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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

#221
post #191
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is this comment gray? it's true https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf

What in that doc is "tracking", and what is being tracked? It's not tracking browsing behavior for ad profiles.

If users have chrome sync enabled, their browsing history is used for targeted ads.

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

#222
post #213

Ok, so let me see if I understand this correctly: I run a website with no trackers, no ads, nothing at all to do with Google or any other company in any way. You come along, with Google Chrome, and visit my site. Google adds the fact that you visited my site to their massive dataset (as well as who-knows-what-else) And to opt out of something I have never been asked to be involved with in any way, I need to contact G…

> I run a website with no trackers, no ads, nothing at all to do with Google or any other company in any way. Then your site will not be included in FLoC: "A page visit will be included in the browser's FLoC calculation if document.interestCohort() is used on the page. During the current FLoC origin trial, a page will also be included in the calculation if Chrome detects that the page load ads or ads-related resource…

Thanks. I hate FLoC, but accurate facts need to get to the top.

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

#223
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

[deleted]

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

#224
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably things that promote a healthy internet also benefit website owners since their sites exist on the internet.

That sounds like people arguing that nuclear energy is a bad solution to climate change because it's not perfect and technically not renewable. - FLoC is still far better than third party cookies - As much as we'd love to live in a world without advertising, 95% of the internet wouldn't exist without it. - If we are going to have advertising, I'd much rather have FLoC than third party cookies

Your last point would more accurately be stated as "If we are going to have tracking, ..."

To which I say, let's not have tracking at all, instead of choosing between crappy cookies and even more potentially crappy FLoC.

Reverting to advertising without tracking is entirely possible, it just disenfranchises a whole host of greedy manipulative jerks who will do anything for a buck.

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

#225

Isn't a way for websites to poison the results instead? Like sending a random cohort info with each page loaded?

Not when the algorithm is controlled by Google. Just like SEO efforts. Google will tweak their FLoC generation to ensure they get what they want out of it.

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

#226

Ok, so let me see if I understand this correctly: I run a website with no trackers, no ads, nothing at all to do with Google or any other company in any way. You come along, with Google Chrome, and visit my site. Google adds the fact that you visited my site to their massive dataset (as well as who-knows-what-else) And to opt out of something I have never been asked to be involved with in any way, I need to contact G…

This sounds like the perfect reason to not use Chrome.

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

#227

Theres a price to privacy. When I was younger I jumped on the bandwagon and for a period only used Firefox with cookie autodelete and cache cleared every exit. Now I just see it as being asocial. If Google didn't monetize search with ads how would you discover new products? Without ads websites would not be able to deliver premium content and we would all still be stuck in the early 90s. The internet would work like…

Without tracking-fed ads, the internet would work like a super powered version of the directory style setup like we had before Google suborned the very idea of 'the web'.

I'd love to see an internet of individual directory sites, some of which could be 'pay for placement', some of which would be hand curated, others could be algorithmically built...

So much better than Web == Google homepage == "What's a search? I type in where I want to go and click on the first thing I see"

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

#228
post #213

Ok, so let me see if I understand this correctly: I run a website with no trackers, no ads, nothing at all to do with Google or any other company in any way. You come along, with Google Chrome, and visit my site. Google adds the fact that you visited my site to their massive dataset (as well as who-knows-what-else) And to opt out of something I have never been asked to be involved with in any way, I need to contact G…

> I run a website with no trackers, no ads, nothing at all to do with Google or any other company in any way. Then your site will not be included in FLoC: "A page visit will be included in the browser's FLoC calculation if document.interestCohort() is used on the page. During the current FLoC origin trial, a page will also be included in the calculation if Chrome detects that the page load ads or ads-related resource…

Thanks for the clarification. It appears I can't edit my original comment to add in a mea culpa!

No idea how I managed to get it so far off the mark there... :(

For anyone reading this, downvote my original comment up the top please to get it off the top as it's inaccurate: I know it's cool to bash Google on here but my original assumption was waaaaaay off.

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

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about FLoC gives Google "even more control"? Isn't it something any ad-company can use? Maybe I don't understand how it works, but from what I've read, any website has the exact same access as Google does to the data.

As noted by Consumer Reports: "When third-party cookies are replaced by FLoC, Google will have a way to track consumers that isn’t available to other companies, which could give Google a steep advantage in the advertising business." [1] According to the EFF, Google controls the algorithms, and will also be running its implementation and auditing its outputs, a task the EFF describes as "both orwellian and sisyphean".…

> that isn’t available to other companies

Is there a proof for this claim?

My understanding is that the cohort you belong to is available to any page. Is that not true?

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

#230
post #213

Ok, so let me see if I understand this correctly: I run a website with no trackers, no ads, nothing at all to do with Google or any other company in any way. You come along, with Google Chrome, and visit my site. Google adds the fact that you visited my site to their massive dataset (as well as who-knows-what-else) And to opt out of something I have never been asked to be involved with in any way, I need to contact G…

> I run a website with no trackers, no ads, nothing at all to do with Google or any other company in any way. Then your site will not be included in FLoC: "A page visit will be included in the browser's FLoC calculation if document.interestCohort() is used on the page. During the current FLoC origin trial, a page will also be included in the calculation if Chrome detects that the page load ads or ads-related resource…

That "During the current FLoC origin trial" bit scares me though. Why should I assume the scope of implicit inclusion in FLoC won't be expanded in the future?

I don't exactly trust this opt-out header. The spec makes it sound like it's not so much a request to the user agent not to use cohorts in general. Rather it's a security-in-depth measure to prevent third-party scripts or injected spyware from exploiting certain functions. So those functions are disabled for resources loaded from that domain. Chrome, meanwhile, can still do whatever it likes.

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