Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#1

Post by meattle » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern
make.wordpress.org

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#2

Post by meattle » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

WordPress is 41% of the web. If this goes through and FLoC is disabled by default by WordPress, will FLoC be dead on arrival?

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#3

Post by ocdtrekkie » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

meattle wrote: post #2

WordPress is 41% of the web. If this goes through and FLoC is disabled by default by WordPress, will FLoC be dead on arrival?

Between large web publishing platforms and all alternate browsers blocking FLoC, I think we could kill it, yes. WordPress is used by a lot of marketing focused folks though, so we'll see if WP is able to land this.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#4

Post by abhinav22 » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

meattle wrote: post #2

WordPress is 41% of the web. If this goes through and FLoC is disabled by default by WordPress, will FLoC be dead on arrival?

Google has such a monopoly that it will take a lot to overcome their plans.

Glad to see WP taking a stand - I never knew that FLOC would be so bad. The WP proposal made it clear that it’s a discriminatory technology.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#5

Post by markovbot » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

meattle wrote: post #2

WordPress is 41% of the web. If this goes through and FLoC is disabled by default by WordPress, will FLoC be dead on arrival?

Most likely google will just turn off that silly opt out functionality. It's not like anyone's going to stop using their spyware browser.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#6

Post by feanaro » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

markovbot wrote: post #5

meattle wrote: post #2

WordPress is 41% of the web. If this goes through and FLoC is disabled by default by WordPress, will FLoC be dead on arrival?

Most likely google will just turn off that silly opt out functionality. It's not like anyone's going to stop using their spyware browser.

I'd like to see them try that and see how that flies.

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#7

Post by enlyth » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

meattle wrote: post #2

WordPress is 41% of the web. If this goes through and FLoC is disabled by default by WordPress, will FLoC be dead on arrival?

This assumes the majority of these Wordpress websites will update to the latest version in a timely manner

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#8

Post by blakesterz » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

I am hopeful that this will help get rid of FLoC but I worry about two things. One, this will end up being treated like the "no track" headers. That's just totally ignored after IE (was it IE?) enabled it be default. That gave all the trackers a reason to just ignore it and track everyone. I don't know if that exact same thing can happen here, but something similar maybe? The other thing I worry about is that FLoC 2.0 or whatever might replace it, will be worse.

"Kill it before it lays eggs." but do we worry about what evolves from this if it dies?

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#9

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

enlyth wrote: post #7

meattle wrote: post #2

WordPress is 41% of the web. If this goes through and FLoC is disabled by default by WordPress, will FLoC be dead on arrival?

This assumes the majority of these Wordpress websites will update to the latest version in a timely manner

[deleted]

Re: Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

#10

Post by geocrasher » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

It would appear that there are already at least two plugins that take care of this for those who'd like to do so before it's rolled into the WordPress core:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/floc/