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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

#201

Post by account42 »

sanxiyn wrote: post #61
edent wrote: post #7

Why isn't this opt-in? I'm sick of having to add yet another config option every time some Web giant decides it is OK to abuse my website and my visitors.

We should make this opt-in, by emitting the header by default in Apache and nginx and requiring special configuration to remove the header.

No, we should absolutely not bloat every HTTP response just because Google wants to abuse its users. Not to mention that widespread use of this header will result in it being ignored entirely just like happened to DNT. The proper reponse is to a) convince people to stop using Chrome and other Google software and b) campaign for legislation and antitrust enforcement and c) remove google ads, analytics and any other Google scripts from your websites.

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

#202

Post by kevincox »

unobatbayar wrote: post #99
peanut_worm wrote: post #21

I think I will just block Chrome users from my websites

What browser do you recommend?

Firefox is the best option.

I think browser diversity is important to ensure that web platform features are thoroughly planned. While FLoC shows that chromium-based browser will oppose the worst features that Google attempts to push through Google has already been know to implement web features that all other browsers have expressed no interest in implementing, often due to privacy concerns. So while I think many other Chromium based browsers are better than Chrome giving market share to an alternate browser engine is a huge benefit for the open web.

An example where Firefox felt that the privacy concerns of a feature were not sufficiently addressed is https://chromestatus.com/feature/4733392803332096. There are many more examples, especially around many of the APIs to expose local devices.

Another option is Safari which I consider a better option than Chrome but they also seem to prefer pushing native apps over the open web and Safari seems to purposely lag behind on implementing some critical web features (especially on mobile).

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

#203

Post by rchaud »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #111
kristopolous wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 succes…

"Would you be willing to entertain that maybe they died because most people found those platforms to be simply weaker product offerings?" No. I mean hahahahahah HELL NO not even close. WebOS was great. The only thing that made Android win was the brute force of Google, and the fact that Android was open source and WebOS was not (somehow, despite being Linux), and mismanagement by Palm. "Weaker product offerings" isn'…

I bought the HP Touchpad w/ WebOS. It was laughably bad. Maybe PalmOS had apps, but WebOS came with pretty much nothing, meaning that for entertainment you went to the web browser. And that was very slow and laggy. You could only load one tab at a time.

A few months later, an unofficial Android ROM was created, and it was a huge upgrade, even though it was only Android 2.2.

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

#204

Post by imwillofficial »

pdenton wrote: post #155
shakna wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add the HTML equivalent to the document head:

I don't think the meta version of Permissions-Policy ever got implemented. "http-equiv" isn't a magic "here's a HTTP header I forgot to mention" pixie dust. Better stick to the actual recommendation of adding the header in the server configuration.

In my case I don’t have access to the server configuration. I’m running a blog with Ghost Pro, is the above a reasonable workaround?

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

#208

Post by jefftk »

int_19h wrote: post #136
bhl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two sides to every story. Reducing the amount of third-party tracking cookies on the web, and implementing a novel application of federated learning are definitely things some engineers would do, money aside, because they're technically challenging. Also link to that source code mentioned: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:c...

> Reducing the amount of third-party tracking cookies on the web Why would anyone care about that, as opposed to, you know, reducing the amount of tracking ?

FLoC does reduce tracking: instead of many third parties building a thorough picture of your activity server-side, your page-level activity stays in the browser. Which already needs to know that, so it can maintain your history and turn links purple. Only the aggregated "cohort" is available to sites.

(Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, speaking only for myself)

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

#209

Post by kerng »

izacus wrote: post #150
skinkestek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People around the world build machines that melt skin off of children in Middle East There is a problem with that statement and I will try to highlight it by creating a couple more of the same: - There are people working to build software to allow people to share child porn without getting caught (about Moxie and anyone working to bring e2e-encryption to the masses) - there were people working in factories that cre…

Look, I understand your point. But this bizarre handwringing over "how dare you work on advertising?" just feels like there's something wrong with worlds perception of the poster. There are literally millions of people that deliberately do jobs that knowingly hurt people (and are built AROUND hurting and scamming people) and asking yourself "why would anyone try to improve on an ads tracking system while keeping ads…

Targeted ads are powerful manipulation tools and its okay to call people out for working in these areas.

You can do ads without profiling users and violating their privacy.

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

#210

Post by zentiggr »

kristopolous wrote: post #120
Brian_K_White wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Would you be willing to entertain that maybe they died because most people found those platforms to be simply weaker product offerings?" No. I mean hahahahahah HELL NO not even close. WebOS was great. The only thing that made Android win was the brute force of Google, and the fact that Android was open source and WebOS was not (somehow, despite being Linux), and mismanagement by Palm. "Weaker product offerings" isn'…

Clearly you're not like most people. Until people can really understand what I said above, and clearly they still can't, this kind of stuff will always happen The biggest players in the industry released failed handheld platforms for 20 years before Android. That theory does not explain the failure of all the other prior attempts by other monopolies

Had Palm's management not had a series of stroke-like horrible decisions, I can imagine a present where the PalmOS 5.0 clusterfuck and just-barely-good-enough Treos gave way to WebOS devices that could have recovered the company, and the iPhone would have had to compete against _that_ potentially much more solid platform.

All these years later, I still wish I could have sat in on those meetings and told Palm management just how badly they were screwing themselves.

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