Brave disables Chromium FLoC features • Hacker News Board

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#141

Post by naniwaduni » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #89

HeckFeck wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not stealing anything by instructing my computer not to run code against my consent. No one is entitled to my CPU time. Least of all are advertisers. Also, the store isn't freakishly stalking me and noting down all my habits whilst sharing what it has collected with its friends, or indeed anyone who will buy the data. Besides, candy is impossible to replicate in the same way that data is. Theft of physical object…

The person you're replying to is not accusing you of stealing, they are using stealing from a candy store as a metaphor for how a certain amount of behavior that a company doesn't like is tolerated because it is not worth the effort to stop. The point is that Google could prevent most people from using ad blockers any time they wanted, but don't view it as worth the bad PR (or choose not to for other reasons).

This is a rhetorical bait-and-switch. The "stealing candy from a store" messaging is crafted to imply moral failure. The implication is there when you present the situation with that framing—you can't just walk it back when called out on it!

Nobody frames, say, taking a bathroom break when the ads play during a football game this way.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#142

Post by matkoniecz » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

petters wrote: post #138

matkoniecz wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strictly prefer irrelevant ads less likely to influence me. I really have enough projects, TODO lists, interesting things to buy to last for lifetime of 250 years. Why I would want ads likely to influence me? There is basically no chance that ad will show me useful, worth using object or service to buy that I would not discover anyway. It would be just another scam more effectively targeting me.

This has not been true for me. I have discovered interesting things in Facebook ads that I would not have discovered and bought otherwise. (They were obscure Kickstarter projects)

I agree that there is some chance that some products will be genuinely useful.

But overall risk of getting persuaded to buy worthless products or scammy "investments" seems to not be worth discovering real gems.

Overall I would prefer both scams and genuine offers to be as far as away from my interests as possible.

Obviously, I would prefer actually useful offers to be close to my interests and to have no scams/worthless trash/malware/porno in my ads, but it appears to not be an available option.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#143

Post by jka » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #70

JoshTriplett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to have ads at all. The best option is an adblocker, and a non-Chrome-based browser.

Honestly I have no problems with ad's as long as it doesn't involve any tracking (or lets call it what it is spying). If blog or similar can finance part of their cost with Ad's, why not. Sure on slow internet it's a somewhat different matter. Anyway Ad's okay, but tracking for me is spying and should be treated like that, i.e. it should be illegal. There are ways to have personalized ads without it, like local learn…

This is a more concise repost of a previous comment that I posted too hastily.

It's fair to believe that ads are 'ok' - it's also possible that people in general don't want them. Hosting low-traffic websites on a smartphone with cellular data is just-about-feasible now.

Rather than inventing very technically clever ways to continue on our existing path, as Apple and Google are doing, I think it'd be pleasant to simply move beyond the advertising model of content on the internet.

If asked, I don't believe people would want to be tracked or have ads mixed into their content.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#144

Post by pgl » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

What's going to happen is that sites will enumerate which FLoC IDs represent which set of interests, and just use send that data off together with whatever unique ID they're already tracking you with.

You can do this by just setting up a new profile and visiting various pages, then checking what the FLoC ID is. See here for an example by Jonathan Foote: https://twitter.com/footePGH/status/1380568421490905088

It's based on your browsing history, so companies will now be able to get an aggregate of your interests without having to actually track you across other sites.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#145

Post by type0 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 11:26 PM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #111

xvector wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but this time without direct web browsing activity tracking of users. Your FLOC cohort is a summary of your web browsing activity. FLOC doesn't solve the privacy problems that trackers create - it just hands them your browsing history on a silver platter.

It’s literally a cohort ID? Where did you get “hands them your browsing history on a silver platter” from?

because combined with browser fingerprinting it is exactly the outcome

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#146

Post by Angostura » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #91

dialtone wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm fed up with all the ads and tracking and it saddens me that even Apple does this shit. I want none of it. This shouldn't exist in your operating system at all.

This is for serving ads in the App store, the New App and the Stocks app (if that still exists?)

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#147

Post by kart23 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #91

dialtone wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm fed up with all the ads and tracking and it saddens me that even Apple does this shit. I want none of it. This shouldn't exist in your operating system at all.

When I first got my iPhone, I searched for Youtube on the app store. The first result I got was tiktok - an ad that takes up a third of the screen. Its a terrible UX and confused the hell out of me. I seriously thought Apple was supposed to be user-friendly and anti-advertising...

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#148

Post by quotemstr » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 11:31 PM UTC

lucasyvas wrote: post #95

Seeing: document.interestCohort is pretty abhorrent looking. First-class advertising support in a browser is a major turn-off. Google is probably only a few steps away from losing controlling stake in Chromium, and stuff like this certainly will lead others to flock away.

Why is it abhorrent? FLoC doesn't compromise your privacy. It does interest inference client-side, away from bigcorp servers. It doesn't leak any information about you. But all the "privacy" people are totally against it anyway.

Why? Because they just hate advertising. The whole "third party cookies are bad" thing has always been a sham: it was never about privacy. It's always been about killing advertising itself.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#149

Post by TheSmiddy » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 11:33 PM UTC

lupire wrote: post #124

throwawayboise wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ads are relevant to the content of the current page, no user profiling (even pseudo-anonymously) is necessary. To me that would be the best option.

Not every web page has an associated strong commercial intent. Most sites, quality sites, would lose out to commerical junk sites if only commercial sites could make money from ads.

Can you think of an example where there isn't an associated industry that would be able to serve ads?

A philosophy blog is the first thing that comes to find but even then that can have ads for universities, textbooks, quirky t-shirts, etc.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#150

Post by whoopdedo » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 11:33 PM UTC

My questions about FLoC are who controls the definitions of cohorts? Is it possible for someone to take advantage of cohort information in a way which leaves Google completely out of the loop? Do users (and system administrators) have any control over what cohort information is saved or transmitted by the browser? If they do have control over it, is it enforceable? (e.g. The DNT header is useless because services are not compelled to obey the request.)