[HN Gopher] Privacy Analysis of FLoC ___________________________________________________________________ Privacy Analysis of FLoC Author : jonchang Score : 140 points Date : 2021-06-10 18:25 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (blog.mozilla.org) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.mozilla.org) | jonchang wrote: | This is a summary of the more detailed findings in their paper, | which I found easy to read and has some intriguing suggestions | for fixing privacy issues with the original proposal: | https://mozilla.github.io/ppa-docs/floc_report.pdf | olliej wrote: | FLoC is inherently anti-user, it serves literally no purpose | other than to support tracking, while breaking all current anti- | tracking tech by mandating its user across domains (a nice solid | break of Same Origin policy). | | That it came from google is hardly surprising, as they are hell | bent on stealing every bit of information they can from everyone, | whether or not that person has a relationship with them, let | alone consented to the abuse. | | I would be stunned if FLoC lasted more than a few months in the | real world before google just started using it as an additional | source of entropy to spy on people across domains. | google234123 wrote: | Removing effective ads from the internet would be even more | anti user. I dont think most people will be happy when | everything is paywalled effectively. | olliej wrote: | The abusive tracking hasn't made ads more effective. I mean | it means advertisers spend more paying for bigger and noisier | ads sure, but that's also anti-user. | | There's also nothing stopping ads from being relevant, when | google started AdWords (when "don't be evil" was still a | thing) you got useful ads based on what you were actually | looking at. Now you getting nothing but repeat ads for | something you searched for last week. | | that relevant ads requires spying and abuse is nonsense, and | google's original destruction of the ad tech industry | demonstrated that non-spying ads that were based on page | content were more than effective enough. | | Of course your uid implies that at best you're a pro-google | fan, if not an actual employee, so I don't see me convincing | you of anything. | justinplouffe wrote: | What bothers me the most about FLOC is that there is no reason or | advantage for me as a user to run it unless I'm forced to. | Cookies, even if they get hijacked for tracking, are genuinely | useful to persist state and having them on results in a better | experience. Even in the case of something more invasive like | DRM/EME, I might want to turn it on in exchange to be able to | watch some new show on a streaming service. Turning on FLOC | brings nothing to the user in return and feels like charity | towards advertisers. | md_ wrote: | Isn't the DRM comparison exactly right, though? Improving ad | targeting enables an ad-supported online ecosystem. | | Admittedly, there's a tragedy of the commons issue: I have no | individual incentive to enable FLOC. But, similarly to your DRM | example, at some point publishers could require it, no? | jedberg wrote: | I like personalized ads. If I have to suffer with ads to | support the websites I like, I'd rather have them personalized. | Instagram is really good at this -- I probably click on at | least 1/4 of the ads I get, and have definitely made purchases | based on Instagram ads. | | So as a user, the benefit would be better ads. Honestly I'll | probably leave FLOC on if given the option (although I use | Firefox and Safari, and as far as I know neither will really | support it). | sixothree wrote: | Better ads isn't a product I have much interest in. I have | very much literally never seen a targeted ad I like or even | found useful. This sounds like Google employee speak to me. | saurik wrote: | FWIW, I am "personally" sick of the Internet reminding me of | the thing I already bought yesterday, along with doubling | down on ads for things I only engage with because I want to | show my friends how stupid the ad/product is, which seems to | be the state of the art of "personalized" Internet ads. I | would honestly get more value--if I am forced to see ads--out | of less personalized ads. | | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbKdKcGJ4tM <- best commentary | on ads _ever_ | skinkestek wrote: | that was in deed brilliant! | Waterluvian wrote: | I agree. I like personalized ads. Where I'm bothered is when | they're "too" personalized. | | Like I buy an oven, why are you showing me ovens? Stop over | fitting. Just know that I'm an active nerd and advertise me | active nerd stuff. | throwaway2048 wrote: | HN is the only place on the internet I've seen people expound | their love for personalized advertising. | summerlight wrote: | https://univ20.com/107631 | | There's an interesting article regarding behavioral | observations on personalized advertisements, though it's in | Korean. Summary for those who doesn't want to use a | translator (KR to EN performance is typically bad): | * Generation Z's reaction to ads personalization category | (from Google and FB) is somewhat positive in that they | don't really care about its creepiness but think more | accurate categorization on each personality as a better | thing. The report thinks that they consider it as more of | utility rather than just privacy invasion. * More | interestingly, sometime they "guide" ad targeting systems | to show information that matches to their interests to save | their efforts on searching for perfect matches. Honestly, I | was super surprised since I haven't thought about this kind | of usage even though I'm working on ads. * Some of | them (though the tone indicates that it's not majority?) | does not skip video ads to "pay" a subscription fee for | creators who they want to support. I saw some similar cases | even in the US though. * Sometime they're actively | looking for explicitly sponsored reviews, which is actually | an ad. It's because they sometime decide to buy specific | products before watching its ads. This inversion of | causality seems very odd to me, but the rationale is that | they just want to better understand the product and don't | care whether it's an ad or not. | | It's written by a marketer who seems to be negative about | personalized ads and genuinely surprised by these | observations. Honestly... I still cannot get this but yeah, | it seems there's some people who consider personalized ads | as a tool. | smoldesu wrote: | It's more of a hierarchy, to me. I prefer no ads, but I'd | rather have personalized ones than the raunchy shlock they | serve you if you're a "nobody". | alpaca128 wrote: | Personalised ads imply data collection, privacy | violations and tracking across websites. That doesn't | sound like a good deal. Especially as personalised ads | are just as annoying and unhelpful because the algorithms | are simply useless. No, when I bought a game I don't want | to buy the Collector's Edition one day later. And that | won't change over the 3 months I'm getting the same | stupid recommendation. Might as well show me literally a | random product, I'd be more likely to buy it. | giantrobot wrote: | I don't mind the concept of ads. I didn't really mind early | ads on the web. They were a lot like magazine ads, the | website owners would run ads in the same broad interest | category as their site. Then early AdTech happened and went | fucking insane. Google's early text ads, before the | DoubleCkick reverse takeover, were a sane reaction to | insane web ads. Google's ads too went insane. | | Now ads aren't just ads but crazy tracking mechanisms. | Because of the opaque system of ad brokers they're also a | malware vector because no one vets anything because money. | They also very helpfully push me towards monthly data caps | by loading megabytes of extra scripts on every page load | and things like auto-playing videos. | | So while I don't mind advertising conceptually, fuck ads | and AdTech. I do everything possible to block ads just to | make browsing _usable_ , to say nothing of privacy or | malware. I just hit the good ol' Back button whenever I get | a "disable your adblocker" message. Disabling ad blocking | doesn't just mean I see ads, it means I can barely read a | web page and have to run megabytes of scripts that do who | knows what. | wolverine876 wrote: | Is there any research on people's preferences in this | regard? | ahelwer wrote: | It helps that that's where the money comes from. | jedberg wrote: | I'm sure there are some forums where people who sell ads | like them too. :) | | But what can I say, I'm a realist. I spent a lot of years | working on a website supported by advertising. I understand | not everyone will or can pay for the websites they enjoy, | and advertising is a good second option. | | And if we're going to have to live in a world with ad | supported websites, I'd rather those ads be good. | ahelwer wrote: | You're defining "good" here to mean "effective at | manipulating me to spend money", which is strange! I'd | rather not be manipulated into buying things I didn't | realize would finally fill the gaping hole inside my soul | until two seconds ago. Would be perfectly content seeing | ads for, I don't know, farm equipment until I happily | perish of old age never once experiencing the fomo of not | possessing a theragun. | j_wtf_all_taken wrote: | But then it seems the problem is not ads, but the gaping | holes in peoples souls? | wizzwizz4 wrote: | The ads are opening those holes. It doesn't take long for | them to close again, but by that time you've decided to | buy the thing. | j_wtf_all_taken wrote: | I strongly believe that gaping holes did exist in peoples | souls waaaay before ads were invented. | | Don't know, though ... when I asked the all-knowing | internet if "gaping holes did exist in people's souls | before ads were invented", the first search result is a | link to the Harry Potter Fandom-Wiki article about | Dementors: | | _" Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk | this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, | they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, | and happiness out of the air around them... Get too near | a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory | will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will | feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like | itself... soulless and evil. You will be left with | nothing but the worst experiences of your life."_ | jedberg wrote: | I'm defining good as "informing of things I didn't know | existed". I consider advertising just another news | channel. | | Copying from my comment above, here are some examples of | things I've bought. I like trying out new things because | I can afford it, but I don't always have time to go out | and look for them. | | So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram | ads: | | The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot | existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was | a product I could buy with it already installed. I liked | the idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my | own. The existence of a commercial product vastly | improved my life. I've already used it for over 1000 | miles of self driving in just a couple weeks. It's a | night and day difference when driving. I suppose I would | have eventually heard about the product, but I'm glad I | heard about it when I did. | | The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known | it existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to | give my kids something fun to build that sparks a | conversation about Pride and what it means and why it's | important. | p49k wrote: | The end doesn't justify the means. Finding out about some | cool stuff doesn't justify the insane amount of | collection of ones personal data by hundreds of companies | in a manner which is basically impossible for a person to | reasonably prevent. | google234123 wrote: | An internet with no ads will have much less content. | mavhc wrote: | OK, so someone has "my data", ie a partial list of | websites I may have visited. Now what? What harm has been | caused to me? | j_wtf_all_taken wrote: | It'd just be nice to have a little more control, for | starters. So advertisers try to figure out what we want | by what websites we visit and are not too good at it. | They could also just ... ask? I'd like to have an ad | service that I can tell what I'm actually interested in | these days, and that forces the companies to provide lots | of information about the product they are advertising for | (documentation and stuff). So if I see an interesting ad, | I can easily find out if its actually something I want. | And money only flows if I actually buy something, | affiliate-link style. | jedberg wrote: | Unfortunately asking users doesn't usually work out well. | My favorite example is from Netflix. They asked users, | "What movie needs to be on the service for you to | consider it a good service with good movies that you | would want to see repeatedly". A lot of people answered | "Schindler's list". But when you looked at those same | user's actual viewing, they never once watched | Schindler's list, but they watch Jackass multiple times. | So what they really wanted was Jackass, but either were | too ashamed to admit it, or didn't actually understand | their own preferences. | saurik wrote: | FWIW, I feel like a good restaurant serves wine. I don't | drink wine, but if your restaurant doesn't serve it, and | I am tasked with choosing between two restaurants based | on some quick glance at their menu sections and photos of | their interior (as of course I am not informed about | either: I am supposed to come up with some quick | heuristic), it might not matter if you have the world's | best hamburger (what I am actually going to order at your | fancy restaurant, along with a glass of plain soda water, | as I am a philistine). So I dunno: that could still be | consistent, given the question phrased the way you did. | j_wtf_all_taken wrote: | Yeah the difference between the things we know we should | want, and the things we actually want in the moment. Its | incredible in how many ways the brain can be annoying ;-) | codetrotter wrote: | I hate ads. They hijack my attention and they promote | things for the companies that have the most money to spend | on screaming at me about their products. I wish the | advertising industry simply disappeared. | | In fact if I had three wishes they would be 1. End poverty | and allow everyone in the world to pursue their dreams | while still being able to live acceptably well. 2. Make it | impossible for anyone to amass more than some to-be- | determined ceiling amount of times more money than everyone | else. 3. Make advertising simply stop existing - everyone | forgets what it is and it is never invented again. | badsectoracula wrote: | I used to like the idea many years ago (think 10-15 or so) | since if i'm going to see ads might as well have them be | about stuff that interest me - which can actually be useful | now and then. | | But the thing is, what i wanted was for Google to let me | actually _choose_ what sort of ads i see, not try to guess. | | Nowadays i just use an adblocker. | leipert wrote: | Interesting. I just dislike ads altogether. Especially | Instagram feels very manipulative. So far nothing we have | bought based on Instagram or Facebook ads has been useful in | the long run. | | Personally I prefer to either have a need for something (I | want to solve problem X) and do some research based off of | that. Or I share an experience with a friend where they make | a recommendation. | | Funniest Facebook ad by the way: I work for <employer> and my | partner gets ads for <products of employer> on Facebook. | jedberg wrote: | I dislike ads too. I'd rather just pay to use the sites. | But I also understand not everyone can afford that. The ads | are there for them. | | So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram ads: | The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known it | existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to give my | kids something fun to build that sparks a conversation | about Pride and what it means and why it's important. | | The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot | existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was a | product I could buy with it already installed. I liked the | idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my own. | The existence of a commercial product vastly improved my | life. I've already used it for over 1000 miles of self | driving in just a couple weeks. It's a night and day | difference when driving. I suppose I would have eventually | heard about the product, but I'm glad I heard about it when | I did. | neolog wrote: | Are there many people who can't afford to pay for a | pageview but can afford the product being advertised on | that page? | jedberg wrote: | No, but that's the whole point of ads. They're like a | progressive tax system. Also some ads are awareness | campaigns. Like you see a bunch of ads for Coke and the | subconsciously when you want a soda you grab a Coke. | wearywanderer wrote: | Advertising is linked to depression, body dysmorphic | disorders like anorexia, and numerous other adverse mental | conditions. The advertising industry has a whole lot of | blood on their hands. This is an industry that doesn't | think twice about exploiting people's feelings of | vulnerability or isolation to help sell products. The more | vulnerable the demographic, the more abusive the | advertising industry gets. Just look at the shit they | subject teenagers to; almost all the advertising to | teenagers is focused on how buying [product] will make the | teenager like the popular and attractive models being used | to shill the product. | mavhc wrote: | On the plus side it gives free information to billions of | people, now everyone can have free gps maps, email, | websites | CrazedGeek wrote: | It's not free if you're paying with your health. | driverdan wrote: | > If I have to suffer with ads to support the websites I like | | You don't. Use an adblocker and be done with them. | jefftk wrote: | And then how is the website jedberg likes supported? | bogwog wrote: | Which means that the most likely outcome is that Google won't | let Chrome users disable it, or they'll hide it behind some | dark patterns, re-enable it after every update, etc. | tyingq wrote: | _" because FLoC IDs are the same across all sites, they become a | shared key to which trackers can associate data from external | sources"_ | | _" FLoC leaks more information than you want"_ | | _" The end result here is that any site will be able to learn a | lot about you with far less effort than they would need to expend | today."_ | | Hmm. From someone (Firefox Team CTO) that probably knows this | space well. | SquareWheel wrote: | The article itself mostly just retreads existing thoughts, but | the linked PDF is actually quite good. That might be the better | submission URL. | rubyist5eva wrote: | I'll continue to just block everything, thanks but no thanks. I | don't need or want any of this tracking garbage. I _definitely_ | don 't want whatever Google is pushing. | o8r3oFTZPE wrote: | Is there anyone on HN who believes Mozilla will not implement | FLoC in Firefox. Mozilla has stated over and over that it is a | firm believer in advertising as "essential" for the internet to | survive. In practice, they never phrase it as an opinion or even | an underlying assumption (that can be questioned), they try to | state this as a "fact".[1] This is called advocacy. Mozilla is an | advocate for online advertising. They derive their salaries from | payments from a deal with an online advertising company and in | return they send search queries on Firefox to that company. (This | argument that ads are critical is total BS, IMO. The internet | worked great without ads. It would work even better now. Anyone | who tests these things can see the web without ads works much | better than it does with ads.) What Mozilla really needs to state | is that Mozilla believes online ads are critical to Mozilla's | survival as an employer. If web browser authors and their bosses | want to be paid, then they _assume_ they must to sell out to | advertisers. Why is there no privacy by default when using web | browsers. This is why. | | 1. Note first sentence, underlying assumption, of Mozilla | communications. This company is blinded by advertising payola and | cannot see non-commercial use of the web as worth protecting. | | https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/the-future-of-ads-and-pr... | | https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-a-more-privacy-... | dang wrote: | Ongoing related thread: _Ad tech firms test ways to connect | Google's FLoC to other data_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27459247 - June 2021 (183 | comments) | aboringusername wrote: | It's really a genius level move by Google here. Get rid of the | cookie, implement your _own_ solution, make it seem somewhat | unique and rely on other data to identify users and claim | impunity since it 's nothing to do with them. | | So how about this, Google must not, and cannot implement FLOC | without it being a cross-browser standard; that is to say if | _anyone_ of Microsoft, Apple or Mozilla veto FLOC, it 's dead. | | This is how standards are _supposed_ to work. Google should not | be given the power to make a thing (like AMP) and just force it | upon everyone. | | We MUST start regulating Google's every product development, I'd | rather it get held up for a year in court before it sees the | light of day. | dmitriid wrote: | > So how about this, Google must not, and cannot implement FLOC | without it being a cross-browser standard; that is to say if | anyone of Microsoft, Apple or Mozilla veto FLOC, it's dead. | | Google couldn't care less about "cross-browser standards". | They've been ramming Google-designed and Google-authored | "standards" through standards bodies for years now, and | increasingly disregard any objections from other browser | implementors. And, sadly, there are only two browser | implementors left that have any relevance: Safari and Firefox. | ______- wrote: | > FLoC is premised on a compelling idea: enable ad targeting | without exposing users to risk | | The second you open your browser you are exposed to risk. Many | times I have had to tweak the default settings of my browser to | comply with my (non paranoid) requirements. Basic things like | putting DuckDuckGo as the default search engine, turning off | various JS APIs like HTML5 Canvas, WebGL, using AD-blockers and | other addons, tweaking about:config and hardening it, etc | | Call me a power user if you want, but all this hardening stuff | should ship out-of-the-box. | passivate wrote: | Realistically, can you ship a website where everything happens | client side? - reflow, adjusting layout, computing | locations/sizes and whatnot. I am not a web person so my | thinking may be outdated on this. I'm imagining something like | a stand-alone self-contained "docker" type thing. | freeone3000 wrote: | That's how most websites work. The JavaScript code that runs | on the browser then reports back to a server, because it | makes money for the people who wrote the app. | passivate wrote: | Yeah, I meant without the 'reporting back to a server'. | Like for e.g., the website sends a 'package' to the browser | - The package is built on the fly and contains all the | dependencies. The package is then unarchived and files are | opened in the browser w/o the server being involved. | yoz-y wrote: | That is the standard static html + css + JavaScript | without further requests. Aka Web 1.0. (Should you make | all in one page with inline images that is) | freeone3000 wrote: | Then how are the people who wrote the app supposed to | make money by selling your personal information to | advertisers? | vlovich123 wrote: | The funny thing is that customizing your browser in this way | can be its own kind of fingerprint. | tylersmith wrote: | That's the number 1 reason it should be the default. | freebuju wrote: | Not happening. All those anti-tracking measures break | websites more often than not. | wearywanderer wrote: | That is flat wrong in my experience. I browse with | javascript and CSS both disabled by default, using | uMatrix. Only a minority of sites I browse require me to | whitelist JS or CSS; maybe 1-in-10. _Most_ newspapers and | blogs do not require JS or CSS. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | They break sites that are broken by design. If a site | isn't usable with html and css it's the devs fault. They | don't get to dictate my browser's capability or assume I | don't have special accessibility needs. | throwaway2048 wrote: | "more often than not" is a vast overstatement, it breaks | a tiny handful of sites at best. | ______- wrote: | Yes but disabling JS as a default wipes out whole classes of | attacks against your browser. | | On top of disabling JS, just a simple AD blocker like uBlock | Origin greatly diminishes the amount of profiling. There is | no silver bullet however. It depends on your threat model. | | If you really don't want to be tracked and profiled, using | the Tor Browser Bundle is worthwhile, but even that is | problematic since it's heavily surveilled (both at the entry | node and exit nodes). | SimeVidas wrote: | > all this hardening stuff should ship out-of-the-box. | | I mean, Brave kinda does that. It's much more "hardened" by | default. | LeoPanthera wrote: | "No, you shouldn't use Brave": https://web.archive.org/web/20 | 210531085250/https://aspenuwu.... | thanhhaimai wrote: | Opinions are my own. | | I'm not sure if we're being led to focus on a wrong problem. I | hate intrusive Ads as much as everyone else. However, it's not | only that "when you open your browser, you are exposed to | risk". It's also: | | - Every time you use Windows (without turning off all the bad | settings) | | - Every time you connect to a Cell tower (telcos openly sell | your location data) | | - Every time you use your credit cards | | Now, I'm not saying those are OK, or to justify intrusive Ads. | However, I see a magnitude difference in the "violation of my | privacy" for the above cases. The media and certain communities | keep focusing on Ads tech because it drives clicks. But then we | let the Telcos, Insurance, and Credit Card companies establish | a creeping normality on our privacy violation. | | We don't spend as much effort to stop Telco from directly | selling our location data [1], but we have daily threads about | companies indirectly use our location data for targeting Ads. | Are we having our priority wrong? I couldn't shake the feeling | that we're being led by a different narrative. The best | situation of course is when we have good privacy laws and | practices. However, focusing on the wrong priority like this is | how we let other (much more severe) violators (Insurance, | Telcos) get away with their creeping normality. | | [1] https://www.marketplace.org/2020/02/28/fcc-set-to-fine- | big-t... | aboringusername wrote: | It doesn't matter anymore. The world is literally covered in | tracking technologies from satellites orbiting the earth to | radiowaves that are invisible to us but are monitoring our | interactions within the world. | | By existing in 2021 (whether you use computers/tech or not) | you need to accept your data will be collected, analyzed and | sold. It will be leaked, combined/processed and abused in | many different ways. I would be surprised if there was a | single human on earth Facebook did not have a profile on at | this point. I'd suspect the NSA can bring up the profiles of | all 7 billion humans and recollect their entire lives from | the digital/physical breadcrumbs they leave every day. | | Now that we can collect so much data, so rapidly (at the | speed of light) and can analyze it in real time and store it | forever it seems every digital application is focused on | obtaining that valuable information and storing it to use in | some way (usually, for profit). | | Even electric cars require apps and digital connectivity | before they can be used/charged. | | Data is the new gold. | ocdtrekkie wrote: | Telecoms are heavily regulated, and your link reinforces | that: The FCC is able to directly fine telcos from selling | our location data. Tech companies generally aren't subject to | the same fines as telecoms are for doing... exactly the same | things. | | And while Verizon, T-Mobile, etc. all have programs that opt- | in to data collection and marketing practices, it's often | impossible to opt out of tech companies' behaviors. Because | telecoms are required to get your opt-in consent to use your | data, generally they offer incentives to join rewards | programs that have the additional marketing permissions as a | requirement. | | For example, Verizon Up Rewards requires you enable Verizon | Selects, where they can collect information about your web | browsing activity and such: | https://www.androidauthority.com/verizons-new-rewards- | progra... Not something I'd want to participate in, but | Verizon is paying it's users for that data in effect, | something tech companies never do. | | > Opinions are my own. | | I find it impressive how well this line still singularly | identifies the employer of anyone who uses it. :) | slver wrote: | Disabling canvas... | tomrod wrote: | FLoC: micro market segmentation. Profiles versus data. | | It requires on 33 bits to uniquely identify an individual. [0]. | | I would be interested to learn whether FLoC employed k-anonymity | measures, and their report on it. | | If I am retired, female, live in the 830* zip3, and own a sedan, | it is probably hard to identify me. Add that I am Korean and am | searching for thyroid cancer treatments on Tuesday at 8:43AM | local, then I am way more identifiable. I don't understand how | FLoC works, and how it gets around this type of intrusion. | | The only solution I am aware of is to dramatically limit the | category depth. But that sort of defeats the purpose of micro | market segmentation. And that's a good thing, IMO. | | [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/primer-information- | the... | smoldesu wrote: | The article you linked relies on low-precision guessing that | only reduces the entropy in the system, but doesn't eliminate | it. No reasonable jury would consider their 33 bits to be | "uniquely identifiable". | olliej wrote: | plenty of places don't have that requirement, and bias goes a | long way beyond that. But more to the point, why should | google, etc, get to know that about you? | tomrod wrote: | Remember that's 33 bits right now. You can be represented, | uniquely, by 33 chained 0s and 1s as a GUID with no loss of | fidelity. Add to that ongoing observation over time compared | to a FLoC profile and the FLoC profile is a huge boon to the | bit increase. | | Think OutBrain a few years ago, who were egregiously intent | on serving certain clickbait to certain consumer sets. With | FLoC, your winnowing and funnel becomes much easier (rather | than serving rotten banana ads with just one trick, you KNOW | your consumer has a propensity for Dunkin Donuts and you can | increase your ad coverage). Everyone wins but the product -- | your eyeballs. | ruuda wrote: | Given that the cohort id is computed client-side, FLoC also | sounds like a nice opportunity to fool trackers. Why not send a | random cohort id with every request? In the worst case they'll | fall back to conventional tracking techniques, in the best case | it will add some noise to their data. | djhworld wrote: | Will there be a way to turn this off as a user so I'm never | included in any cohort calculations? | villasv wrote: | Yes, at least for now. Websites can also opt out entirely using | HTTP headers. | eingaeKaiy8ujie wrote: | Use Firefox. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-10 23:00 UTC)