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Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

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Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#171

Post by _0w8t »

ignoramous wrote: post #137
inopinatus wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, the end-to-end federated Internet was doing just fine before Google came along, and will do just fine, perhaps better, when it's gone and no longer trying to co-opt every god-damn standards process for their own preferences. No-one has a monopoly on innovation: most inventions are driven by necessity, and large companies stifle genius, they don't foster it. Far from being the greater good, Google is…

> Far from being the greater good, Google is remarkably pig-headed, often downright incompetent outside of selling ads... As is the nature of dualities, the web has benefit immensely from Google's investments even if it would have chartered a different (and in your opinion, a better) course had Google not existed in the first place. Someone pointed out, you couldn't say the same for Amazon. As for incompetence: imho,…

This all assumes that without Google this would not happen. But I fail to see why is this so. Linux happened without single corporation controlling it.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#172

Post by throwaway3699 »

sodality2 wrote: post #75
ec109685 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that actually work? It seems like clicking on every ad would be easy to filter out.

Probably, but it would "trash which "cohort" Google thinks I belong in"; there's really no reason to fool Google into putting you into a specific cohort as opposed to just a random/"broken" one; either way, your true cohort is obscured. Unless you were studying the impact of ads you receive based on cohort, like https://their.tube .

More likely FLoC will place you in a cohort also full of other AdNauseam users.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#173

Post by noahtallen »

fastball wrote: post #132
kevingadd wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO these two things are compatible. Their mesh network is incredibly gross but it's not a privacy violation, it's bad in other ways.

It's almost guaranteed to be a privacy violation unless you think Amazon can write complicated yet bug-free networking code.

I’m not sure about the privacy part, but they do have very good success with AWS, which I’m sure includes loads and loads of network code.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#174

Post by throwaway3699 »

fleddr wrote: post #140
dylan604 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are just trying to help you out. They know there are "if you find it cheaper in the next 30 days, we'll refund the difference" policies out there. So those ads are actually much more helpful than you are giving credit. They can't help it you chose poorly and used a site that did not have that policy. /s

That's not the reason you keep seeing ads for products you just bought. Google was aware of your interest in the product yet was unable to track that you actually bought one. So they think you're still looking.

It's also not Google who controls re-targeting lists. At least on Facebook, retailers can easily tell this ad not to be shown to you after you paid.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#175

Post by _0w8t »

inopinatus wrote: post #129
tomComb wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's investments in the web has been massive. Your whole framing can be flipped on its head be pointing out that Google, unlike Amazon has been willing to make such huge investments in the one public platform we've got. Obviously Google does it for self interested reasons, but thank goodness they do - you can hate Google and targeted ads all you want but without Google pushing web and ad tech forward it would sta…

On the contrary, the end-to-end federated Internet was doing just fine before Google came along, and will do just fine, perhaps better, when it's gone and no longer trying to co-opt every god-damn standards process for their own preferences. No-one has a monopoly on innovation: most inventions are driven by necessity, and large companies stifle genius, they don't foster it. Far from being the greater good, Google is…

When runnaroo.com was shut down I was surprised that it was done by single person who managed for some searches to return better results than Google.

Which among other things shows that patents are bad for innovation in new and quickly changing industry. Google came up with their algorithm and heavily patterned it. As an invention it was not ground-breaking, but it matched very well how web worked. This gave them essentially monopoly in search from which they massively profited. At least now those patents expire.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#176

Post by passivate »

tomComb wrote: post #167
loudtieblahblah wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's investment in the web is just like Microsoft's "Embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy, just far more sophisticated and nuanced. Just like the new Microsoft's so-called new-found embrace of Linux, open standards and interoperability. It's all a sham. Garbage like AMP, or flexing their dominance in the search market to force websites to comply with this or that or risk delisting, is garbage.

You are kinda' making my point in highlighting AMP: one of the most hated Google 'contributions' to the web. Why did they do it? Because news website were heavy, slow, bad experiences compared to Facebook Instant news and Apple News etc. and so they those proprietary options were winning. AMP was designed to allow web sites compete with that. It was reported that Apple News is taking 50% cut. When media companies kee…

>Why did they do it? Because news website were heavy, slow, bad experiences compared to Facebook Instant news and Apple News etc. and so they those proprietary options were winning. AMP was designed to allow web sites compete with that.

They could have prioritized websites with fewer tracking/ads/scripts.

I don't believe that Google cares at all about whats good for the web. They simply want to exploit it and pocket the money (as opposed to re-invest any major portion back in the infra/community) - in that sense, they're no different than any other nameless/faceless corporation.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#177

Post by lioeters »

soperj wrote: post #112
1over137 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Blocking FLoC is as easy as adding this header to the HTTP response: That's "easy"?! How does my mom do that for her WordPress site?

Wordpress is doing it as a minor release, and backporting it. So it'll be opt-in to floc for all wordpress sites.

I hope they do decide to add the HTTP header to disable FLoC by default, unless site admins specifically opt in. From the discussion I've seen, it hasn't been decided for sure yet.

Proposal: Treat FLoC like a security concern - https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/04/18/proposal-treat-fl...

Consider implications of FLoC and any actions to be taken on the provider (WordPress) front - https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/53069

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#178

Post by ignoramous »

_0w8t wrote: post #171
ignoramous wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Far from being the greater good, Google is remarkably pig-headed, often downright incompetent outside of selling ads... As is the nature of dualities, the web has benefit immensely from Google's investments even if it would have chartered a different (and in your opinion, a better) course had Google not existed in the first place. Someone pointed out, you couldn't say the same for Amazon. As for incompetence: imho,…

This all assumes that without Google this would not happen. But I fail to see why is this so. Linux happened without single corporation controlling it.

> This all assumes that without Google this would not happen.

To be fair, I am not the one that's assuming things here. I am speaking of how Google has indeed contributed when they really didn't have to (as pointed out with the example of Amazon).

> Linux happened without single corporation controlling it.

A consortium of corporations, sure: linaro.org

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#180

Post by tomComb »

passivate wrote: post #176
tomComb wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are kinda' making my point in highlighting AMP: one of the most hated Google 'contributions' to the web. Why did they do it? Because news website were heavy, slow, bad experiences compared to Facebook Instant news and Apple News etc. and so they those proprietary options were winning. AMP was designed to allow web sites compete with that. It was reported that Apple News is taking 50% cut. When media companies kee…

>Why did they do it? Because news website were heavy, slow, bad experiences compared to Facebook Instant news and Apple News etc. and so they those proprietary options were winning. AMP was designed to allow web sites compete with that. They could have prioritized websites with fewer tracking/ads/scripts. I don't believe that Google cares at all about whats good for the web. They simply want to exploit it and pocket…

They are now moving to scoring sites based on their speed, but any big change they make to their search algorithm is done very slowly and with tons of advance warning - AMP was something of a quick stop gap.

They are a for profit corporation in the end, so it is unfortunate to depend on them, of course, but I think they need to care about the health of the web - their profits tomorrow depend on it. And I think they've demonstrated it by creating so much tech that they give away.

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