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Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

vivaldi.com

221–230 of 271 posts

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#221
post #217
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is the FLOC is surveillance as well. You are still profiling users. This has got to stop. https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-ge...

I agree FLoC is tracking (though not at the individual level). The question we've been discussing, however, is the effect on competition in particular: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27763345

Clearly not allowing anyone to track is good for competition. Now there are certain companies that collect data from multiple sources. That gives them a benefit compared to others. But what I do not understand is how they can do it? How can you accept that your company spies on its users and collects data on them? How can you say it is OK?

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#222
post #219
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And some of them, such as Google, are working on FLOC... This has got to stop now.

Creating more private alternatives to cross-site ad tracking is a project that most of the major browsers are working on. In addition to Chrome, Edge has https://github.com/WICG/privacy-preserving-ads/blob/main/Par... and Safari has https://webkit.org/blog/8943/privacy-preserving-ad-click-att...

These are not more private alternatives. This is just tracking using other methods. FLOC is tracking and it is in no way more private.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#223
post #222
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating more private alternatives to cross-site ad tracking is a project that most of the major browsers are working on. In addition to Chrome, Edge has https://github.com/WICG/privacy-preserving-ads/blob/main/Par... and Safari has https://webkit.org/blog/8943/privacy-preserving-ad-click-att...

These are not more private alternatives. This is just tracking using other methods. FLOC is tracking and it is in no way more private.

Setting aside whether FLoC is private enough, how can you say it is not more private? Today, with third party cookies, many companies have almost your entire browsing history through a combination of direct tracking and cookie matching. With FLoC this information stays on your device, and only a summary is made available to sites.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#224
post #221
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree FLoC is tracking (though not at the individual level). The question we've been discussing, however, is the effect on competition in particular: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27763345

Clearly not allowing anyone to track is good for competition. Now there are certain companies that collect data from multiple sources. That gives them a benefit compared to others. But what I do not understand is how they can do it? How can you accept that your company spies on its users and collects data on them? How can you say it is OK?

https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#225
post #220
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is the FLOC is surveillance as well. You are still profiling users. This has got to stop. https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-ge...

FLOC is tracking in your browser. How is that not individual? Not that it matters. Tracking is wrong whether you are able to track an individual or not. This is not just about privacy.

All the major browsers already locally track the sites you visit so they can maintain your browsing history, turn links purple, etc. What FLoC adds is that it locally computes a low-cardinality anonymized summary of your browsing history, and makes it available to sites.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#226
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should the credit card company be allowed to use the information about your transaction to assess how likely it is that someone has stolen your card? I've been called by the credit card company many times for failed transactions that I've authorized. When fraud did occur then I was not contacted by my card company and I had only noticed the fraud because I actively monitor my card. The credit card company should be…

> I've been called by the credit card company many times for failed transactions that I've authorized. When fraud did occur then I was not contacted by my card company and I had only noticed the fraud because I actively monitor my card. Yes, credit card antifraud has both false positives and false negatives. It's not clear to me whether you're going from there to saying that it is useless? > I do not think that the c…

> It's not clear to me whether you're going from there to saying that it is useless?

Not only am I saying it's useless but I am also saying that privacy is more valuable than the anti-fraud measures that can be gained from data mining.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#227
post #225
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FLOC is tracking in your browser. How is that not individual? Not that it matters. Tracking is wrong whether you are able to track an individual or not. This is not just about privacy.

All the major browsers already locally track the sites you visit so they can maintain your browsing history, turn links purple, etc. What FLoC adds is that it locally computes a low-cardinality anonymized summary of your browsing history, and makes it available to sites.

So in other words FLOC makes the browser spyware. Clearly the browser history is useful for the user. That is why it is there. The browser company has no right to take that history and turn it into an ad profile. It is just plain wrong.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#228
post #224
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly not allowing anyone to track is good for competition. Now there are certain companies that collect data from multiple sources. That gives them a benefit compared to others. But what I do not understand is how they can do it? How can you accept that your company spies on its users and collects data on them? How can you say it is OK?

https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads

Interesting read. Clearly you are struggling with your choice.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#229
post #223
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not more private alternatives. This is just tracking using other methods. FLOC is tracking and it is in no way more private.

Setting aside whether FLoC is private enough , how can you say it is not more private? Today, with third party cookies, many companies have almost your entire browsing history through a combination of direct tracking and cookie matching. With FLoC this information stays on your device, and only a summary is made available to sites.

Feel free to read : https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-ge...

Really, FLOC is for me the ultimate betrayal. The browser is not supposed to make an ad profile based on the browsing history. It is just wrong.

Re: Open letter: Ban surveillance-based advertising

#230
post #71

The problem is with the match of partial virtual profiles with individual-specific identities. That A uses a profile to visit www sites about code optimization, leisure mathematics, statistic software and StackOverflow, and commercial information about some IDE is shown, that may be welcome. That A uses another profile to visit www sites about baking cakes, nutriment science and ethnic restaurants, and information ab…

This makes me think. What happens when partial profiles are matched to the wrong person? Like, it's very likely these systems are going to match different people in the same household/network because... how can they even separate different people with different interests and a single person using many profiles? I suspect all our "valuable user data" is tainted by default and its monetary value is an illusion. We do k…

You could as well be wary of the possibility of misinterpretation of your own actual actions, which is consistent with the fear of a dim non-intelligence mixing up your data and others' data.

The same dim non-intelligence, that one spawn of which seems e.g. to think that since you bought a car last month you should be proposed more cars, that dim non-intelligence may decide that since you watched videos of author Tom you subscribe to the ideas of Tom, that if you read the G. you are a junkie and if you read the S. you believe senator Beast has dignity, that if you... I was about to write "if you are studying material about new vaccines before booking inoculation then you must be a vaccine opposer, believing in witchcraft, credulous of any voice, a conspiracy theorist and an irresponsible sociopath": no, this actually I witnessed in real life, acted by adult professionals. So you figure the profiling a dumb algorithm can do.

"The new prejudice factory" may be out of lack of wits, it may be out of "economizing" - like when the order to kill all intellectuals was specified by "you will recognize them: they are those who wear glasses". To some it is not worth their while to discriminate.

One would normally go baesyan to formulate some hypothesis _with the single intent to put them into discussion under the filter of intelligence_, never to take them as plausible. Once.

It is a world increasing in complexity within societies which are abandoning the sense of complexity.

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