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Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#201

Post by kelnos »

lxgr wrote: post #90
HeckFeck wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not stealing anything by instructing my computer not to run code against my consent. No one is entitled to my CPU time. Least of all are advertisers. Also, the store isn't freakishly stalking me and noting down all my habits whilst sharing what it has collected with its friends, or indeed anyone who will buy the data. Besides, candy is impossible to replicate in the same way that data is. Theft of physical object…

> I'm not stealing anything by instructing my computer not to run code against my consent. No one is entitled to my CPU time. Least of all are advertisers. One might argue that you are then not entitled to view the content on ad-supported pages as well. I use an ad blocker too because many ads are just horribly intrusive, but I honestly can’t blame any page circumventing ad blockers, nor do I believe that I am someho…

> One might argue that you are then not entitled to view the content on ad-supported pages as well.

Then they shouldn't serve the page in a way that it can be viewed without also viewing the ads. Ad-blocker-blockers are a thing, and I am happy to close that tab and never visit the site again when I see one.

> They‘re literally paying for the content you get to view for free.

Hopefully someday they'll be forced to find a business model that doesn't include destroying the privacy of their website's visitors.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#202

Post by sergiotapia »

yunohn wrote: post #112
heavyset_go wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really telling is how many people and companies think they're entitled to running ads on my computers and phones, as if I'm the one who is doing something wrong by choosing what I see or don't see.

So the content creators have no right to demand compensation for creating “what you see“?

I don't care, at all.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#203

Post by kelnos »

jeffgreco wrote: post #79
HeckFeck wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not stealing anything by instructing my computer not to run code against my consent. No one is entitled to my CPU time. Least of all are advertisers. Also, the store isn't freakishly stalking me and noting down all my habits whilst sharing what it has collected with its friends, or indeed anyone who will buy the data. Besides, candy is impossible to replicate in the same way that data is. Theft of physical object…

I would respect the Adblock crowd more if they didn’t run around describing their actions as brave or “morally responsible.” It’s ok to admit that you’re taking something without return!

Oh, please. Tell me you've never fast-fowarded or muted the TV or changed channels during a commercial. Tell me you've never been reading the newspaper or a magazine and skipped reading the ads.

I'm not really sure what crowd of us you think claims that ad-blocking is "morally responsible". I certainly don't see it as a moral issue at all. I just don't want so see ads, period. I think they're psychologically manipulative garbage, and I don't want them in front of my eyes, infecting my brain.

If someone wants to publish something behind a paywall, I'll pay if I think it's worth the price. If someone wants to put up an ad-blocker-blocker and refuse to serve that content to me, that's fine too; I'll live without their content.

If a server is going to send me bits over the wire, I am going to decide how I view those bits, and which bits I do and do not want to see.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#205

Post by kelnos »

varispeed wrote: post #73
phnofive wrote: post #24

The recursive irony here is that Alphabet implemented FLoC to put a moat around tracking adtech, and Brave consumes Chromium for its own means of generating revenue from vending a browser (BAT), so of course there’s no reason to propagate FLoC.

I don't understand why tracking is not being considered as mechanism helping companies to manipulate consumers into buying their stuff, essentially amounting to fraud? If you were going to track someone in real life and manipulating them into buying something, you would certainly end up in jail, so why is this allowed over the internet? Because consumers don't see companies who stalk them? In my opinion the whole tra…

Isn't advertising, by definition, manipulating customers into buying stuff?

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#206

Post by asxd »

yholio wrote: post #173

Instead of more palatable user tracking, how about we tell advertisers and internet companies: fuck off, we don't want any tracking? How about we hunt down and eliminate all features that allow cross-site information sharing? How about we treat attacks on user privacy as security problems of the web standards, à la Tor, and build technology that aggressively hides any user signature in any layer, from rotating IP and…

I really wish that ads would be targeted based on server side information. As in what website you’re on, or what search term you put in. I really don’t think ads based on my past behavior are useful to me or my purchasing tendencies.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#207

Post by pabs3 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #116
yunohn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the content creators have no right to demand compensation for creating “what you see“?

I have no problem paying for content. However, I'm not going to feel guilty for not going to a movie theater early so that I can see all of the trailers and commercials that are shown before the movie I want to see. I'm also not going to feel guilty for fast forwarding through commercials on TV. Content creators are not entitled to decide what ads I choose to see and not see.

Movies themselves are full of advertising; the protagonist could use Apple products for example.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#208

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

jefftk wrote: post #197
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the README.md at https://github.com/WICG/floc : "This API democratizes access to some information about an individual's general browsing history (and thus, general interests) to any site that opts into it . This is in contrast to today's world, in which cookies or other tracking techniques may be used to collate someone's browsing activity across many sites." Can the user detemrine whether a site has opted in wi…

"Users of browsers that support FLoC can either send real FLoC or random FLoC, but they cannot send no FLoC." Why? I would expect a browser extension to be able to override document.interestCohort to throw an exception? (Disclosure: I work at Google, speaking only for myself)

Most users never even change defaults let alone install extensions. There is no described option to disable FLoc in the browser. Why not. Surely the design decision not to include an option to disable FLoC was intentional. That's the point I was making.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#209

Post by pschastain »

kelnos wrote: post #199
petters wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has not been true for me. I have discovered interesting things in Facebook ads that I would not have discovered and bought otherwise. (They were obscure Kickstarter projects)

I have a fundamentally different view of this: I don't want people advertising to me at all, and I am perfectly fine -- happier, really -- if I "miss out" on buying something I might like because I didn't "get to" see an ad for it. Advertising is psychological manipulation at its worst, and we'd all be much better off without it.

"Advertising is psychological manipulation at its worst"

Hyperbole is unbecoming.

Off the top of my head I'd say grooming someone for sexual abuse is a significantly worse form of psychological manipulation. I speak from having experienced both, and only one has had a catastrophic effect on my life.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#210

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

jka wrote: post #143
dathinab wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I have no problems with ad's as long as it doesn't involve any tracking (or lets call it what it is spying). If blog or similar can finance part of their cost with Ad's, why not. Sure on slow internet it's a somewhat different matter. Anyway Ad's okay, but tracking for me is spying and should be treated like that, i.e. it should be illegal. There are ways to have personalized ads without it, like local learn…

This is a more concise repost of a previous comment that I posted too hastily. It's fair to believe that ads are 'ok' - it's also possible that people in general don't want them. Hosting low-traffic websites on a smartphone with cellular data is just-about-feasible now. Rather than inventing very technically clever ways to continue on our existing path, as Apple and Google are doing, I think it'd be pleasant to simpl…

I don’t know that’s the whole question, though: I know that I, personally, would be unwilling to pay a subscription fee for every site I’ve gotten information from. I wonder how many people would choose advertising if the choice is posed as ads or content subscriptions/micropayments.
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