Google Updates Timeline For Unpopular Privacy Sandbox, Which Will Kill Third-Party Cookies In Chrome By 2023 (theregister.com) 27
Google has updated the schedule for its introduction of "Privacy Sandbox" browser technology and the phasing out of third-party cookies. The Register reports: The new timeline has split the bundle of technologies in the Privacy Sandbox into five phases: discussion, testing, implementation in Chrome (called "Ready for adoption"), Transition State 1 during which Chrome will "monitor adoption and feedback" and then the next stage that involves winding down support for third-party cookies over a three-month period finishing "late 2023." Although "late 2023" might sound a long way off, the timeline has revealed that "discussion" of the contentious FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) is planned to end in Q3 2021 -- just a couple of months away -- and that discussion for First Party Sets, rejected by the W3C Technical Architecture Group as "harmful to the web in its current form," is scheduled to end around mid-November.
Google said that "extended discussions and testing stages often produce better, more complete solutions, and the timeline for testing and ready for adoption of use cases might change accordingly," so the dates are not set in stone. There is no suggestion that any of the proposals will be withdrawn; the company appears to believe it can alleviate concerns by tweaking rather than abandoning its proposals. Discussion of the various pieces is set to take place in the W3C Web Incubator Community Group (WICG), though at a FLEDGE WICG Call last week, Google's Michael Kleber, tech lead for Privacy Sandbox, suggested that the W3C would not be deciding which technologies are implemented, at least in the context of FLEDGE (formerly TURTLEDOVE), which enables auctions for personalized ads in a more private manner than today.
FLEDGE is competing for attention with the Microsoft-devised PARAKEET and MaCAW. Asked by Julien Delhommeau, staff system architect at adtech company Xandr, if the WICG would get a say in whether FLEDGE or PARAKEET/MaCAW would be adopted, Kleber said: "The W3C doesn't get to be the boss of anyone, the decisions are going to be made at each of the browsers. The goal isn't to have one winner and everyone else losing -- the goal of W3C is to put out a bunch of ideas, understand the positives of each, and come to a chimera that has the most necessary features. Every browser seems to want convergence, long term, so figuring out how to make convergence happen is important." [...] According to Kleber, when asked if personalized advertising could be removed from the web, he said "while most of the sites in the world would lose 50-70 per cent of their revenue in the alternative you're advocating for, Google is not one of them." He made this claim on the basis that "Google makes most of its money from the ads that appear on Google Search," which do not require tracking technology.
Google said that "extended discussions and testing stages often produce better, more complete solutions, and the timeline for testing and ready for adoption of use cases might change accordingly," so the dates are not set in stone. There is no suggestion that any of the proposals will be withdrawn; the company appears to believe it can alleviate concerns by tweaking rather than abandoning its proposals. Discussion of the various pieces is set to take place in the W3C Web Incubator Community Group (WICG), though at a FLEDGE WICG Call last week, Google's Michael Kleber, tech lead for Privacy Sandbox, suggested that the W3C would not be deciding which technologies are implemented, at least in the context of FLEDGE (formerly TURTLEDOVE), which enables auctions for personalized ads in a more private manner than today.
FLEDGE is competing for attention with the Microsoft-devised PARAKEET and MaCAW. Asked by Julien Delhommeau, staff system architect at adtech company Xandr, if the WICG would get a say in whether FLEDGE or PARAKEET/MaCAW would be adopted, Kleber said: "The W3C doesn't get to be the boss of anyone, the decisions are going to be made at each of the browsers. The goal isn't to have one winner and everyone else losing -- the goal of W3C is to put out a bunch of ideas, understand the positives of each, and come to a chimera that has the most necessary features. Every browser seems to want convergence, long term, so figuring out how to make convergence happen is important." [...] According to Kleber, when asked if personalized advertising could be removed from the web, he said "while most of the sites in the world would lose 50-70 per cent of their revenue in the alternative you're advocating for, Google is not one of them." He made this claim on the basis that "Google makes most of its money from the ads that appear on Google Search," which do not require tracking technology.
So we have the end date then... (Score:2)
for when FLoC ends up in the Google Graveyard. [killedbygoogle.com]
Re: So we have the end date then... (Score:2)
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If the privacy is by default then most users wouldn't have to care.
Ad companies will scream.
And if it's based on the primary web page accessed so that each primary web page start its own sandbox then I like it quite a bit.
One drawback might be issues with payment on shopping sites if it's not done in a good way.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No, you have mis-read the article. FLoC is not ending, only the "discussion" of FLoC is ending.
Here is the most relevant part:
"There is no suggestion that any of the proposals will be withdrawn; the company appears to believe it can alleviate concerns by tweaking rather than abandoning its proposals. "
In other words, Goog is going to implement this whether you like it or not.
Same thing with First Party Sets, which were rejected by the W3C Technical Architecture Group as "harmful to the web in its current form". "Discussion" ends in November, at which time Goog will just go ahead and do whatever it damn well pleases.
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W3C Technical Architecture Group = a bunch of french commies and swiss bankers
i'm glad the web is back in the hands of a rational corporation again. greed is good.
Revolutionary (Score:2)
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As obvious as this one is likely to be: Edge doesn't block them by default. Firefox and Chrome do.
Re: Translation (Score:2)
The one who wrote "do no evil" in Google's original charter is chained up in the basement and surviving on any rat and cockroach that comes within the length of the shackles holding him to the wall.
Unpopular? (Score:3)
Why would something that keeps some ad leeches from tracking people be unpopular?
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Unpopular with Google, the one who benefits most from ads. What... you think they're talking about Chrome users... er... products?
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Unpopular?!? Quite clearly the plan, Google wants to be the sole seller of third party cookies on Chrome, establish a monopoly position. Then block all cookies unless you pay Google a cookie fee and they can data mine ALL THE COOKIES, mwa hah hah. Yeah, they actually laughed like that at the board meeting where the sick fucks discussed this shit. Google, evil is, as evil does.
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Why would something that keeps some ad leeches from tracking people be unpopular?
Well it's pretty unpopular with ad leeches and there are a lot of those.
Techincally, you asked why it would be unpopular...
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Dropping support for third party cookies is popular with users, not so much the ad industry. Regulators are taking a look at it too, since Google is in the ad selling business but isn't really affected by this change since it doesn't need 3rd party cookies to target.
FLoC is unpopular with everyone. It fails to do what it set out to - provide a privacy preserving alternative that advertisers can use to target ads. Other browser developers have rejected it, many high profile sites have rejected it, and ad blo
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This is about google trying to be the only one that can track people across the Internet, probably through google analytics & similar. Javascript from google-analytics.com, googletagmanager.com and doubleclick.net is loaded from the majority of web sites -- so google knows where you have been, this will cut everyone else out.
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This is much worse than propaganda. Following from your first sentence, this is Google attempting to force the data miners to pay their toll.
This is the problem with large corporations being the primary developers of browsers. Because these browsers are free and people expect them to be free, corporations will look to turn browsers into a competitive advantage. If we're lucky they just look at it as a way to further integrate the user into their ecosystem (Apple), but that strategy isn't concerned with mark
Re: Anyone that thinks this good for you.. (Score:1)
I think this is a good thing (Score:2)
Third-party cookies were never a good idea. Of course, Google's replacement is also a bad idea, but it may be slightly less bad? Hard to say.
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And FLoC has some dystopian possibilities baked straight into it. Let's say a person visits a he
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It's only good if you trust Google. The whole "sandbox" thing is a way for Google to cement it's hold on Web user data collection and lock other data brokers out of the market.
Blocking of third-party cookies only blocks collection of data by outside entities. Google, being the ones in control of Chrome and the sandbox, continue to have access to all data directly from the user (or their browser) directly. This makes Google the only game in town as far as Chrome users go when it comes to collecting data on t
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We all trust (or don't) our browser manufacturer to some degree. They theoretically could be doing all kinds of things.
I have no love of Chromium, but maybe going back to Firefox at some point would be a good idea.
FLEDGE? (Score:2)
Unpopular sandbox? (Score:2)
Do the advertiser kids not want to play in it?
It's secure, no dog-poop anywhere.
The elephant in the room (Score:2)
The elephant in the room is way overly complicated standards. It is because of overly complex standards for html, CSS, and blah blah blah that there aren't 10 different browser engines to choose from. Even MS, the former king of overly complex standards killing competition finally threw in the towel when it comes to browser engines.
Too bad, Firebase is nice (Score:2)
It's too bad, because IMO one of the best things in Google Cloud is Firebase. We've built a number of sites with it, and overall it's been a terrific dev experience, but it always feels like we're on borrowed time because we just "know" that at some point Google will lose interest and move on to the next shiny thing.