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Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

make.wordpress.org

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Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#131

Post by ysavir »

blakesterz wrote: post #8

I am hopeful that this will help get rid of FLoC but I worry about two things. One, this will end up being treated like the "no track" headers. That's just totally ignored after IE (was it IE?) enabled it be default. That gave all the trackers a reason to just ignore it and track everyone. I don't know if that exact same thing can happen here, but something similar maybe? The other thing I worry about is that FLoC 2.…

Are you sure it won't evolve into that anyway? Google isn't looking at FLoC as a compromise, it's just an intermediary while they continue their ever-lasting search to optimize their ad services. The next Big Thing will arrive whether or not FLoC is allowed to exist.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#132

Post by foobiter »

extropy wrote: post #106
Santosh83 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only govt action will work. That too concerted action by several national govts.

The govt action is the shitty way out. This all is a classic there is not enough to go around situation. Govt regulation will make it more entrenched and "manageable". The best outcome is to come up with a fundamentally better business model. Something that satisfies seller's desire to promote their products and customers desire to feel respected and important. Preferably cutting out a middleman and reducing costs of…

There’s no business model better than exploitation, as evidenced by all of history. Nearly 100% of worker and consumer rights come from government regulation in some form.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#133

Post by pdonis »

extropy wrote: post #106
Santosh83 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only govt action will work. That too concerted action by several national govts.

The govt action is the shitty way out. This all is a classic there is not enough to go around situation. Govt regulation will make it more entrenched and "manageable". The best outcome is to come up with a fundamentally better business model. Something that satisfies seller's desire to promote their products and customers desire to feel respected and important. Preferably cutting out a middleman and reducing costs of…

> The best outcome is to come up with a fundamentally better business model

A fundamentally better business model already exists: make users into customers. Google should charge users directly for the services they use. Then they wouldn't need to resort to all these underhanded tactics to try to monetize their valuable services. They could just monetize them directly.

Of course this is highly unlikely to happen now that everyone is conditioned to expect valuable services like Google's to be available for "free". But they're not free and never have been: the only question is how we pay the costs. Right now we pay those costs with our personal data and our attention, plus the time and effort we have to spend to try to push back against our personal data being monetized and our attention being incessantly competed for by advertisers. I would gladly pay in money to make those non-monetary costs go away. Perhaps I am an outlier and not many people would. But that just means we pay the costs in other ways that end up being even more costly than the direct money costs would be.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#134

Post by l00sed »

nonbirithm wrote: post #130
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between large web publishing platforms and all alternate browsers blocking FLoC, I think we could kill it, yes. WordPress is used by a lot of marketing focused folks though, so we'll see if WP is able to land this.

It's staggering how much leverage WordPress has. They were going to stop using React because of the patents clause, and only a week later Facebook caved and relicensed it as MIT.

This is very interesting. My web development role right now is at a marketing company that works pretty exclusively with Wordpress.

I've always been so interested in learning about the next best thing that I hadn't given Wordpress much thought.

Now, using it all the time, it's popularity is very understandable as an interface for people who are not technically savvy to maintain their own website.

I feel like the Wordpress community isn't the loudest, but it is certainly a force. I think, as a brand, this move definitely has me more excited about working with their software.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#135

Post by sseneca »

busymom0 wrote: post #128
SimeVidas wrote: post #96

The real solution is to make everyone stop using Chrome.

I am a bit uneducated at this but does Brave browser which is based on chromium also have the same problem?

They've said they're going to disable FLoC. Still, this is one of the benefits of Firefox, it's not based on Chromium at all so it's out of the question.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#136

Post by feanaro »

x0x0 wrote: post #60
izacus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Kill it before it lays eggs." but do we worry about what evolves from this if it dies? Nothing really evolves here - status quo is what stays. You continue to be tracked head to arse on everyones servers, the media keeps adding 150 trackers to every webpage and the internet moves on. Thinking that one of the biggest profit making industries in US will just go away if you scream loud enough on HN is utterly naive a…

Also, nearly $125B was spent on internet advertising in the US in 2020, per the first estimate I found on the internet [1]. While Google and Facebook keep huge chunks of that, my guess is at least 40% flows through to publishers. So that's a $50B revenue stream to publishers (all sorts of web sites, including news; apps, musicians (via spotify and so forth)) that we're talking about breaking. I really don't believe p…

I feel news was of better quality 15 years ago than today so I wouldn't mind going back to that state of the world. And 15 years ago pervasive tracking wasn't a thing. So yes, please, let's kill it with fire.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#137

Post by jakelazaroff »

pdonis wrote: post #133
extropy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The govt action is the shitty way out. This all is a classic there is not enough to go around situation. Govt regulation will make it more entrenched and "manageable". The best outcome is to come up with a fundamentally better business model. Something that satisfies seller's desire to promote their products and customers desire to feel respected and important. Preferably cutting out a middleman and reducing costs of…

> The best outcome is to come up with a fundamentally better business model A fundamentally better business model already exists: make users into customers. Google should charge users directly for the services they use. Then they wouldn't need to resort to all these underhanded tactics to try to monetize their valuable services. They could just monetize them directly. Of course this is highly unlikely to happen now t…

Fundamentally better for whom? Do you think Google has never considered that business model? I think it’s much more likely that they’ve put a considerable amount of effort and research into it, and concluded that their current business model will let them extract the most money from their products.

That’s why we need regulation. Under these market conditions, Google’s business model does appear to be the best for them.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#138

Post by po1nt »

Santosh83 wrote: post #49
izacus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Kill it before it lays eggs." but do we worry about what evolves from this if it dies? Nothing really evolves here - status quo is what stays. You continue to be tracked head to arse on everyones servers, the media keeps adding 150 trackers to every webpage and the internet moves on. Thinking that one of the biggest profit making industries in US will just go away if you scream loud enough on HN is utterly naive a…

Only govt action will work. That too concerted action by several national govts.

Do you remember Snowden story?

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#140

Post by roody15 »

cortesoft wrote: post #64
x0x0 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, nearly $125B was spent on internet advertising in the US in 2020, per the first estimate I found on the internet [1]. While Google and Facebook keep huge chunks of that, my guess is at least 40% flows through to publishers. So that's a $50B revenue stream to publishers (all sorts of web sites, including news; apps, musicians (via spotify and so forth)) that we're talking about breaking. I really don't believe p…

So if suddenly all tracking stopped, advertisers would just stop spending money on advertising? That doesn't seem right... advertisers published ads before tracking was a thing, they would still do it if tracking becomes impossible.

yes it’s called contextual advertising and it’s fine. Visit a camping website and companies pay to advertise camping gear, travel , etc. Visit a video game review site companies pay to advertise new games, systems etc.

The very idea that a user needs to be tracked from site to site and a profile built around his/her web activity is dystopian and depressing.

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