Hacker News Reader

Comment by takeda | Hacker News Reader

I just love the Google's way of thinking.

Users: We hate cookies, because they are abused to hurt our privacy by allowing advertisers to build a profile about us

Google: We have a great idea! We can get rid of 3rd party cookies and instead make your browser build profile about you and share it with everyone.

View on HN

IIUC while floc does indeed build a profile browser side it isn’t something that advertisers can track with the same precision as they can with 3p cookies.

So while it’s not the holy grail it does appear to be a small step in the right direction from the status quo.

Do I understand the situation correctly? Genuinely curious.

That's what I've been wondering. If FLoC is better for privacy than current tracking methods and Google intends to switch to using FLoC instead of current tracking methods, wouldn't it be better for FLoC to succeed?

The problem is that it isn't much better (if at all) in its current implementation. The current implementation allows tracking and identifying individual users (this may be or may not be fixed by Google, it has already been reported to their Github issue tracker). Since it is entirely based on your browsing patterns you can also be tracked cross device (people's browsing patterns rarely change).

For the moment 3p cookies are better, they can easily be erased, blocked or even isolated, and are restricted to a single browser.

I'll bet my browsing habits change substantially enough across devices to lead to different floc cohorts. I use my laptop differently than my phone and there are lots of cohorts.

The privacy of current tracking methods (3rd party cookies) is bad, which is why a lot of browser vendors are starting to block 3rd party cookies by default. FLoC may be marginally better than 3rd party cookies, but still browser vendors are mostly choosing to block it by default. There isn't a good reason to let either succeed.

True, that makes sense

Even if we assume that FLoC is entirely good, it's a false choice - why do we need _any_ tracking at all?

The web survives by serving ads. Targeted ads earn content creators more. They earn more because of higher conversion rates, so presumably users like them more (ultimately if an ad makes me buy something, I probably appreciate having seen it).

Yes, but it is unlikely to succeed.

The problem is that it is an unstable strategy. FLoC is strictly worse for privacy-conscious users if trackers don't change their strategy, and it is also strictly worse for trackers to stop using their current tracking techniques.

It is a bit like the prisoner dilemma.

True, but the FLoC implementation comes with its own sack of worms look eff excellent post on it.

Paraphrasing what I saw somewhere

> If I go to thing W, X, Y, and Z (where those are distinct elements with distinct fans), people within those cohorts will be indistinguishable but I will likely be the only person who has been to all 4. Therefore, you can easily identify individuals. FLoC is a crock of shit. At least you could block 3rd party cookies

You can block FLoC: switch to Firefox, or at least to any Chromium derivative that isn't Chrome.

I think you can enable/disable FLoC via chrome://settings/privacy or chrome://flags.

See: https://github.com/WICG/floc/issues/103#issuecomment-8218146...

Then again, FLoC is only enabled "in a limited set of circumstances" anyways.

For details on said circumstances, see: https://github.com/WICG/floc#qualifying-users-for-whom-a-coh...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com