Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#31

Post by alias_neo » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

xaduha wrote: post #18

It's all pointless, it will win out eventually because it makes sense and Google isn't about to stop tracking you regardless of FLoC. All it does is disincentivizes smaller players from doing their own tracking which you'll have no control over anyway. Personally I don't see depersonalized targeting as a bad thing. Better than advertising dish washers to people who just bought a dish washer or some such nonsense.

I got a great one from eBay yesterday; Because you bought Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart PS5, we thought you might like this; Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart PS5.

Hmm.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#32

Post by jasonvorhe » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #25

Why do we believe the Googs will actually honor this flag? If it's just an HTTP header, the browser can be made to just act like it's not there. All of these "flags" are essentially honor policy level things (just like robots.txt), but if the thing is not even told to look for the flag, there's nothing stopping from doing exaclty what is being asked not to do.

They've been respecting robots.txt and tracking opt-outs for years, right? Just one whistleblower and it's over. Why risk it? Also: Afaik it's opt-in after it leaves Origin Trial phase [1].

[1] https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?...

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#33

Post by yesbabyyes » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #25

Why do we believe the Googs will actually honor this flag? If it's just an HTTP header, the browser can be made to just act like it's not there. All of these "flags" are essentially honor policy level things (just like robots.txt), but if the thing is not even told to look for the flag, there's nothing stopping from doing exaclty what is being asked not to do.

We believe it because Google submitted the permissions-policy header / attribute (which allows a site owner to control the permissions for a lot of things apart from interest cohorts, such as geolocation, fullscreen etc) and because we have no choice.

The organization controlling "the thing" is the entity that asked for the feature, so we believe the thing will both know about it and honor it.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#34

Post by edoceo » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:54 PM UTC

kmonsen wrote: post #30

dylan604 wrote: post #25

Why do we believe the Googs will actually honor this flag? If it's just an HTTP header, the browser can be made to just act like it's not there. All of these "flags" are essentially honor policy level things (just like robots.txt), but if the thing is not even told to look for the flag, there's nothing stopping from doing exaclty what is being asked not to do.

Chromium is open source? We still don’t control releases but having the open source version it should not be too hard to reverse engineer and see if they messed with it.

How about in the G internal Chrome branch?

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#35

Post by seoaeu » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

jasonvorhe wrote: post #29

What I don't get about the reporting on this topic: Isn't all this opt-out stuff just necessary while Google is testing FLoC and it'll be opt-in(!) after it leaves Origin Trial phase? Or is this Google employee straight up lying* here? https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?... * I don't suspect he his.

"Our best guess". The author of those tweets literally admits that they don't know what will happen. Personally, I'm not as inclined as them to give Google the benefit of the doubt until the absolute last minute.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#36

Post by testific8 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

ng55QPSK wrote: post #3

first world problems

first world problems come before third world problems

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#37

Post by Arjuna144 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

I am really happy to see that. So many concerns over privacy all around the web

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#38

Post by mabbo » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

How long until Google counters by modifying Google Search's algorithm to lower the rankings of any website with headers that block FLoC?

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#39

Post by WORMS_EAT_WORMS » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

Trying to block this is a losing battle. The whole privacy-first angle is so disingenuous, too.

Is there a way we can just obfuscate / ruin our data with them?

Like a tool or browser extension I can run that clicks / visits a bunch of random links and totally trashes which "cohort" Google thinks I belong in.

I'd pay for this more than paying to opt-out. Then serve me all the ads you want.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#40

Post by tyingq » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

jasonvorhe wrote: post #29

What I don't get about the reporting on this topic: Isn't all this opt-out stuff just necessary while Google is testing FLoC and it'll be opt-in(!) after it leaves Origin Trial phase? Or is this Google employee straight up lying* here? https://twitter.com/Log3overLog2/status/1384337637763387394?... * I don't suspect he his.

I don't think he's straight up lying, but I do think the truth is probably more than what he's saying.

Like perhaps using AdSense, Google Analytics, Google Sign In, etc, will include a buried implied "opt in" for your site at some point.

Google is quite good at rolling out changes slowly enough to spread out any outrage. Watching the progression of ads take over their SERP pages, it was very slow and subtle. No ads, then just sidebar ads. Then one ad below the first one or two results, then above them, eventually leading to some pages with nothing but ads above the fold. Over many, many years.