Google’s FLoC Is a Terrible Idea

It still coerces consent with a bad default. Sites will refuse to operate unless the FLoC is enabled, or will become obnoxious to use with it disabled. However, if FLoC were disabled by default then sites would be less likely to provide an obnoxiously bad service to those with it disabled.

The best default is not to track at all.

A lot of sites already break (sometimes in non obvious ways) with an ad blocker, so I don’t see how this changes anything.

By dramatically changing the available defaults.

If most browsers aggressively blocked ads then more sites would test to see if blocking ads breaks the site.

I don't think FLoC provides a default - that's the browser's job. We can all guess what Chrome's default will be (although I'd also expect that Incognito will disable or at least reset FLoC), but regulations like GDPR/CCPA might still require affirmative consent.

Re: obnoxiously bad service, frankly I think sites should run however they want as long as they are truly transparent about it (not just a buried EULA). I prefer open sites, but nobody should be forced into service just because I have an IP.

The flock is coerced by the herding dogs.

Google is the farmer, websites are the dogs, and we are the livestock.

Some might say, in a fit of charitability, "but it's a bird reference", citing prior work. To which I say no; don't convince yourself for one moment that Google's army of PhDs didn't notice the sheep allusion. They are not that dumb. But they are this arrogant.

Exactly. The option we choose should be better than what we currently have.

If more people block ads then more effort is also devoted to circumventing ad blockers. Ad supported sites typically don’t care about the experience of viewers who aren’t revenue generating.

If I understand correctly, couldn't you just provide a static FLoC that isn't personalized? How will the sites know whether what they're receiving is actually personalized or not?

This is my question - unless this ties in with a model to rely on trusted computing, a system receiving a FLoC shouldn't be able to validate it. That means a browser plugin could simply return "0000".

Unless this ends up as some closed source DRM style blob (in which case we might as well kiss goodbye to the open web that can be accessed by standards compliant browsers), I can't see how anyone can stop this.

On the other hand, given the widespread use of ad blockers and tracking block lists, perhaps this simply isn't a design goal - just accept that 20% of techies will block it anyway and return 0 or simply not run a browser that supports it, and focus on the majority who think Chrome is synonymous with "the internet" and run it without add-ons.

> If most browsers aggressively blocked ads then more sites would test to see if blocking ads breaks the site.

I'm not sure that's a reasonable assumption.

Many sites actively break their own user experience and hide their content as best as possible for users with adblockers. It's also understandable, because these sites don't want users but adviews and adclicks. They would rather intensify their efforts to force the user to turn on adds than make sure the website works without generating revenue.

I also don't think we would see much more subscription or pay once models, because they are just not viable for many websites. These websites would simply cease to exist and we end up with less diverse available information on the internet.