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Google Privacy The Internet

Google's FLoC Is a Terrible Idea (eff.org) 119

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Earlier this week, Google said that after it finishes phasing out third-party cookies over the next year or so, it won't introduce other forms of identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web. Instead, the search giant plans to use something called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which the company says has shown promising results. In a deep-dive, EFF has outlined several issues surrounding the usage of FLoC. The introductory excerpt follows: The third-party cookie is dying, and Google is trying to create its replacement. No one should mourn the death of the cookie as we know it. For more than two decades, the third-party cookie has been the lynchpin in a shadowy, seedy, multi-billion dollar advertising-surveillance industry on the Web; phasing out tracking cookies and other persistent third-party identifiers is long overdue. However, as the foundations shift beneath the advertising industry, its biggest players are determined to land on their feet. Google is leading the charge to replace third-party cookies with a new suite of technologies to target ads on the Web. And some of its proposals show that it hasn't learned the right lessons from the ongoing backlash to the surveillance business model. This post will focus on one of those proposals, Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which is perhaps the most ambitious -- and potentially the most harmful.

FLoC is meant to be a new way to make your browser do the profiling that third-party trackers used to do themselves: in this case, boiling down your recent browsing activity into a behavioral label, and then sharing it with websites and advertisers. The technology will avoid the privacy risks of third-party cookies, but it will create new ones in the process. It may also exacerbate many of the worst non-privacy problems with behavioral ads, including discrimination and predatory targeting. Google's pitch to privacy advocates is that a world with FLoC (and other elements of the "privacy sandbox") will be better than the world we have today, where data brokers and ad-tech giants track and profile with impunity. But that framing is based on a false premise that we have to choose between "old tracking" and "new tracking." It's not either-or. Instead of re-inventing the tracking wheel, we should imagine a better world without the myriad problems of targeted ads.

We stand at a fork in the road. Behind us is the era of the third-party cookie, perhaps the Web's biggest mistake. Ahead of us are two possible futures. In one, users get to decide what information to share with each site they choose to interact with. No one needs to worry that their past browsing will be held against them -- or leveraged to manipulate them -- when they next open a tab. In the other, each user's behavior follows them from site to site as a label, inscrutable at a glance but rich with meaning to those in the know. Their recent history, distilled into a few bits, is "democratized" and shared with dozens of nameless actors that take part in the service of each web page. Users begin every interaction with a confession: here's what I've been up to this week, please treat me accordingly. Users and advocates must reject FLoC and other misguided attempts to reinvent behavioral targeting. We implore Google to abandon FLoC and redirect its effort towards building a truly user-friendly Web.
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Google's FLoC Is a Terrible Idea More

Google's FLoC Is a Terrible Idea

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  • Advertising should be greatly restricted (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh@@@gmail...com> on Friday March 05, 2021 @09:12AM (#61126734) Journal

    The world would be a far better place if advertising were greatly restricted - not just because it's annoying and bad for privacy, but also because it's bad for economies. Advertising is why you could work hard at a career your whole life and make less money than Kim K would for farting into a walkie-talkie (or less theoretically, less money than Karl Lagerfeld's cat made for posing on car's dashboard), and it also fuels much of the IP industry's work-once-get-paid-forever business model. It should be restricted so greatly that it should probably be done on an allow-list basis of where and what is actually allowed, and anything else is banned.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by doconnor ( 134648 )

      Without advertising products would compete based on quality and price to a much greater degree, and without paying for advertising they could afford to.

      • Good point - companies waste vast sums of money on advertising with little knowledge of how much business it's driving, and over time it turns into a superstitious habit until some unexpected event accidentally reveals the waste (as happened due to a widespread social media advertiser boycott a while ago). It's also a major source of disinformation in society. You could probably write a good thick book on how advertising harms society and the ways in which we'd be better off if it were contained largely to

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ebh ( 116526 )

          I've always wondered how the effectiveness of certain types of advertising can even be measured. For example, at Citi Field, there used to be "Gap" logos on the outfield walls, in the "gap" areas between the fielders. I though it was clever and amusing. But before you say, "You remember it, so it was successful", I was already a satisfied customer of The Gap, and had been since the 1970's. So when I'm outlet shopping, and I go into The Gap, is there any possible way to tell if the money they make by me shop

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by larwe ( 858929 )
            The usual argument about that goes something like this: You decide you need a new pair of pants. You say to your spouse "Let's go shop for clothes". He/she says "Sure, where?". And the first name that comes to your mind is the name you have seen most recently or which made the most impression on you - which happens to be Gap because you were at the field and noticed the signs and commented about them on Slashdot, so that particular brand happens to be tip of mind.

            As you can see, this line of argument also

            • Re:Advertising should be greatly restricted (Score:4, Interesting)

              by Rob Y. ( 110975 ) on Friday March 05, 2021 @12:39PM (#61127496)

              And prior to targeted ads, that's what banner ads on the web were. Brand awareness placements based on the content of the site where they were placed (in an attempt to efficiently target potential customers). One class of targeted ads just makes that targeting more efficient, and are almost innocuous. The other kind (you know who you are) insists on following you around the web because you once considered buying a product somewhere. Those are truly creepy, but probably effective. Still, stalking is stalking, and they should be outlawed.

              None of that addresses the privacy issues. Google and Facebook target based on knowing a shit ton about you. If they never shared (do they share it?) that raw data - and had perfect security so they never leaked it, maybe that's okay.

              Another issue is targeted political advertising, where different groups of people are told different lies by the same candidate based on ads targeted specifically at them. That is truly evil and dangerous in a democracy. It's fraudulent - almost at the level of 'official' seeming mailings that tell you to go to the wrong polling place on the wrong day. It should not be allowed. And Google and Facebook could simply stop selling those ads. The candidates would still have to advertise on their sites - because that's where the people are. They'd just have to actually run on their actual policies.

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by larwe ( 858929 )
                "Google and Facebook target based on knowing a shit ton about you."

                Yeah, exactly. I don't actually care about internet advertising, targeted or otherwise, because I hate advertising so much (it literally makes me wince when I'm exposed to it on TV) that I ruthlessly block it in every way I can. So they can target me all they want, I won't see their banners or videos. The bigger concern is the data store (which has no legal protection whatsoever; the US basically does not have privacy laws), and particularl

          • Good question, but I think the answer is complicated. I can sort of describe it in terms of costs, however. The incremental costs of higher levels of product quality are large. If you actually want to produce the very best product, then it becomes quite expensive. (Services, too, but I'm leaving out that side of "goods and services" for brevity.) Trivial example: How many layers of paint?

            In contrast, it is relatively inexpensive to produce "adequate" or "competitive" goods. Then you can use advertising to e

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Without advertising, nobody would know what products are available, let alone which ones are high quality or cheap. It would be a fucking nightmare.

        • People could seek out consumer catalogues where advertising would be allowed, in person or better yet online. Online shopping would still work, allowing advertising on online shopping sites for products sold on the site wouldn't be a terrible idea. You'd still know about anything you've ever seeked out information on or attempted to shop for, but nothing that was shoved in your face completely unsolicited.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by greytree ( 7124971 )

          I buy based on review sites and their links to mechants.
          NO advertising needed or wanted.

          • Companies pay to have their products reviewed. The marketing departments are in charge of figuring out which reviewers should receive product samples. They absolutely are being advertised to even if you are not.

            • "Companies pay to have their products reviewed. The marketing departments are in charge of figuring out which reviewers should receive product samples. They absolutely are being advertised to even if you are not."

              None of that NEEDS advertising involved. Advertising does not help the system, it POISONS it.

              • Umm.... yes it does. The "reviewer gatekeeping" model proposed above is the same as the pharmaceutical model of targeting doctors (trusted advisers) with wineing and dining (a different kind of advertising not exposed directly to the end purchaser).

                Marketing is innate to human behavior whenever there are options for goods or services being provided and multiple people who are looking for those goods or services. We have uncovered prehistoric advertising through archeology. If you want to sell your product o

        • Re:Advertising should be greatly restricted (Score:4, Informative)

          by thomn8r ( 635504 ) on Friday March 05, 2021 @10:38AM (#61126980)

          Without advertising, nobody would know what products are available, let alone which ones are high quality or cheap. It would be a fucking nightmare

          And how is that any different from the current situation? Just because an advertisement says a product is of high quality doesn't make it so.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          OMG, how would we find out about new products and services? If only there was some kind of world-wide communications medium where anyone could publish audiovisual documents, and it had some form of powerful search capability so you could find what you were looking for.

          Oh, you mean we wouldn't know about products we don't want. Yeah, that would be ~terrible~.

        • Only somebody posting AC would dare say a world with less advertising would be a nightmare. For me? I'd kill to have one day advertising free a week. The utter load of nonsense I have to wade through just to get to and from work and do my job is ridiculous. And none of it matters at all to me.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Which is why the advertisers would switch to pouring all of their effort into creating fake reviews and testimonials, rather than just 50% of it as they do today.

      • Without advertising products would compete based on quality and price to a much greater degree, and without paying for advertising they could afford to.

        Nonsense. Instead of advertising to you, they advertise to stores and distributors. Take Peak Design. They make fancy bags for photographers originally, but also for consumers and travelers now. They rely on Kickstarter and were able to outsell entrenched players like LowePro. ATM, they're taking on Samsonite. While I am not their biggest fan, they're an example of a small upstart who can only survive by being able to intelligently advertise.

        In your world, in order for Peak Design to sell something

      • Without advertising no one would even hear about them. I'm against tracking, profiling, etc., but going against the blanket "advertising" is stupid.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      I think your are conflating things like 'forever copyright' with advertising that don't need to be related in that way. I also think ads are quite useful. When I went shopping for TVs a couple years ago I had not idea Ultra Short Throw projectors were even a choice. I vaguely new they existed for commercial applications but had no idea bright enough ones for residential use were a potentially affordable alternative until I saw some targets ads for them.

      Sometimes you do need to educate the public thru adver

      • I think your are conflating things like 'forever copyright' with advertising that don't need to be related in that way.

        Don't need to be but are and probably always would be if allowed. The size of a advertising industry is what makes being an IP holder (or celebrity) so lucrative, and gives the IP industry the lobbying power to hold forever copyright.

        Sometimes you do need to educate the public thru advertising. Arguable targeted ads (if they are well targeted) actually are less of annoyance than blanketed ads. Like everyone else I get sicks of seeing ads for tires for weeks after I just bought five of them, because I happened to google local tire dealers once...Ads are not evil by nature and I don't think they are harmful by nature. Where the problem has created itself is the middle men like Google have helped create an environment where there is no accountability.

        Wouldn't it have been better if you only saw tire ads after googling local tire dealers and going to their websites, or the sites of tire manufacturers? Maybe going to an online tire catalogue site that compares offerings from tire shops by location? What's even less of an anno

      • When I went shopping for TVs a couple years ago I had not idea Ultra Short Throw projectors were even a choice. I ... had no idea bright enough ones for residential use were a potentially affordable alternative until I saw some targets ads for them.

        In the absence of advertising you would have, or should have, found out about them through research. Research would have taken you to the allow-listed sites mentioned by OP and others. Your minor success story does not justify the rest of us being involuntarily subjected to unlimited, no-holds-barred advertising.

        Sometimes you do need to educate the public thru advertising. Arguable targeted ads (if they are well targeted) actually are less of annoyance than blanketed ads.

        "You", Kemosabe? "I" don't need to use advertising to educate anybody, and I suspect few others here do. So a), please don't conflate advertisers and Slashdotters, and b), please don't conflate adve

        • In the absence of advertising you would have, or should have, found out about them through research. Research would have taken you to the allow-listed sites mentioned by OP and others.

          Unless I'm severely misunderstanding you, this is the scenario I see playing out:

          1. Allow-listed sites would still have to advertise on Research.
          2. Research would still have to advertise in other media.
          3. Ad-supported websites other than Research would need to either switch to a paywall or go out of business.
          4. As each site puts up a paywall to make ends meet, it becomes more difficult for a reader to follow citations in an article because of the sheer number of other sites to which one is expected to subsc

          • Unless I'm severely misunderstanding you, this is the scenario I see playing out:

            1. Allow-listed sites would still have to advertise on Research. 2. Research would still have to advertise in other media. 3. Ad-supported websites other than Research would need to either switch to a paywall or go out of business. 4. As each site puts up a paywall to make ends meet, it becomes more difficult for a reader to follow citations in an article because of the sheer number of other sites to which one is expected to subscribe. 5. Large numbers of websites going out of business would cause enough home Internet access subscribers to cancel their subscriptions that the local cable company or the local fiber company can no longer afford to maintain its last mile. 6. Good luck logging onto Research from home.

            Where did I make an unreasonable leap?

            Nope, no unreasonable leaps there. I hadn't thought it through. What we need is a different way to fund the Internet, but I don't know what that would look like. I only know that advertising as it is exists is fundamentally bad; not only because it's manipulative, but because its entire raison d'etre is to encourage the consumerism that is making our planet uninhabitable and our presence on it unsustainable. And then there's the tracking and data gathering built into today's advertising - that's a whole oth

    • Not only that, but where the obvious issues are someone trying to sell me a product, there's also much much more insidious uses, as have been exploited on Facebook, where a users preferences can be used to funnel them news of dubious merit.

      Previously I'd have largely ignored this and considered that it was up to the users to manage their own privacy... but I think given recent events, it's clear that there are a very large section of society who are very susceptible to such misuse/abuse of user tracking.

    • Scott Adams used to do a thing called 'Overly Simple Answers to Complicated Problems' or something similar. (Yeah, he's a wacko conspiracy theorist now, I know, just roll with it.)

      My overly simple answer was to eliminate most government agencies, and put all your money into one agency that governs truth in advertising. That's it. You can say anything you want in your ad as long as it's demonstrably true, vague claims and small print not allowed. That also means that you could talk shit about your competitor

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Could be difficult to define advertising though.

      Take product placement, for example. Could be anything from an item appearing a TV show, to some celebrity wearing a particular item of jewellery in a social media post. Is it an ad if they were not paid directly? Maybe they were given that jewellery as a gift, or maybe the store clerk was just really nice to them and gave them a discount on it.

      How about reviews? Presumably you want legitimate reviews to be possible, so that people can find out what stuff is g

      • Same with any law, you can only do so much to prevent offshoring. Straight-up intentional product placement should obviously be banned, it wouldn't be as difficult to police as insider trading or bribery. Things like celebrities being given expensive gifts in the hope of them being photographed with them would be much harder to control, the best bet might be to ban gift-giving from companies or their employees of company products to anyone but registered charities.

    • In Douglas Adams book the ultimate computer interface was a writing desk. You sat down and started trying to solve a problem by hand. The computer watched what you were doing, inferred what you were trying to accomplish, then did it.

      This is the same thing for advertising. Only it's more insidious and not invited.

    • and make less money than Kim K would for farting into a walkie-talkie

      More like a quasi-tricorder at this point. "Vibrational spectrometer estimates rythmic sound at 40 Hz, caused by vibrational material composition estimated 4% organic molecules, 96% silicone molecules."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Nice FP, though as I follow the discussion I'm pretty sure there won't be much about actual solutions. That's because I already searched for "auction" and know it isn't here, but it must be the key to the new problems being created by the google. There is a hint in the summary (in the "Cohorts" of FLoC, because the new scam will (obviously) involve auctioning of cohorts (as bundles of individuals) to the paying advertisers. From that perspective the relevant literature involves auctions of bundled goods, bu

    • It should be restricted so greatly that it should probably be done on an allow-list basis of where and what is actually allowed, and anything else is banned.

      I think you are describing censorship. Like democracy, advertising is the least worst option we have.

      I like the explanation in this video (3 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      That would probably do more harm than good because of the mechanisms needed. I propose a simpler solution: Every year, round up all the advertisers. Then shoot a random 10% (by volume of ads pushed) of them. That should nicely keep this plague under control.

      • ...Every year, round up all the advertisers. Then shoot a random 10% (by volume of ads pushed) of them. That should nicely keep this plague under control.

        "The Decimation Lottery". The idea has merit...I can see the ads for it now!

    • A good case study for a system which had that as one of its features was the Soviet Union.
      Executive Summary: Analysis of a Command Economy
      Grocery shelves chock-full of product: wasteful
      Empty shelves: efficient

      But, having snarked that, I can't help but agree with you that how resources are distributed is often ridiculous. Yet, ultimately, we run into that old problem of "freedom of speech", a classic double-edged sword problem. (I'll note that "swords" are still an all too frequent solution for FoS, populari

  • g00gle's bread and butter is hoovering up (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Friday March 05, 2021 @09:26AM (#61126778)
    your data and profiting from it. Why would they care what the EFF thinks? Its like telling Budweiser to stop selling alcohol.

    • Agreed. When it comes to privacy, Google is the enemy, and we absolutely should not expect them to listen to anyone saying privacy is good.

      However, the point of an open letter is generally not to convince the target, but to draw public attention to the target's lies and/or misrepresentations so they can't sucker the public as easily. And possibly even publicly shame them into doing the right thing when their machinations are laid bare to public outrage.

  • I still don't understand the dudgeon over targeted advertising. Merchants have been trying to figure out who might be interested in buying what since the beginning of commerce because after all, it's their job to do that. Digital technology just brings some new refinements to the process.

    I'm a lot more concerned about something new that genuinely feels intrusive: the outsourcing of censorship to the private sector.

    • The problem is with how they target the advertising. Back in the day, advertising was (rouglhly) targeted:
      • zip/postal code or census tract level
      • time of day (broadcast medium)
      • tv/radio show/magazine

      All of those methods are pretty coarse compared to the level tracking that is being done today. Despite the refrain that "web ads don't work" advertising is effective in getting people to do things. Getting someone to buy brand x vs brand y is benign. Getting someone to buy something they cannot afford is less b

  • This sounds like something that the browser would implement. As such, privacy-focused browsers, such as Safari, Firefox, or Brave, could choose not to implement it (or implement it in a way that provides no information, i.e., the user belongs to a cohort that never visited any sites) and Chrome would be the only one that implements it properly. This would give the user the ultimate say in whether they want to be tracked -- use Chrome and be tracked, or choose something else and avoid being tracked. This may

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Except that Chrome has a virtual lock on the browser market at this point. Its perhaps not quite as bad as the IE5-6era but it is darn near.

      Its really going to be use Chrome and use the web or use something else and see "AD BLOCKER DETECTED"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swilver ( 617741 )

        These things change rapidly with a little (bad) advertising.

  • Money or Privacy? My money's on money.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Ads are often the first thing that comes to mind when talking about tracking. However, they also sell other services that use this information, e.g. Google Analytics, where you can get detailed statistics about the demographics of your site's visitors.

  • What if advertising sales are behind this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Friday March 05, 2021 @10:10AM (#61126902)

    Consider this: Targeted ads do have a benefit. They show me things that I'm interested in and don't show me stuff I'm not. E.g. I have zero health issues so the constant barrage of drug ads on TV are annoying and the companies selling them are effectively wasting advertising dollars on pitching them to me. But having been on the ad-buying side of things, I always ask the ad-seller for, say, a banner ad what the click-thru rate is. They say they don't know which is total bullsh*t. They know but they don't want to tell you because it's so poor that anyone in their right mind would never buy such an ad. Targeted ads reveal the colossal waste of money advertising is to companies with products to sell. So, removing the ability to target ads works in the favor of the ad sellers because they no longer have to demonstrate that advertising works, how, and in what ways and the ad-buyers no longer have the means to call them on their bullsh*t.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "I have zero health issues so the constant barrage of drug ads on TV are annoying..."

      I have health issues, and the constant barrage of ads that work against my health issues are both annoying and damaging, yet targeted ads don't provide any relief from that. Never for a moment believe that targeted ads are intended to provide any benefit to the target whatsoever.

      Also, we all have health issues, we just don't all recognize it. Advertising contributed to the development of those health issues.

      "Consider this

      • Every time a new prescription drug is having an ad blitz and you have that condition, it costs you money. The insurance won't pay for new shiny or wants enormous co-pays and if you pay the price, you had to paid for the ads too. A multi million dollar ad campaign comes out of the consumers pocket ultimately. I told my doctor that patients who want the new drug on TV should be gently smacked in the head and told who the doctor is. This is another big reason US health care is the most expensive on earth,

    • Targeted ads do have a benefit. They show me things that I'm interested in and don't show me stuff I'm not.

      You completely misunderstood why ads are targeted. They are not targeted to you, for your wants and needs. They are targeted to you, for the advertisers wants and needs.

      You have a drinking problem, and you do not want to see ads for beer? If the advertiser thinks you might buy some beer, they will show you beer ads anyway.

      Searching for loans? Everybody wants to see the low interest loans from serious lenders. But the most money may be in showing you predatory loans from scammers, if you are the type that fa

  • Normally when you want to fuck over users you at least have to provide a plausible pretext for doing so.

    Now they truly believe the world is simply going to stand for them attempting to push a new standard on the web that has one and only one purpose - intentionally reducing privacy of all users for no reason at all.... Good luck with that Google. It will be amusing to watch the backlash to this fools errand while your reputation is needlessly yet deservedly eroded.

    • Now they truly believe the world is simply going to stand for them attempting to push a new standard on the web that has one and only one purpose - intentionally reducing privacy of all users for no reason at all.... Good luck with that Google.

      Most people use Chrome, which means Google can push pretty much anything it wants on them. At some level people understand this, but they keep using Chrome anyway.

      Fifteen years ago I probably made something statements regarding Internet Explorer.

      As was the case with Microsoft, fifteen years ago - Google will get away with this sort of crap until the majority of their user base walks away. But people have to choose not to use a Chromium-based web browser. There's always Firefox. If you're on a Mac, there's a

  • Feed them noise. How's that anything other than a huge improvement over the status quo? I would think the more a person objects to being profiled, the more they would want their browser to be empowered to completely fuck up the profiling.

  • The World Wide Web is stateless at a low level. Responses to requests are inherently the same regardless as to who makes the request or what their last request was. Ideally we could add a session to that where you provide a credential that gives you permission to receive a response. If web developers actually organized their sites I think this would give us 95% of the functionality we need. The only exception would be stateful things like some security or shopping transactions where the flow of pages mu

    • If web developers actually organized their sites I think this would give us 95% of the functionality we need.

      Well, since that's never, ever going to happen, may as well write that off.

  • Google's pitch to privacy advocates is that a world with FLoC (and other elements of the "privacy sandbox") will be better than the world we have today, where data brokers and ad-tech giants track and profile with impunity.

    So they're taking us out of the fire and putting us back into the frying pan? I suppose that's good - if we're happy to be repeatedly burned according to the whims of tech overlords and 'badvertisers'. Personally, I'd rather we light the torches, don the pitchforks, and run the fuckers right off the planet.

    On a side note, who with an IQ above 80 trusts Google to have our best interests at heart? Any changes they make are always meant for their own benefit exclusively and will always end up decreasing our fr

  • Google Drive requires 3rd party cookies to be enabled in order to download anything. I browse with 3rd party cookies not allowed, and that's one of the very few site where it causes any issue.

    • Google Drive requires 3rd party cookies to be enabled in order to download anything. I browse with 3rd party cookies not allowed, and that's one of the very few site where it causes any issue.

      That will be solved shortly when they kill off Google Drive.

  • Front Running (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Friday March 05, 2021 @10:55AM (#61127052)
    I haven't yet studied the Google proposals in enough detail to fully understand the technical operational parameters of what they are trying to do here... but reading the OP and the EFF post and the comments here it is starting to feel as though Google are anticipating a major amount of regulatory scrutiny and are trying to "front run" that by coming up with something that they can persuade the regulators to adopt.

    Google's approach reminds me in a way of Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch [abelard.org], which, if you're not familiar with it, is a fable about a rabbit that gets in a sticky situation and then, through quick thinking, manages to convince a fox and a bear to throw him in a briar patch. He uses the thorns to comb the tar from his fur and escapes, laughing all the way.

    Bottom line is that Google can't be trusted to act properly with user data like this. Their entire business model is built upon their ability to allow advertisers to target us.

    But more than that, it's also worth remembering that a big part of the problem is caused by technologies outside of FLoC such as fingerprinting, which actually doesn't require them to place anything on your browser or workstation and instead uses details of your workstation to identify you with 100% accuracy.

    What we really need here is privacy legislation that outlaws all of these practices and requires end users to request delivery of a cookie that allows us to opt in. End of. No if's, no but's, no excuses. If Google employed someone to talk me down main street, that person could be arrested. Google should not be allowed to claim that stalking me down cyber street is somehow different. No. No way.

  • ... don't ask Google to build it. Pay for your services instead of relying upon freeware.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      About how much would you be willing to pay per month for access to Slashdot? For access to each website to which a Slashdot story links? For access to Google Search?

  • Tracking only has one purpose for advertisers: to know what you may be interested in buying. In order to push them off of tracking users, you have to give them something that's even better. The solution is really simple and it's one that everybody would agree on, both advertisers and the EFF alike. It would also be extremely simple to implement.

    The problem is that this new method from Google is still basically a new method of tracking and spying on users to try to guess what they might be interested in purc

  • "Privacy", in context, as defined by most people: "Nobody on the internet is tracking what I do."
    "Privacy", in context, as defined by Google: "Nobody else on the internet is tracking what you do."

  • FLoC is meant to be a new way to make your browser do the profiling that third-party trackers used to do themselves...

    It simply sounds like Google wants every browser to simply adopt the tracking/spying that Google Chrome is doing now and make it the standard.

    They'd probably even release a GooglyEyes API as a standard for anyone to follow.

  • Idiots. Google will have to be forced.
  • Premise: Outlawing advertising on free-to-browse web pages is an untenable idea.

    So if both individual and cohort-based tracking is outlawed, I guess we would just start seeing random ads not in any way tied to our interests, like billboards you pass by on the highway (except at least those know you're on a highway.)

    How does that scenario strike you?
  • Is it even useful for targeted advertising? Consider

    - Minimum size of a cohort is supposed to be ~1k people, to keep people anonymous.

    - Each IP address (or maybe person) gets a single cohort ID, based on browsing behavior over the past week.

    - Imagine if the groups Google tracked that week (shopped for shoes, looked at football scores, etc) had 10M members each, and groups overlap by 20%.

    In that situation, Google could only mark someone as a member of 5 groups - if they added membership to a 6th group t

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