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Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network

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Re: Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network

#81

Post by aww_dang »

jahewson wrote: post #72

Has nobody bothered to read anything about FLoC? The purpose of this permission is to prevent embedded third-party content from using FLoC. Besides that it’s a no-op. FLoC does not track arbitrary websites, it tracks sites which retrieve the FLoC cohort via JS. So instead of dropping a unique third party cookie, and associating it with the data on the page, sites can now retrieve a k-anonymous cohort id and associate…

https://github.com/WICG/floc/issues/82

>During the current FLoC origin trial, a page will also be included in the calculation if Chrome detects that the page load ads or ads-related resources.

Who's to say how this evolves in the future?

Re: Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network

#83

Post by jedwhite »

jahewson wrote: post #72

Has nobody bothered to read anything about FLoC? The purpose of this permission is to prevent embedded third-party content from using FLoC. Besides that it’s a no-op. FLoC does not track arbitrary websites, it tracks sites which retrieve the FLoC cohort via JS. So instead of dropping a unique third party cookie, and associating it with the data on the page, sites can now retrieve a k-anonymous cohort id and associate…

According to the W3C Federated Learning of Cohorts Draft Community Group Report, 13 April 2021, Paragraphs 3 & 7.1.1:

"The interest cohort API lives under the Document interface since the access permission is tied to the document scope, and the API is only available if the document is in secure context."

and

"The page can opt itself out of the interest cohort computation through the "interest-cohort" policy-controlled feature. [PERMISSIONS-POLICY]" [1]

[1] https://wicg.github.io/floc/

Edit for para reference.

Re: Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network

#84

Post by rivn »

toper-centage wrote: post #37
dannyw wrote: post #15

Let me get this straight: even if my site has no ads or trackers, Chrome will now use my visitors data for advertising and surveillance??? Does anyone else see FLoC as worse than the current state we're in?

Chrome was already tracking your users anyway...

why is this comment gray? it's true

https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf

Re: Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network

#85

Post by heavyset_go »

m4x wrote: post #55
kovac wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the state of affairs with the mobile world is the worst. I can't help but think that Android was the worst disaster that happened to software industry. Android corrupted the ethos of FOSS, decimated all hopes for privacy, contributed to destroying the environment, stripped users of freedom of choice. I think it'll take a very special group of people to reverse the tide.

Can you elaborate on why you think Android is a disaster? Particularly the environmental aspect and freedom of choice. If android didn't exist then iOS might be the only major mobile OS, so in that sense at least it seems to be good that Android exists. It would be much better if it wasn't widely used as a carrier for Google's ecosystem and spyware, of course.

Before Android killed them, webOS existed, as did Maemo.

Re: Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network

#86

Post by yarcob »

wyager wrote: post #69
sanxiyn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web server software maintainers should enable the header by default. Bugs should be filed against those with the wrong default.

Web server software should absolutely not add a bunch of garbage to work around some ad company's shenanigans.

Pretty much all network code has workarounds or default configurations that work around problems with specific clients.

I guess this topic is more of a political issue rather than an obvious compatiblity issue, so it's not as clear cut.

But adding special code to deal with buggy clients is something everyone has to do sooner or later.

Re: Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network

#87

Post by heavyset_go »

ehsankia wrote: post #63
dcow wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably things that promote a healthy internet also benefit website owners since their sites exist on the internet.

That sounds like people arguing that nuclear energy is a bad solution to climate change because it's not perfect and technically not renewable. - FLoC is still far better than third party cookies - As much as we'd love to live in a world without advertising, 95% of the internet wouldn't exist without it. - If we are going to have advertising, I'd much rather have FLoC than third party cookies

> FLoC is still far better than third party cookies

I don't care because my browser blocks third party cookies.

Re: Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network

#88

Post by kristopolous »

heavyset_go wrote: post #85
m4x wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on why you think Android is a disaster? Particularly the environmental aspect and freedom of choice. If android didn't exist then iOS might be the only major mobile OS, so in that sense at least it seems to be good that Android exists. It would be much better if it wasn't widely used as a carrier for Google's ecosystem and spyware, of course.

Before Android killed them, webOS existed, as did Maemo.

Would you be willing to entertain that maybe they died because most people who used phones found those platforms to be weaker product offerings with the things they cared about and that your value system may have fundamentally differences?

Would you further entertain that the inability to perceive such realities and differences and manufacturers inability to navigate these preferences is a major determinant of success? (Microsoft failed here for instance and Amazon's fire is on life support. If piles of money were the primary cause we'd all be using Sharps, Psions, IBM Simons and AT&T Eo, there's something else to say, the failure of At&t hobbit, they had a solid monopoly position)

Capturing the consumer is tricky business and maemo simply wasn't the right it. Nor was Windows Mobile or FirefoxOS or WebOS or, ultimately, Palm or BlackBerry

Re: Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network

#89

Post by kristopolous »

mrighele wrote: post #66
m4x wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on why you think Android is a disaster? Particularly the environmental aspect and freedom of choice. If android didn't exist then iOS might be the only major mobile OS, so in that sense at least it seems to be good that Android exists. It would be much better if it wasn't widely used as a carrier for Google's ecosystem and spyware, of course.

Most of the people outside the US cannot afford an iOS device, so my guess is that missing Android there would be something else (Blackberry ? Windows Mobile ? who knows how it would have gone)

honestly with the rise of the web-app based phone app platforms (react/ionic etc) becoming almost "standard" the friction for porting to a hypothetical third platform goes down substantially.

Ignoring the branding law of duality (that generally only 2 brands occupy the supermajority of a product category) and looking only at technical barriers, now looks to be better than ever for a third platform to possibly arise - especially given the rise of ARM SoCs.

Re: Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network

#90

Post by mippenhappen »

ehsankia wrote: post #63
dcow wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably things that promote a healthy internet also benefit website owners since their sites exist on the internet.

That sounds like people arguing that nuclear energy is a bad solution to climate change because it's not perfect and technically not renewable. - FLoC is still far better than third party cookies - As much as we'd love to live in a world without advertising, 95% of the internet wouldn't exist without it. - If we are going to have advertising, I'd much rather have FLoC than third party cookies

>95% of the internet wouldn't exist without it.

And that would properly be a good thing.

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