Google wants to STOP third-party cookies. Huh?

WetGeek

I was really amazed when I read this article about Google's Chrome browser and European regulators. It seems that Google wants to stop saving third-party cookies with their browser, but the regulators are balking at that.

(I always set Vivaldi to refuse to store third-party cookies, as a matter of privacy. Their only purpose is to track users across all web sites they visit, and I don't need that.)

It seems that Google's plan would reduce competition among online advertisers, according to the regulators. Google would still maintain their huge database of user data, but would no longer participate in allowing other advertisers to use Chrome's cookies to track users and develop their own user databases.

Brucehankins

WetGeek this has been talked about for a while now, Google refers to them as FLOCS. It's actually a good move towards privacy for Google and would probably have an short term negative impact on their ads business. They haven't rolled it out because of the antitrust perception around tracking and their ads business. This is the sad part to me, because something that would actually benefit users can't be implemented because of the perceived possibility of advantage. Of course, if they weren't a functional monopoly in search and essentially a duopoly in advertising they wouldn't have this problem.

All of that aside, Google has a huge backlog of products and services that it doesn't release. It holds them out of fear of antitrust regulation until another company finally release something similar, then release theirs a few months later so it looks like they have competition.

WetGeek

Brucehankins Google has a huge backlog of products and services that it doesn't release.

I would never have guessed that. It makes good business sense, in a heavy regulatory environment.

brent

WetGeek there was a thread about the FLOC development a year ago I think. Alphabet knows the 3P cookies' days are numbered so they are pushing for gigantic dossiers (you and I as currency) instead. Spooky interchangeable permanent record type stuff as I recall--and static of course.
Brucehankins wetgeek's article completely omits the FLOC trade-off but it sounds alluded to.
" It's actually a good move towards privacy for Google"--how do you reckon? (I've not thought all this out yet🙂)

Brucehankins

Harvey FLoC is full of holes and using a privacy respecting browser is 100% the way to go. I'd say the majority of people (normal non-techie people) just grab Chrome and never change any default settings though.
brent At least that way it's only Google who knows everything about you and is tracking you all over the web, not everyone else too. Of course, using something like Firefox, Vivaldi, Brave, or any of the other privacy focused browsers is a better option any day of the week, but if people actually cared about that as much as we do, Chrome wouldn't have almost 90% market share.

Harvey

FLoC is not a good thing. Many browsers block third party cookies by default; So of course now that the market has shifted google is looking for new ways continue invading your privacy.

The reason it is not implemented yet is because everyone but google has shit on the idea and said they will not support it.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-idea

https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/

https://www.wired.com/story/google-floc-privacy-ad-tracking-explainer/

brent

Harvey from the eff:
"Google took its proposals to the W3C, the standards-making body for the Web, where they have primarily been discussed in the Web Advertising Business Group, a body made up primarily of ad-tech vendors. In the intervening months, Google and other advertisers have proposed dozens of bird-themed technical standards: PIGIN, TURTLEDOVE, SPARROW, SWAN, SPURFOWL, PELICAN, PARROT… the list goes on. Seriously. Each of the “bird” proposals is designed to perform one of the functions in the targeted advertising ecosystem that is currently done by cookies.

FLoC is designed to help advertisers perform behavioral targeting without third-party cookies."

Bird names, you say?🙂

(last line: italic emphasis mine)

edit: in harvey's eff link above it gives a link to 'have I been Flocd?'---apparently google has made a small number of chrome browers Floc-enabled, for their own research. (eff info all dated march of this year).

jppelt

Brucehankins Ultimately you are right - if people cared the market share would not be there. Generally speaking, convenience trumps privacy and whatever comes installed is accepted.

Going off topic slightly - I'm not sure how popular I would want GNU/Linux to become...I think that is one of the issues with Gnome...trying for mass appeal. I have no issues with forks and variety of distros, DEs, etc...ultimately, they are on the kernel...and most importantly, they give us choice and encourage experimentation.

brent

jppelt Going off topic slightly - I'm not sure how popular I would want GNU/Linux to become...

I understand this. Mass appeal usually means a popular digital entity is bought off high, vacuumed up into the Machine, changed, compromised, then all these facts get obfuscated as we coast off of the illusion of original appeal/sentiment. Food industry seems to work similarly.
I always thought Solus had commercial appeal, and I've always envisioned Bea and Josh finally profiting off of what will soon be a decade before you know it, of maintaining and distributing this undersung OS.
That said, I think you are right. Tethered to the kernel is one foot on the ground.
The Linux revolution is here and now and ongoing. Not sure how I would feel, either, about a 'primetime' gnu commercial though during football🙂. Thanks for the speculative avenue there, I think about that stuff too.

jppelt

brent I would love to see Solus gain popular acclaim with B and Josh leading some sort of non-profit or even for profit LLC or S-Corp. I can only imagine the work that goes into this project. Would love to see the OpenCollective swell to $100K too 😄

What makes GNU/Linux special is our ability to mod/break/reload/test/learn/crash...I remember having to spend HOURS just getting printers operational...HPLIP has greatly simplified my life since. Ok, I could go on for way too long...

[deleted]

well, my very basic understanding about it is that without floc, advertisers wil have to fight a battle with you using 3p cookies, trackers etc. using floc, things become easier as advertisers can sit back and relax because he knows the visiting users cohort id and can show him specific ads.

Solarmass

Old post from Vivaldi CEO Jon von Tetzchner:
No, Google! Vivaldi users will not get FLoC’ed.

Oops, Harvey already posted that link...