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Nobody is joining Google's FLoC

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Re: Nobody is joining Google's FLoC

#61
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with just showing normal ads like we had for over 100 years? Is tracking really needed to prevent walled gardens?

CPM price for targeted ads is lot more than untargeted ads. So likely the publishers will increase the number of ads per page to maintain the same eCPM yield. Also the ads will optimize for top of the funnel (clicks) than bottom (conversion). So we will start to see aggressive & intrusive ads. (remember the "punch the monkey" ads from the early 2000s?)

But does the money go to the publisher? I’ve read somewhere that most of it (like 90%) goes to the ad tech middlemen. If the ad does not track, there is no ad tech, so more money goes to the publisher.

Re: Nobody is joining Google's FLoC

#62
post #51
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Third party cookies are already on the way out, allthough it is going very slowly. But if that is already happening, I see no reason to replace it with something that is going to stay and is only slightly better. Being patient is easier and better, it will be a question of a few years I suppose, instead of, I don't know, forever? :)

Content providers want third party cookies. Users have no idea what third party cookies are. Any deprecation of third party cookies will have to come from the user-agent (Safari and Chrome being the only ones that matter).

Content providers don’t. Advertising networks do. If the whole industry moved to content-based advertising, the content providers would be just fine.

Re: Nobody is joining Google's FLoC

#63
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with just showing normal ads like we had for over 100 years? Is tracking really needed to prevent walled gardens?

CPM price for targeted ads is lot more than untargeted ads. So likely the publishers will increase the number of ads per page to maintain the same eCPM yield. Also the ads will optimize for top of the funnel (clicks) than bottom (conversion). So we will start to see aggressive & intrusive ads. (remember the "punch the monkey" ads from the early 2000s?)

> CPM price for targeted ads is lot more than untargeted ads.

Only because they're viewed. If we can get everyone to install an ad blocker, that price will plummet, and business models that aren't based on abusing users will be allowed to succeed.

Re: Nobody is joining Google's FLoC

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a consumer, I want targeting features default-on, but I also don't mind too much having to turn them on manually.

why do you want them default on?

I am okay with targeted ads, and I know others are too. The other day, my Dad said he's happy that Amazon and Google are showing him the products he's been browsing for recently. They bought a mattress and are looking at buying another to replace the other beds.

Re: Nobody is joining Google's FLoC

#68
post #33

I'm definitely in the minority of commenters on these FLoC threads. I hate that 3rd party cookies exist, and support FLoC if it would hasten the demise of 3rd party cookies. It seems like many consider the alternative to FLoC to be an anonymous web where content can be accessed without login. The migration of content into walled gardens like Instagram seems more likely to me.

> if it would hasten the demise of 3rd party cookies

Will FLoC speed this up?

As far as I know, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari are already largely publicly committed to phasing out 3rd party cookies over the next couple years. I guess FLoC might move that deadline up a bit?

But I suspect some critics of FLoC are looking at the proposal as a compromise that we don't need to make. The thinking is, at the point where we have public statements from every single major browser, including Chrome and Edge, that 3rd party cookies are going to get phased out, why do we need to throw the advertising industry a bone? We won this particular fight, 3rd party cookies are going out the door. Now (the thinking is) we just need to make sure that counter-proposals like FLoC and FPS[0] don't reverse the gains we've made.

I'm not completely sure how to characterize Google's recent proposals, but an arguably reasonable take that I've seen online is that Google somehow got peer-pressured into making a very public commitment to remove 3rd-party cookies, that they no longer feel they can back down from that commitment, and that a lot of their recent proposals seem to be attempts to find some way to get out of that deal. First Party Sets in particular are just a very conveniently timed proposal. I suspect this take is at least a little simplistic, but if it is at all accurate then now is a very good time to increase pressure on Google, not decrease it.

So I think we might be in a situation where the onus is on people proposing compromise to prove that compromises will make a difference, because I don't take it for granted at this point that FLoC's acceptance or rejection will change anything about how 3rd party cookies are handled in the future.

[0]: https://github.com/privacycg/first-party-sets

Re: Nobody is joining Google's FLoC

#69
post #16

Does this affect Chromium at all?

Try running your Chromium with these flags[1] and see what that page says about it. If it says anything other than "not supported by this browser" then Chromium supports it (may not be enabled by default though).

[1] https://floc.glitch.me/

Re: Nobody is joining Google's FLoC

#70
post #63
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPM price for targeted ads is lot more than untargeted ads. So likely the publishers will increase the number of ads per page to maintain the same eCPM yield. Also the ads will optimize for top of the funnel (clicks) than bottom (conversion). So we will start to see aggressive & intrusive ads. (remember the "punch the monkey" ads from the early 2000s?)

> CPM price for targeted ads is lot more than untargeted ads. Only because they're viewed. If we can get everyone to install an ad blocker, that price will plummet, and business models that aren't based on abusing users will be allowed to succeed.

If that happens many many websites won’t be able to operate for free like they do now.
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