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Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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11–20 of 352 posts

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#11
Is there any evidence behind the idea that FLoC is more privacy-preserving than third-party cookies? Intuitively that is not obvious to me at all, especially given there are so many other fingerprinting techniques it could be combined with.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#12

Is there any evidence behind the idea that FLoC is more privacy-preserving than third-party cookies? Intuitively that is not obvious to me at all, especially given there are so many other fingerprinting techniques it could be combined with.

You can't use FLoC ID for fingerprinting, it changes continuously.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#13
post #7

FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts which aims to target advertising better without it directly relying on singularly personal information. https://web.dev/floc/ FLoC enables ad selection without sharing the browsing behaviour of individual users. FLoC provides a privacy-preserving mechanism for interest-based ad selection. As a user moves around the web, their browser uses the FLoC algorithm to work out it…

If I must have ads, I'd prefer not be tracked by hundreds of untrustworthy companies, and I'd also prefer not see irrelevant ads... This therefore seems like the best bad option...

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#15
post #7

FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts which aims to target advertising better without it directly relying on singularly personal information. https://web.dev/floc/ FLoC enables ad selection without sharing the browsing behaviour of individual users. FLoC provides a privacy-preserving mechanism for interest-based ad selection. As a user moves around the web, their browser uses the FLoC algorithm to work out it…

It is a very similar feature to Apple Segments[1] already implemented in iOS on which sadly not a lot of documentation is available.

[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#16

Is there any evidence behind the idea that FLoC is more privacy-preserving than third-party cookies? Intuitively that is not obvious to me at all, especially given there are so many other fingerprinting techniques it could be combined with.

I don’t think that’s the real goal. The real goal is to remove cookies so that compares other than google cannot use them for tracking. Then google uses FLOC as a substitute; they’re the only ones who can use FLOC so it works out great for them.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#17
post #7

FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts which aims to target advertising better without it directly relying on singularly personal information. https://web.dev/floc/ FLoC enables ad selection without sharing the browsing behaviour of individual users. FLoC provides a privacy-preserving mechanism for interest-based ad selection. As a user moves around the web, their browser uses the FLoC algorithm to work out it…

So, FLoC is a mechanism for facilitating your being targeted by commercial propaganda, but not as accurate/personalized as other mechanisms by Google, Amazon and others. Am I getting it right?

But - if the regular, more accurate/personalized, mechanisms work in Chromium - why use the less-accurate ones?

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#19

Is there any evidence behind the idea that FLoC is more privacy-preserving than third-party cookies? Intuitively that is not obvious to me at all, especially given there are so many other fingerprinting techniques it could be combined with.

I don’t think that’s the real goal. The real goal is to remove cookies so that compares other than google cannot use them for tracking. Then google uses FLOC as a substitute; they’re the only ones who can use FLOC so it works out great for them.

I suspect as much, but I'm trying to see if that's just speculation or if it's a conclusion I can reach given other factors.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#20

Is there any evidence behind the idea that FLoC is more privacy-preserving than third-party cookies? Intuitively that is not obvious to me at all, especially given there are so many other fingerprinting techniques it could be combined with.

I don’t think that’s the real goal. The real goal is to remove cookies so that compares other than google cannot use them for tracking. Then google uses FLOC as a substitute; they’re the only ones who can use FLOC so it works out great for them.

Google (and a small number of other companies, notably Facebook and Amazon) are also able to continue "traditional" profiling due to their extensive first-party traffic / backend integrations.

If FLoC goes as they plan, there will be less tracking overall, but the tracking there is will be considerably more centralized, less technically transparent, and cement incumbent market advantages. (All totally coincidental unfortunate side-effects of Google's concern for your privacy.)

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