's customers when that's Amazon's job and gold mine.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Actually, it is. If I choose to browse Amazon's site, and they do first party tracking of what I'm doing on their site, then that's actually okay with me. How else are they going to offer me my browsing history, "Recommended by your browsing history", "Recommended by your previous purchases", etc. That goldmine is literally none of Google's business and all of Amazon's.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - lupire 5y ago
    Why such loyalty to one piece of legal fiction but not another?
    - anticristi 5y ago
      First party tracking is less creapy. When I walk in the shop, I know the shop assistant is looking at me. I don't expect the shop assistant of an unrelated shop at the other end of the mall to watch me.
    - dineshdb 5y ago
      I think the point was first party tracking was okay, irrespective of whether it was Google or Amazon. I expect first party tracking on YouTube and find it useful, but wouldn't want Google to track my activities across the internet.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        yes, this. thanks for helping clarify
ng55QPSK 5y ago
first world problems
- bayindirh 5y ago
  I don't think so, and I'm actually happy that Amazon is blocking Google on this front. Amazon is always protective its customer data though. Their e-mails don't have details or invoices either.
  - tacomonstrous 5y ago
    I find this behavior pretty hostile. Every other online order I can track right from my email except for Amazon's. Facebook also does something similar with its 'so-and-so made a post's emails.
    - bayindirh 5y ago
      Actually, I'm on the other end of the spectrum. Google letting itself to parse everything, and doing it without my active consent is borderline creepy from my perspective. At least it can say "Hey, I've found a package, shall I track?". Instead I use an application called FindMyParcels which I register my packages and get push notifications for them. It's a one man operation and works pretty well for me, so I didn't get bothered by Amazon's decisions. Neither of these two companies are angels, but when they compete instead of forming a bigger eye-of-sauron, it's a win in my book.
- testific8 5y ago
  first world problems come before third world problems
robin_reala 5y ago
We blocked FLoC at my company because we couldn’t see the benefit in allowing it. If, in the future, an obvious value shows itself, then we’ll re-evaluate. But at the moment there’s only a business and reputational cost to allowing Google to harvest our users’ data.
- deskamess 5y ago
  How do you block it?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Brendinooo 5y ago
    Was also curious, found this on a search: https://paramdeo.com/blog/opting-your-website-out-of-googles-floc-network https://paramdeo.com/blog/opting-your-website-out-of-googles...
  - roody15 5y ago
    curious as well? How to block Floc?
    - dylan604 5y ago
      We should make a darkUI along the lines of prohibitive cookie policy modals that detect Chrome, and forces the FLoC in user's faces. It'll get ignored and be as useful as the cookie policy windows, but it'll be funny. Maybe add to the window "Don't like this message? Try Firefox instead!"
      - robin_reala 5y ago
        “Cookie policy modals” is bad naming: they‘re specifically there to get consent to track, regardless of the method you use to track in the first place.
      - gentleman11 5y ago
tyingq 5y ago
I know there is skepticism that the opt-out http header is useful. Mostly because the places deploying it wouldn't call the floc API anyway. But, it is certainly useful to publicly see floc sentiment. As far as I know, Amazon hasn't said anything publicly about floc, but now we know they are aware and doing something about it. I saw that GitHub and The Guardian also rolled out the header. Waiting for a website tracking who all has opted out to pop up. I think the header also has value as a "last resort" to catch any unintentional use of floc if your org doesn't want it.
- josefx 5y ago
  As far as I understand the explicit call to FLOC will only be a requirement once it has gained traction. Right now Google is still using whatever they can to make it viable, so explicitly opting out is necessary for anyone who wants to be on the safe side.
jude- 5y ago
Rival surveillance capitalist companies defend their respective attention goldmines. News at 11.
gentleman11 5y ago
If Firefox had larger market share, Chrome wouldn’t have been able to make this opt out for websites rather than opt in because it would have given them a bad public image. I don’t think it’s fair that some company gets to force every website maintainer (most aren’t extremely technical and just use Wordpress or something similar) on earth to muddle through documentation for their particular setups to 1) learn it exists and 2) turn it off if desired.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- magicalist 5y ago
  > If Firefox had larger market share, Chrome wouldn’t have been able to make this opt out for websites rather than opt in FLoC is only opt in for testing the proposal[0]. As a sibling comment says this is technically performative but publicly signals a stance against the proposal. Though we also shouldn't forget that Amazon loves third party tracking and happily falls back to IP address associations if cookies aren't available. Edit: [0] https://developer.chrome.com/blog/floc/#take-part-in-a-floc-origin-trial https://developer.chrome.com/blog/floc/#take-part-in-a-floc-...
  - jmholla 5y ago
    Isn't it the opposite. It's opt-out for testing and is supposed to be opt-in when it goes live? I mean, I just disabled it and I am certain I didn't opt-in to it given that I had to go to about:config to have the setting show up. You can opt-in to actively be a part of FLoC, but if you don't opt-out, Google may randomly choose you to be part of their testing. Edit: I think your point may have been from the perspective of a website owner. Sorry.
- gpm 5y ago
  > opt out for websites This wording annoys me. The websites have nothing to do with it. Google choosing to turn it's browser into spyware that leaks information about what you used to do with it isn't the websites fault, the webserver doesn't do anything and doesn't have anything done to it, there is nothing for it to opt out of. Google chose to give websites a way to request that the users browser doesn't include the fact that they visited this website in it's cohort calculation. That's fine, but the messaging around it is a transparent attempt at shifting the blame. It's not the website opting out or in, it's the website acting as an uninvolved third party bystander asking google to stop. Asking why a website didn't opt out is equivalent to a thief asking "well why didn't you stop me?" to the person looking on from the sidewalk. We shouldn't accept this messaging. We should be very clear that Chrome is the entity spying on you, not the website, and that the website has no power to decide whether or not chrome spies on you, only the ability to make a polite request that it doesn't (or more accurately, does so less).
EMM_386 5y ago
> There is a caveat regarding FLoC blocking on Whole Foods pages, however. While other Amazon-owned domains mentioned here that block FLoC do so using Google’s recommended approach involving sending a response header from HTML pages, Whole Foods blocking employs a tactic that sends an opt-out header from Amazon analytics requests. What do they mean here, that the actual page request does not send the "no FLoC" HTTP header but the requests from Analytics do? What happens in this scenario?
- teitoklien 5y ago
  Amazon has a pretty big advertising platform too , I think they’ll try to spread this header on all the websites that use their ad platform. So they might be trialing it this way because of that, to help boost their ad platform and hinder floc , so that google cannot drop third party cookies that easily , as floc’s on browser processing makes google the defacto judge on what information do they add into floc identifiers and what they do not , meanwhile themselves getting all the unrestricted data from their browsers separately. By hindering mass scale adoption of floc , they’re trying to delay dropping of third party cookies , to slow down google from getting an advantage over them. Atleast that’s what I think , they might be testing it for other reasons, only an Amazon exec can answer it specifically.
gman83 5y ago
I'm curious, with third-party cookies being fased out, and alternatives like FLoC being met with resistance, could this drastically cut the size of Google's revenue's down? If the ads can no longer be accurately targeted, I imagine that would mean the main value of AdWords is no more, and that's the foundation that entire company is built on.
- potatolicious 5y ago
  It depends on what kind of ads - IMO the sunset of third-party tracking cookies gives an advantage to companies like Google. Products that target based on actual user intent benefit from cookie blocks, as that cannot be meaningfully blocked ever. (i.e., when you search for "brunch" ads relating to brunch show up) Products that target based on behavior away from the product will suffer - but morally I'm ok with that. Google happens to own one of the most intentful products out there - you directly tell the product what you want to see! The main pain for them will be loss of targeting ability in their network ads displayed on 3rd party sites - but their first-party products I suspect will see a boost in the new world.
  - t0mas88 5y ago
    The Doubleclick and YouTube side of Google is also a big part of revenue and both use huge amounts of cookie based targeting.
- yesbabyyes 5y ago
  Minor correction: AdSense would be the product affected by this. AdWords (now Google Ads) is the ads shown on Google's search result pages, and are contextual (depending on the search). AdSense, AdMob and Google Ad Manager makes up Google's ad network, which accounts for a much smaller part of revenue (about 12%, where AdWords accounts for ~57% and YouTube ads ~10%).
- nerdponx 5y ago
  No. FLoC is part of their future/regulation-proofing and ladder-pulling strategy.
- 5y ago
xaduha 5y ago
It's all pointless, it will win out eventually because it makes sense and Google isn't about to stop tracking you regardless of FLoC. All it does is disincentivizes smaller players from doing their own tracking which you'll have no control over anyway. Personally I don't see depersonalized targeting as a bad thing. Better than advertising dish washers to people who just bought a dish washer or some such nonsense.
- papito 5y ago
  That would annoy me less than seeing dish washer ads AFTER I bought the goddamned dish washer.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    They are just trying to help you out. They know there are "if you find it cheaper in the next 30 days, we'll refund the difference" policies out there. So those ads are actually much more helpful than you are giving credit. They can't help it you chose poorly and used a site that did not have that policy. /s
    - papito 5y ago
      If I ever decide to uninstall, re-pack, and return a dishwasher after I find it for $40 cheaper, I will let you know.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        The point of the offer is that you don't have to do that. You just report that you found it, they verify, and then they will refund the difference in prices. Very few vendors do this, but it is a legit offer to help alleviate those post purchase regrets.
    - fleddr 5y ago
      That's not the reason you keep seeing ads for products you just bought. Google was aware of your interest in the product yet was unable to track that you actually bought one. So they think you're still looking.
dylan604 5y ago
Why do we believe the Googs will actually honor this flag? If it's just an HTTP header, the browser can be made to just act like it's not there. All of these "flags" are essentially honor policy level things (just like robots.txt), but if the thing is not even told to look for the flag, there's nothing stopping from doing exaclty what is being asked not to do.
- kmonsen 5y ago
  Chromium is open source? We still don’t control releases but having the open source version it should not be too hard to reverse engineer and see if they messed with it.
  - edoceo 5y ago
    How about in the G internal Chrome branch?
- jasonvorhe 5y ago
  They've been respecting robots.txt and tracking opt-outs for years, right? Just one whistleblower and it's over. Why risk it? Also: Afaik it's opt-in after it leaves Origin Trial phase [1]. [1] https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?s=19 https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?...
  - gentleman11 5y ago
    So they respect “do not track” headers?
    - jasonvorhe 5y ago
      No, but almost everyone ignored it and it never matured out of Candidate Recommendation: > Efforts to standardize Do Not Track by the W3C in the Tracking Preference Expression (DNT) Working Group reached only the Candidate Recommendation stage and ended in September 2018 due to insufficient deployment and support. [...] Despite supporting it in its Chrome web browser, Google did not implement support for DNT on its websites, and directed users to its online privacy settings and opt-outs for interest-based advertising instead. The Digital Advertising Alliance, Council of Better Business Bureaus and the Direct Marketing Association does not require its members to honor DNT signals. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track
jasonvorhe 5y ago
What I don't get about the reporting on this topic: Isn't all this opt-out stuff just necessary while Google is testing FLoC and it'll be opt-in(!) after it leaves Origin Trial phase? Or is this Google employee straight up lying* here? https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?s=19 https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?... * I don't suspect he his.
- seoaeu 5y ago
  "Our best guess". The author of those tweets literally admits that they don't know what will happen. Personally, I'm not as inclined as them to give Google the benefit of the doubt until the absolute last minute.
- tyingq 5y ago
  I don't think he's straight up lying, but I do think the truth is probably more than what he's saying. Like perhaps using AdSense, Google Analytics, Google Sign In, etc, will include a buried implied "opt in" for your site at some point. Google is quite good at rolling out changes slowly enough to spread out any outrage. Watching the progression of ads take over their SERP pages, it was very slow and subtle. No ads, then just sidebar ads. Then one ad below the first one or two results, then above them, eventually leading to some pages with nothing but ads above the fold. Over many, many years.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    I'm also curious how much info Google will choose to expose to Floc on their various sites. Within Gmail, for example, they could be very generous to other advertisers, or not. They already have the info, so I assume they could only expose a cohort interest of "email" if they wanted to. The floc repo currently says "The algorithms might be based on the URLs of the visited sites, on the content of those pages, or other factors." Which is not super helpful. It seems like Google could fairly easily hide info from Floc since they own both sides.
  - teawrecks 5y ago
    Yeah, I read "sites will opt-in" as "sites are free to not use google products".
Arjuna144 5y ago
I am really happy to see that. So many concerns over privacy all around the web
mabbo 5y ago
How long until Google counters by modifying Google Search's algorithm to lower the rankings of any website with headers that block FLoC?
- tgv 5y ago
  Since it includes Amazon, I'm betting it'll be long. They'll rather invent something even nastier.
WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
Trying to block this is a losing battle. The whole privacy-first angle is so disingenuous, too. Is there a way we can just obfuscate / ruin our data with them? Like a tool or browser extension I can run that clicks / visits a bunch of random links and totally trashes which "cohort" Google thinks I belong in. I'd pay for this more than paying to opt-out. Then serve me all the ads you want.
- flixic 5y ago
  It speaks volumes that Google allows many ad blocking extensions in Chrome Web Store, but blocked an extension that was doing exactly that: https://adnauseam.io/free-adnauseam.html https://adnauseam.io/free-adnauseam.html
  - ec109685 5y ago
    Does that actually work? It seems like clicking on every ad would be easy to filter out.
    - sodality2 5y ago
      Probably, but it would "trash which "cohort" Google thinks I belong in"; there's really no reason to fool Google into putting you into a specific cohort as opposed to just a random/"broken" one; either way, your true cohort is obscured. Unless you were studying the impact of ads you receive based on cohort, like https://their.tube https://their.tube.
      - throwaway3699 5y ago
        More likely FLoC will place you in a cohort also full of other AdNauseam users.
    - thatguy0900 5y ago
      I remember reading about it on here a while ago and some Googler said that it was easily identified as automated clicking on their end, they have pretty sophisticated antifraud systems.
seanhunter 5y ago
Someone should make a browser plugin that puts you into a seperate random cohort with every click. It could be called "Floc off"
- dannyw 5y ago
  Careful, google bans Web extensions that interferes with ads (AdNaseum). Only problem is ad blockers got too popular before they made Chrome.
  - rovr138 5y ago
    I’m assuming you means from Chrome’s extension store (not sure why they call it) While they can be installed manually with extra steps, there are also other browsers out there.
    - M2Ys4U 5y ago
      Don't worry, Google will just "accidentally" break compatibility for those extensions in a way that's totally not just anticompetitive behaviour, because they've never done that sort of thing, like breaking other Google properties undermine Firefox before, no sir.
      - 8note 5y ago
        Windows phone wants a word
    - dannyw 5y ago
      They've made it so you basically can't keep non Chrome store extensions installed on Windows. At least not without a nag every day.
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    I wish they banned adblockers, because then people would move on to Firefox in droves. It would be a killer feature and reason to use Firefox.
venkat223 5y ago
Google is too intrusive on privacy. I have blocked all google anti privacy actions.
chippy 5y ago
> it's just an HTTP header What would be the total bandwidth, energy and Co2 usage if the largest net entities from Google used this header?
- rantwasp 5y ago
  i hear that this is going to consume more energy that the entire country of Argentina
aasasd 5y ago
Not seeing how anything going on with Floc hinders catch-all tracking that Google already does on the vast majority via Chrome. Floc is just a dummy throw-bone that allows Google to screw-but-not-quite all other ad networks by disabling third-party cookies.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
m3kw9 5y ago
Why would Amazon let their competitors gather their own valuable data?
lisper 5y ago
Wow, the bias in this article is unbelievably blatant: "[Amazon is] preventing Google’s tracking system FLoC — or Federated Learning of Cohorts — from gathering valuable data reflecting the products people research in Amazon’s vast e-commerce universe" Compare with, e.g.: "Amazon is taking steps to protect its user's privacy by blocking Google's heavy-handed overreach in leveraging its Chrome browser to spy on user's personal shopping habits and sell that information to other retailers". (Note: I'm not saying my rewrite is unbiased. It's not. It's just biased in a different direction to highlight the contrast.)
- fastball 5y ago
  Yeahhhh, but Amazon makes a ton off their own ad business and is trying to turn everyone's personal devices into a mesh network they own. They don't give af about user privacy.
  - kevingadd 5y ago
    IMO these two things are compatible. Their mesh network is incredibly gross but it's not a privacy violation, it's bad in other ways.
    - fastball 5y ago
      It's almost guaranteed to be a privacy violation unless you think Amazon can write complicated yet bug-free networking code.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - noahtallen 5y ago
        I’m not sure about the privacy part, but they do have very good success with AWS, which I’m sure includes loads and loads of network code.
        5y ago
delduca 5y ago
If I want to block Google's FLoC on my website, what I should do?
choppaface 5y ago
This is a great example of why Google FLoC is not incentive-compatible with consumers nor business owners. Amazon (like Facebook) has a monopoly on ad targeting on their target properties—- properties they own. Google FLoC is Google’s attempt to (further) monopolize their target properties—- the web at large, which Google does NOT own. Google does NOT pay to service the traffic they generate. Google does NOT pay to fulfill consumer orders. Google wants you to think they’re acting in your best interests with FLoC. Maybe if Google offered more free GCloud credits and subsidized conversions they generate, that would be a different story. (Maybe Google could start by paying Wikipedia for some of the traffic they generate). But Sundar wants you to think FLoC is about privacy, because Sundar has said time and time again that Google has lost people’s trust.
- canadianfella 5y ago
  Why would Google have to pay Wikipedia?
- tomComb 5y ago
  Google's investments in the web has been massive. Your whole framing can be flipped on its head be pointing out that Google, unlike Amazon has been willing to make such huge investments in the one public platform we've got. Obviously Google does it for self interested reasons, but thank goodness they do - you can hate Google and targeted ads all you want but without Google pushing web and ad tech forward it would stand little chance against the competing proprietary platforms. Your suggestion that Google pay sites for the traffic they generate should like that ridiculous News Corp/Australian shakedown of Facebook and Google, which people were only able to justify based on their hatred of the target companies and a willingness to sacrifice the web to their ends.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    > but without Google pushing web and ad tech forward it would stand little chance against the competing proprietary platforms. To give some evidence for this, Google pushed hard for PWAs - it serves their interests since they can focus on one platform for their desktop platforms, but also means that on Desktop (via Chrome) and Android each web app can just install themselves without having to distribute a native package or go through an app store.
rafaelturk 5y ago
Just like we all should be doing by now.
lcnmrn 5y ago
At this point, Firefox should adopt Gemini to protect the open web.
- fsiefken 5y ago
  I just read on the Gemini mailinglist that Thunderbird 78.11. 0 recognizes gemini links, so it's a start. https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2021/006627.html https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2021/006627.html
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/0hGwx https://archive.is/0hGwx
amilios 5y ago
I never understood what FLoC offers to users directly (rather than to advertisers) -- FLoC requires a user to opt into it, right? Why would I do this as a user, what incentive does Google give me?
akomtu 5y ago
Amazon just wants a cut of Google's profits, just like Apple takes its cut for the Safari search deal. The fact that this has become public means that Google didn't foresee this.
joemaller1 5y ago
> across what’s left of the open web. Gut punch
SimeVidas 5y ago
tl;dr Google: More control to us, please. Amazon: No.
Ayesh 5y ago
Excuse my rant about this free piece of content, but this is one of those sites that render the reading experience horrifying with giant subscribe and menu bars. It feels like reading something on a smartwatch is more easier.

490 points by estas 5y ago

arkitaip 5y ago

Stupid Google spying on Amazon's customers when that's Amazon's job and gold mine.

dylan604 5y ago
Actually, it is. If I choose to browse Amazon's site, and they do first party tracking of what I'm doing on their site, then that's actually okay with me. How else are they going to offer me my browsing history, "Recommended by your browsing history", "Recommended by your previous purchases", etc. That goldmine is literally none of Google's business and all of Amazon's.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lupire 5y ago
  Why such loyalty to one piece of legal fiction but not another?
  - anticristi 5y ago
    First party tracking is less creapy. When I walk in the shop, I know the shop assistant is looking at me. I don't expect the shop assistant of an unrelated shop at the other end of the mall to watch me.
  - dineshdb 5y ago
    I think the point was first party tracking was okay, irrespective of whether it was Google or Amazon. I expect first party tracking on YouTube and find it useful, but wouldn't want Google to track my activities across the internet.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      yes, this. thanks for helping clarify

ng55QPSK 5y ago

first world problems

bayindirh 5y ago
I don't think so, and I'm actually happy that Amazon is blocking Google on this front. Amazon is always protective its customer data though. Their e-mails don't have details or invoices either.
- tacomonstrous 5y ago
  I find this behavior pretty hostile. Every other online order I can track right from my email except for Amazon's. Facebook also does something similar with its 'so-and-so made a post's emails.
  - bayindirh 5y ago
    Actually, I'm on the other end of the spectrum. Google letting itself to parse everything, and doing it without my active consent is borderline creepy from my perspective. At least it can say "Hey, I've found a package, shall I track?". Instead I use an application called FindMyParcels which I register my packages and get push notifications for them. It's a one man operation and works pretty well for me, so I didn't get bothered by Amazon's decisions. Neither of these two companies are angels, but when they compete instead of forming a bigger eye-of-sauron, it's a win in my book.
testific8 5y ago
first world problems come before third world problems

robin_reala 5y ago

We blocked FLoC at my company because we couldn’t see the benefit in allowing it. If, in the future, an obvious value shows itself, then we’ll re-evaluate. But at the moment there’s only a business and reputational cost to allowing Google to harvest our users’ data.

deskamess 5y ago
How do you block it?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Brendinooo 5y ago
  Was also curious, found this on a search: https://paramdeo.com/blog/opting-your-website-out-of-googles-floc-network https://paramdeo.com/blog/opting-your-website-out-of-googles...
- roody15 5y ago
  curious as well? How to block Floc?
  - dylan604 5y ago
    We should make a darkUI along the lines of prohibitive cookie policy modals that detect Chrome, and forces the FLoC in user's faces. It'll get ignored and be as useful as the cookie policy windows, but it'll be funny. Maybe add to the window "Don't like this message? Try Firefox instead!"
    - robin_reala 5y ago
      “Cookie policy modals” is bad naming: they‘re specifically there to get consent to track, regardless of the method you use to track in the first place.
    - gentleman11 5y ago

tyingq 5y ago

I know there is skepticism that the opt-out http header is useful. Mostly because the places deploying it wouldn't call the floc API anyway. But, it is certainly useful to publicly see floc sentiment. As far as I know, Amazon hasn't said anything publicly about floc, but now we know they are aware and doing something about it. I saw that GitHub and The Guardian also rolled out the header. Waiting for a website tracking who all has opted out to pop up. I think the header also has value as a "last resort" to catch any unintentional use of floc if your org doesn't want it.

josefx 5y ago
As far as I understand the explicit call to FLOC will only be a requirement once it has gained traction. Right now Google is still using whatever they can to make it viable, so explicitly opting out is necessary for anyone who wants to be on the safe side.

jude- 5y ago

Rival surveillance capitalist companies defend their respective attention goldmines. News at 11.

gentleman11 5y ago

If Firefox had larger market share, Chrome wouldn’t have been able to make this opt out for websites rather than opt in because it would have given them a bad public image. I don’t think it’s fair that some company gets to force every website maintainer (most aren’t extremely technical and just use Wordpress or something similar) on earth to muddle through documentation for their particular setups to 1) learn it exists and 2) turn it off if desired.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
magicalist 5y ago
> If Firefox had larger market share, Chrome wouldn’t have been able to make this opt out for websites rather than opt in FLoC is only opt in for testing the proposal[0]. As a sibling comment says this is technically performative but publicly signals a stance against the proposal. Though we also shouldn't forget that Amazon loves third party tracking and happily falls back to IP address associations if cookies aren't available. Edit: [0] https://developer.chrome.com/blog/floc/#take-part-in-a-floc-origin-trial https://developer.chrome.com/blog/floc/#take-part-in-a-floc-...
- jmholla 5y ago
  Isn't it the opposite. It's opt-out for testing and is supposed to be opt-in when it goes live? I mean, I just disabled it and I am certain I didn't opt-in to it given that I had to go to about:config to have the setting show up. You can opt-in to actively be a part of FLoC, but if you don't opt-out, Google may randomly choose you to be part of their testing. Edit: I think your point may have been from the perspective of a website owner. Sorry.
gpm 5y ago
> opt out for websites This wording annoys me. The websites have nothing to do with it. Google choosing to turn it's browser into spyware that leaks information about what you used to do with it isn't the websites fault, the webserver doesn't do anything and doesn't have anything done to it, there is nothing for it to opt out of. Google chose to give websites a way to request that the users browser doesn't include the fact that they visited this website in it's cohort calculation. That's fine, but the messaging around it is a transparent attempt at shifting the blame. It's not the website opting out or in, it's the website acting as an uninvolved third party bystander asking google to stop. Asking why a website didn't opt out is equivalent to a thief asking "well why didn't you stop me?" to the person looking on from the sidewalk. We shouldn't accept this messaging. We should be very clear that Chrome is the entity spying on you, not the website, and that the website has no power to decide whether or not chrome spies on you, only the ability to make a polite request that it doesn't (or more accurately, does so less).

EMM_386 5y ago

> There is a caveat regarding FLoC blocking on Whole Foods pages, however. While other Amazon-owned domains mentioned here that block FLoC do so using Google’s recommended approach involving sending a response header from HTML pages, Whole Foods blocking employs a tactic that sends an opt-out header from Amazon analytics requests. What do they mean here, that the actual page request does not send the "no FLoC" HTTP header but the requests from Analytics do? What happens in this scenario?

teitoklien 5y ago
Amazon has a pretty big advertising platform too , I think they’ll try to spread this header on all the websites that use their ad platform. So they might be trialing it this way because of that, to help boost their ad platform and hinder floc , so that google cannot drop third party cookies that easily , as floc’s on browser processing makes google the defacto judge on what information do they add into floc identifiers and what they do not , meanwhile themselves getting all the unrestricted data from their browsers separately. By hindering mass scale adoption of floc , they’re trying to delay dropping of third party cookies , to slow down google from getting an advantage over them. Atleast that’s what I think , they might be testing it for other reasons, only an Amazon exec can answer it specifically.

gman83 5y ago

I'm curious, with third-party cookies being fased out, and alternatives like FLoC being met with resistance, could this drastically cut the size of Google's revenue's down? If the ads can no longer be accurately targeted, I imagine that would mean the main value of AdWords is no more, and that's the foundation that entire company is built on.

potatolicious 5y ago
It depends on what kind of ads - IMO the sunset of third-party tracking cookies gives an advantage to companies like Google. Products that target based on actual user intent benefit from cookie blocks, as that cannot be meaningfully blocked ever. (i.e., when you search for "brunch" ads relating to brunch show up) Products that target based on behavior away from the product will suffer - but morally I'm ok with that. Google happens to own one of the most intentful products out there - you directly tell the product what you want to see! The main pain for them will be loss of targeting ability in their network ads displayed on 3rd party sites - but their first-party products I suspect will see a boost in the new world.
- t0mas88 5y ago
  The Doubleclick and YouTube side of Google is also a big part of revenue and both use huge amounts of cookie based targeting.
yesbabyyes 5y ago
Minor correction: AdSense would be the product affected by this. AdWords (now Google Ads) is the ads shown on Google's search result pages, and are contextual (depending on the search). AdSense, AdMob and Google Ad Manager makes up Google's ad network, which accounts for a much smaller part of revenue (about 12%, where AdWords accounts for ~57% and YouTube ads ~10%).
nerdponx 5y ago
No. FLoC is part of their future/regulation-proofing and ladder-pulling strategy.
5y ago

xaduha 5y ago

It's all pointless, it will win out eventually because it makes sense and Google isn't about to stop tracking you regardless of FLoC. All it does is disincentivizes smaller players from doing their own tracking which you'll have no control over anyway. Personally I don't see depersonalized targeting as a bad thing. Better than advertising dish washers to people who just bought a dish washer or some such nonsense.

papito 5y ago
That would annoy me less than seeing dish washer ads AFTER I bought the goddamned dish washer.
- dylan604 5y ago
  They are just trying to help you out. They know there are "if you find it cheaper in the next 30 days, we'll refund the difference" policies out there. So those ads are actually much more helpful than you are giving credit. They can't help it you chose poorly and used a site that did not have that policy. /s
  - papito 5y ago
    If I ever decide to uninstall, re-pack, and return a dishwasher after I find it for $40 cheaper, I will let you know.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      The point of the offer is that you don't have to do that. You just report that you found it, they verify, and then they will refund the difference in prices. Very few vendors do this, but it is a legit offer to help alleviate those post purchase regrets.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    That's not the reason you keep seeing ads for products you just bought. Google was aware of your interest in the product yet was unable to track that you actually bought one. So they think you're still looking.

dylan604 5y ago

Why do we believe the Googs will actually honor this flag? If it's just an HTTP header, the browser can be made to just act like it's not there. All of these "flags" are essentially honor policy level things (just like robots.txt), but if the thing is not even told to look for the flag, there's nothing stopping from doing exaclty what is being asked not to do.

kmonsen 5y ago
Chromium is open source? We still don’t control releases but having the open source version it should not be too hard to reverse engineer and see if they messed with it.
- edoceo 5y ago
  How about in the G internal Chrome branch?
jasonvorhe 5y ago
They've been respecting robots.txt and tracking opt-outs for years, right? Just one whistleblower and it's over. Why risk it? Also: Afaik it's opt-in after it leaves Origin Trial phase [1]. [1] https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?s=19 https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?...
- gentleman11 5y ago
  So they respect “do not track” headers?
  - jasonvorhe 5y ago
    No, but almost everyone ignored it and it never matured out of Candidate Recommendation: > Efforts to standardize Do Not Track by the W3C in the Tracking Preference Expression (DNT) Working Group reached only the Candidate Recommendation stage and ended in September 2018 due to insufficient deployment and support. [...] Despite supporting it in its Chrome web browser, Google did not implement support for DNT on its websites, and directed users to its online privacy settings and opt-outs for interest-based advertising instead. The Digital Advertising Alliance, Council of Better Business Bureaus and the Direct Marketing Association does not require its members to honor DNT signals. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track

jasonvorhe 5y ago

What I don't get about the reporting on this topic: Isn't all this opt-out stuff just necessary while Google is testing FLoC and it'll be opt-in(!) after it leaves Origin Trial phase? Or is this Google employee straight up lying* here? https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?s=19 https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?... * I don't suspect he his.

seoaeu 5y ago
"Our best guess". The author of those tweets literally admits that they don't know what will happen. Personally, I'm not as inclined as them to give Google the benefit of the doubt until the absolute last minute.
tyingq 5y ago
I don't think he's straight up lying, but I do think the truth is probably more than what he's saying. Like perhaps using AdSense, Google Analytics, Google Sign In, etc, will include a buried implied "opt in" for your site at some point. Google is quite good at rolling out changes slowly enough to spread out any outrage. Watching the progression of ads take over their SERP pages, it was very slow and subtle. No ads, then just sidebar ads. Then one ad below the first one or two results, then above them, eventually leading to some pages with nothing but ads above the fold. Over many, many years.
- tyingq 5y ago
  I'm also curious how much info Google will choose to expose to Floc on their various sites. Within Gmail, for example, they could be very generous to other advertisers, or not. They already have the info, so I assume they could only expose a cohort interest of "email" if they wanted to. The floc repo currently says "The algorithms might be based on the URLs of the visited sites, on the content of those pages, or other factors." Which is not super helpful. It seems like Google could fairly easily hide info from Floc since they own both sides.
- teawrecks 5y ago
  Yeah, I read "sites will opt-in" as "sites are free to not use google products".

Arjuna144 5y ago

I am really happy to see that. So many concerns over privacy all around the web

mabbo 5y ago

How long until Google counters by modifying Google Search's algorithm to lower the rankings of any website with headers that block FLoC?

tgv 5y ago
Since it includes Amazon, I'm betting it'll be long. They'll rather invent something even nastier.

WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago

Trying to block this is a losing battle. The whole privacy-first angle is so disingenuous, too. Is there a way we can just obfuscate / ruin our data with them? Like a tool or browser extension I can run that clicks / visits a bunch of random links and totally trashes which "cohort" Google thinks I belong in. I'd pay for this more than paying to opt-out. Then serve me all the ads you want.

flixic 5y ago
It speaks volumes that Google allows many ad blocking extensions in Chrome Web Store, but blocked an extension that was doing exactly that: https://adnauseam.io/free-adnauseam.html https://adnauseam.io/free-adnauseam.html
- ec109685 5y ago
  Does that actually work? It seems like clicking on every ad would be easy to filter out.
  - sodality2 5y ago
    Probably, but it would "trash which "cohort" Google thinks I belong in"; there's really no reason to fool Google into putting you into a specific cohort as opposed to just a random/"broken" one; either way, your true cohort is obscured. Unless you were studying the impact of ads you receive based on cohort, like https://their.tube https://their.tube.
    - throwaway3699 5y ago
      More likely FLoC will place you in a cohort also full of other AdNauseam users.
  - thatguy0900 5y ago
    I remember reading about it on here a while ago and some Googler said that it was easily identified as automated clicking on their end, they have pretty sophisticated antifraud systems.

seanhunter 5y ago

Someone should make a browser plugin that puts you into a seperate random cohort with every click. It could be called "Floc off"

dannyw 5y ago
Careful, google bans Web extensions that interferes with ads (AdNaseum). Only problem is ad blockers got too popular before they made Chrome.
- rovr138 5y ago
  I’m assuming you means from Chrome’s extension store (not sure why they call it) While they can be installed manually with extra steps, there are also other browsers out there.
  - M2Ys4U 5y ago
    Don't worry, Google will just "accidentally" break compatibility for those extensions in a way that's totally not just anticompetitive behaviour, because they've never done that sort of thing, like breaking other Google properties undermine Firefox before, no sir.
    - 8note 5y ago
      Windows phone wants a word
  - dannyw 5y ago
    They've made it so you basically can't keep non Chrome store extensions installed on Windows. At least not without a nag every day.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  I wish they banned adblockers, because then people would move on to Firefox in droves. It would be a killer feature and reason to use Firefox.

venkat223 5y ago

Google is too intrusive on privacy. I have blocked all google anti privacy actions.

chippy 5y ago

> it's just an HTTP header What would be the total bandwidth, energy and Co2 usage if the largest net entities from Google used this header?

rantwasp 5y ago
i hear that this is going to consume more energy that the entire country of Argentina

aasasd 5y ago

Not seeing how anything going on with Floc hinders catch-all tracking that Google already does on the vast majority via Chrome. Floc is just a dummy throw-bone that allows Google to screw-but-not-quite all other ad networks by disabling third-party cookies.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

m3kw9 5y ago

Why would Amazon let their competitors gather their own valuable data?

lisper 5y ago

Wow, the bias in this article is unbelievably blatant: "[Amazon is] preventing Google’s tracking system FLoC — or Federated Learning of Cohorts — from gathering valuable data reflecting the products people research in Amazon’s vast e-commerce universe" Compare with, e.g.: "Amazon is taking steps to protect its user's privacy by blocking Google's heavy-handed overreach in leveraging its Chrome browser to spy on user's personal shopping habits and sell that information to other retailers". (Note: I'm not saying my rewrite is unbiased. It's not. It's just biased in a different direction to highlight the contrast.)

fastball 5y ago
Yeahhhh, but Amazon makes a ton off their own ad business and is trying to turn everyone's personal devices into a mesh network they own. They don't give af about user privacy.
- kevingadd 5y ago
  IMO these two things are compatible. Their mesh network is incredibly gross but it's not a privacy violation, it's bad in other ways.
  - fastball 5y ago
    It's almost guaranteed to be a privacy violation unless you think Amazon can write complicated yet bug-free networking code.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - noahtallen 5y ago
      I’m not sure about the privacy part, but they do have very good success with AWS, which I’m sure includes loads and loads of network code.
      - 5y ago

delduca 5y ago

If I want to block Google's FLoC on my website, what I should do?

choppaface 5y ago

This is a great example of why Google FLoC is not incentive-compatible with consumers nor business owners. Amazon (like Facebook) has a monopoly on ad targeting on their target properties—- properties they own. Google FLoC is Google’s attempt to (further) monopolize their target properties—- the web at large, which Google does NOT own. Google does NOT pay to service the traffic they generate. Google does NOT pay to fulfill consumer orders. Google wants you to think they’re acting in your best interests with FLoC. Maybe if Google offered more free GCloud credits and subsidized conversions they generate, that would be a different story. (Maybe Google could start by paying Wikipedia for some of the traffic they generate). But Sundar wants you to think FLoC is about privacy, because Sundar has said time and time again that Google has lost people’s trust.

canadianfella 5y ago
Why would Google have to pay Wikipedia?
tomComb 5y ago
Google's investments in the web has been massive. Your whole framing can be flipped on its head be pointing out that Google, unlike Amazon has been willing to make such huge investments in the one public platform we've got. Obviously Google does it for self interested reasons, but thank goodness they do - you can hate Google and targeted ads all you want but without Google pushing web and ad tech forward it would stand little chance against the competing proprietary platforms. Your suggestion that Google pay sites for the traffic they generate should like that ridiculous News Corp/Australian shakedown of Facebook and Google, which people were only able to justify based on their hatred of the target companies and a willingness to sacrifice the web to their ends.
- judge2020 5y ago
  > but without Google pushing web and ad tech forward it would stand little chance against the competing proprietary platforms. To give some evidence for this, Google pushed hard for PWAs - it serves their interests since they can focus on one platform for their desktop platforms, but also means that on Desktop (via Chrome) and Android each web app can just install themselves without having to distribute a native package or go through an app store.

rafaelturk 5y ago

Just like we all should be doing by now.

lcnmrn 5y ago

At this point, Firefox should adopt Gemini to protect the open web.

fsiefken 5y ago
I just read on the Gemini mailinglist that Thunderbird 78.11. 0 recognizes gemini links, so it's a start. https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2021/006627.html https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2021/006627.html

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.is/0hGwx https://archive.is/0hGwx

amilios 5y ago

I never understood what FLoC offers to users directly (rather than to advertisers) -- FLoC requires a user to opt into it, right? Why would I do this as a user, what incentive does Google give me?

akomtu 5y ago

Amazon just wants a cut of Google's profits, just like Apple takes its cut for the Safari search deal. The fact that this has become public means that Google didn't foresee this.

joemaller1 5y ago

> across what’s left of the open web. Gut punch

SimeVidas 5y ago

tl;dr Google: More control to us, please. Amazon: No.

Ayesh 5y ago

Excuse my rant about this free piece of content, but this is one of those sites that render the reading experience horrifying with giant subscribe and menu bars. It feels like reading something on a smartwatch is more easier.