Brave disables Chromium FLoC features • Hacker News Board

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Post by draz » Sun, Apr 11, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #54

draz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cohorts cannot be too small (or they are not published), nor too big (or they are not particularly useful for capturing a particular set of behaviors/interests). The algorithm will balance these two constraints which will lead to any individuals coming in and out of particular cohorts. The semantic meaning of a cohort will likely change over time as well. For that, FLoC is proposing adding version IDs

This is useful to know, but I'm confused how this addresses what I wrote in the above comment? It wasn't relying on cohort size being small or large.

“Why would the cohort membership change frequently? Isn't it based on your browsing habits?” -> cohorts need to be rebalanced over time, so your cohort membership could change.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Post by h0p3 » Sun, Apr 11, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

HeckFeck wrote: post #315

h0p3 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello there. It's an honor to meet you. I suggest you are incorrect to assert that "no one is entitled to my CPU time." I agree, however, that advertisers do not have that moral claim right.

Pleasure to meet you too. > I suggest you are incorrect to assert that "no one is entitled to my CPU time." Very well, please elaborate. I'm always up to delve deeper into reason and philosophy (time-permitting of course).

I'm grateful that you would take the time to speak with me. I know it's an expensive thing to do.

I'll start with ~~a humorous point for an autistic person~~ the worst kind of pedantry. An object cannot be no one's and mine at the same time. If I own it, then it isn't no one's. To the degree the CPU is indeed yours, then it is someone's CPU. Obviously, there's some conversational implicature embedded in your claim here, and that's what we're here to clarify.

For the record, I'm on your side. Your overall argument is something everyone needs to hear. So, I'm not here to destroy your assertion, but I think it should be weakened. There's a lot packed in there.

I take your proposition to mean, roughly, that the CPU in your possession is something only you have a cluster of moral claim rights to (which corresponds to a cluster of moral obligations of others to you regarding that CPU), with no possibility of overriding reasons, caveats, or provisos. Now, you could be speaking about political claim rights, but I don't think that's the case here (correct me if I'm wrong). Is that a fair interpretation, and do you wish to maintain that? Can you think of any exceptions? Are there any adjacent possible worlds in which that is not the case?

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Post by catlifeonmars » Sun, Apr 11, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

craftinator wrote: post #222

catlifeonmars wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems counterproductive. You will be worse off by using irrelevant data in evaluating the choice of a particular product, and the company that paid for the advertisement likely won’t even miss your sale.

> You will be worse off by using irrelevant data in evaluating the choice of a particular product What do you mean irrelevant data? I am much better at choosing a product that suits my needs than Google and friends are. The only irrelevant data is the one provided by the ad companies. > the company that paid for the advertisement likely won’t even miss your sale. If that's true, then why do you think they advertised…

If you intentionally discount a product based on the fact that they advertised it to you, you’d be making a decision based on some property not intrinsic to the product, which means that you might not purchase the optimal product.

This would all be ok if the tradeoff was a strong signal to the seller that advertising has a negative impact on sales, but I’m positing that the impact of that one sale is negligible and well within the noise threshold of an extremely noisy process. For all you know, if the seller notices at all, they might conclude that they didn’t advertise to you enough.

However I’m totally ignoring any utility you might gain from a principled approach and if it works for you, then more power to you.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Post by pull_my_finger » Sun, Apr 11, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

labawi wrote: post #274

TravisLS wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One potentially negative unintended consequence: closed systems like Facebook become even more powerful than they already are. Their revenues will dwarf (even more than they do now) any other free digital platform that can't re-create a fully targeted ad product entirely in-house. Without Google AdX and the mess of disturbing cross-site tracking, I can't see why advertisers wouldn't just spend 100% of their digital b…

Maybe laws could forbid profiling? So you couldn't select 18-25 recently-single white female within 50km as a target category (or whatever else you come up with). I think GDPR may already forbid such use (without consent), though the implementation is tricky.

I think the big thing is that opt-out tracking should be illegal. It's total bullshit that giant partnerships like ad choices and just collect and share tons of info about you with the flimsy veil of an opt out system[1] that NEVER. EVER. succeeds. Like this is big tech you think they don't know how to write an opt out program that actually works, they solve problems in all sorts of domains, I think if they _wanted_ it to work they could do so very easily. Not to mention that in opting-out, you have to agree to let them track you anyway with a different cookie that is supposed to keep you from being tracked.

[1]: https://optout.aboutads.info/

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Post by ripdog » Sun, Apr 11, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

CameronNemo wrote: post #291

ripdog wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing gecko and servo. Servo is an experimental web engine which was being developed by Mozilla to test experimental tech. Recently its dev team was laid off. Gecko is the production engine that Firefox is based on, and it's still under full steam ahead development by engineers employed by Mozilla.

The Mozilla Corporation receives nearly all of its revenue from Google. As their market share inevitably trends toward zero (iOS defaults to Safari, Windows to Edge, and Android to Chrome), their negotiating power with Google and other search engines will suffer. The Gecko is drowning.

Yes, this is a serious issue. However, I wouldn't claim that Mozilla has any negotiating power with Google even today - Google is likely to continue to fund Mozilla in order to stave off potential antitrust action.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Post by GuB-42 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 12:21 AM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #312

codezero wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a long, but low effort comment where my thesis was that I think it’s ok for companies to pay for your attention, but the problem is that they are paying Google. I ended up reaching the conclusion that we should ban paying money for your attention, but I haven’t thought of better alternatives for businesses to grow or expand online yet. USPS becomes vehicle for junk mail Telco becomes vehicle for robocalls Tel…

> we seemingly are never willing to pay more than advertisers are On the contrary, users are consistently willing to pay more than advertisers when given the option. Problem is after a while, the advertisers and middle men eyeball all that ad-free content, and decide you’ll accept just a little advertising ... Next thing you know, you’re subscribing to ads.

> On the contrary, users are consistently willing to pay more than advertisers when given the option.

Problem is: there is a huge difference between paying even one cent and not paying. If you ask for $0.01, you will probably get the same result as asking for $0.10 or even a dollar. And if the only thing you have to offer is a mildly interesting blog post, no one will give you a dollar, so, if you want that cent per view, putting an ad is the only option. Micro transactions turned out to be largely a failure.

Another option is to find an editor/platform that gives you a share of a larger subscription. But even then, most people don't want to pay. For example, the usual reaction when I mention YouTube Premium is "why would I pay for something free?". And it gives even more power to large platforms: YouTube can reasonably ask for $10/month given the amount of content, it is much harder for a small player.

So what is the solution? Braved tried something with BAT, but it is still an ad-based solution, and I don't really trust it. Carriers tried it with the equivalent of premium-rate phone numbers. Governments suggested tax-based solutions, none of them convincing.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Post by kart23 » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 1:19 AM UTC

peterkos wrote: post #268

kart23 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I first got my iPhone, I searched for Youtube on the app store. The first result I got was tiktok - an ad that takes up a third of the screen. Its a terrible UX and confused the hell out of me. I seriously thought Apple was supposed to be user-friendly and anti-advertising...

It... says "Ad" in a alt-colored tag, has a completely different background. Only one ad, vs. google.com, which can show up to 4 identically-styled ads. Apple isn't anti-advertising, they're anti-tracking, pro-privacy. They're not in the business of selling ads anywhere near the scale that Google is -- the App Store ads in particular are simple, and they cancelled their iAd program a few years ago.

I realized that after looking at the result for ~5 seconds, but I still think its a dark pattern and it could easily induce someone into installing that app by habitually clicking the 'get' button. I guess it just shocked me that the one of the first things I saw on an iPhone was an Ad.

But yes, looking at ads on the Google Play Store recently tells me I made the right decision to switch to an iPhone.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Post by jshen » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:08 AM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #65

jshen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A business model that will exclude the poor.

Lets not pretend that ads help people with less money. Ads are designed to manipulate people into buying things they don't need. They encourage people to believe their self worth is linked to the things they own. That a persons status in society is somehow associated with how much money they have to spend.

You have a very low opinion of humans. I happen to think people are a bit better equipped to make their own decisions than you do.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Post by jshen » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:11 AM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #120

rewq4321 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lets not pretend that ads help people with less money. Who's pretending? Ads naturally and quite effectively price-discriminate, and so they do make internet content cheaper for people with less money. You may have problems with excessive consumption, but many people in developing countries do not. They desperately need the free content (educational, informative, and otherwise) that the current internet model provi…

There are much better options to provide people with educational, informative and entertaining content. Well funded public broadcasters like Australia ABC provide news and entertainment content free. (both text and video) Well funded public libraries can provide a wide range of alternate content.

My family is made up of poor immigrants, many of whom are back in their home country. Free communication systems are a godsend for them.

While I love libraries and public broadcasting, I learned to code as a poor kid through library books, they are not the full solution and they never provided free, instant, and any time international communication for people.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Post by Izkata » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:47 AM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #330

Izkata wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> document.interestCohort If that's an actual way to access it, "undefined" will have to be acceptable due to browsers that don't support it.

Yup! Or a Promise that never resolves (since it's async)

Wait, what? Async? Isn't your cohort supposed to be precomputed?

And undefined would still have to be handled anyway, as browsers without support wouldn't have the attribute at all (at least for several years after it was accepted, for everything to get the new feature).