4 ms·

Targeted ads use data that are owned by each company targeting. Sure you can buy/sell data in the market, but its somewhat decentralized. FLOC is centralized a

Targeted ads use data that are owned by each company targeting. Sure you can buy/sell data in the market, but its somewhat decentralized. FLOC is centralized at the individual. That means YOU are profiled completely and all the profile info is centralized for everyone to grab.

shuckles 5y ago
I thought targeted ads let you buy an audience using all the information the ad network had about them. So in your framing, the “company targeting” would be Google, and they already know more than a FLOC cohort worth of information about you.
- josefx 5y ago
  Officially Google doesn't hand out information who belongs to what group. With FLOC your browser tells everyone in what "cohort" you are, if a cohort can be used to identify gay people just visiting government websites in an anti gay country could end very badly.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    Some additional context because it's not super clear how you turn some opaque cohort ID into something that can find gay people. Being gay is a really strong really specific signal online. Every content recommendation algorithm once it gets even a whiff you like girl in red will start recommending you other queers like there's no tomorrow. Content for gays is niche, doesn't have much broad appeal, and is a strong predictor you'll like other content aimed at gays. So all you need to do to find closeted gay people is to look at the cohorts of an out gay person.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  Yes this is true of major ad networks, but there is also straight data brokers who "just" buy/sell data. FB and google used to (idk about now, don't care to check) allow you to upload data you gathered/bought and use it for tracking. To prove a point, i created a fb ad to target my parents and family (uploaded their email, phone number, identifiers, interests, locations they frequent - only data i knew fb already had) and watched as their ads became "hey vineyardmike's parents. the internet is not private".
danShumway 5y ago
To expand on this: with targeted ads, if I want to find out if you're gay I need to figure out a way to track you across sites that give me that information, or to specifically buy that data from a company that's already tracking you. With FLoC, anyone can get that data without entering into an expensive agreement. I can get that data as a single person from a personal blog with no cookies. I can get that data directly, I don't need to sign up with another 3rd-party tracking company that might not tell why they're serving my users a specific ad or what data they have about them. And it's all scaleable with no extra cost to my operations. This opens up additional attack vectors that might not exist otherwise: in a small operation it may be a lot easier for me to fingerprint you using your IP address, login information, or other data I have access to and to correlate that to a real-world identity. When that happens, I also have access to all of the information about you from your FLoC categories, for free. On some level, Google is taking a gamble that users will be difficult to fingerprint or identify using FLoC so it won't matter that some sensitive information is leaked. But it's just not the case, users can be fingerprinted. And in scenarios where they are fingerprinted/identified, FLoC provides a much more complete picture of that person based on activity from sites that might not have ever sold that information, that might have never intended to leak information about them in the first place.

shuckles 5y ago

I thought targeted ads let you buy an audience using all the information the ad network had about them. So in your framing, the “company targeting” would be Google, and they already know more than a FLOC cohort worth of information about you.

josefx 5y ago
Officially Google doesn't hand out information who belongs to what group. With FLOC your browser tells everyone in what "cohort" you are, if a cohort can be used to identify gay people just visiting government websites in an anti gay country could end very badly.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Some additional context because it's not super clear how you turn some opaque cohort ID into something that can find gay people. Being gay is a really strong really specific signal online. Every content recommendation algorithm once it gets even a whiff you like girl in red will start recommending you other queers like there's no tomorrow. Content for gays is niche, doesn't have much broad appeal, and is a strong predictor you'll like other content aimed at gays. So all you need to do to find closeted gay people is to look at the cohorts of an out gay person.
vineyardmike 5y ago
Yes this is true of major ad networks, but there is also straight data brokers who "just" buy/sell data. FB and google used to (idk about now, don't care to check) allow you to upload data you gathered/bought and use it for tracking. To prove a point, i created a fb ad to target my parents and family (uploaded their email, phone number, identifiers, interests, locations they frequent - only data i knew fb already had) and watched as their ads became "hey vineyardmike's parents. the internet is not private".

danShumway 5y ago

To expand on this: with targeted ads, if I want to find out if you're gay I need to figure out a way to track you across sites that give me that information, or to specifically buy that data from a company that's already tracking you. With FLoC, anyone can get that data without entering into an expensive agreement. I can get that data as a single person from a personal blog with no cookies. I can get that data directly, I don't need to sign up with another 3rd-party tracking company that might not tell why they're serving my users a specific ad or what data they have about them. And it's all scaleable with no extra cost to my operations. This opens up additional attack vectors that might not exist otherwise: in a small operation it may be a lot easier for me to fingerprint you using your IP address, login information, or other data I have access to and to correlate that to a real-world identity. When that happens, I also have access to all of the information about you from your FLoC categories, for free. On some level, Google is taking a gamble that users will be difficult to fingerprint or identify using FLoC so it won't matter that some sensitive information is leaked. But it's just not the case, users can be fingerprinted. And in scenarios where they are fingerprinted/identified, FLoC provides a much more complete picture of that person based on activity from sites that might not have ever sold that information, that might have never intended to leak information about them in the first place.