It's a threat to the "free" (as in freedom) internet in that with this as the tracking mechanism, Google via Chrome is directly tracking your interests. It effe

It's a threat to the "free" (as in freedom) internet in that with this as the tracking mechanism, Google via Chrome is directly tracking your interests. It effectively makes "serves you ads and tracks your interests" a core part of what it means for a browser (Chrome) to be a browser. Many folks feel like this is a capitalism-flavored move on par with "all phones should track the bad behavior of their owners and report it to the government." The point is that it hands over a lot of control. What if Google decides to expand the topics to include things like "seeking reproductive care" in a state like Texas? Could that be used to try to target folks seeking abortions, potentially with legal action? All of these are hypotheticals, but they're all potential destinations if we continue in this direction. Hence the EFFs warning.