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Google’s FLoC Is a Terrible Idea

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604 points wyldfire | 3 comments | 04 Mar 21 15:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.452s | source
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beervirus ◴[04 Mar 21 17:30 UTC] No.26345266[source]▶
All modern adtech is a terrible idea.

Let's go back to banner ads that are "targeted" based on what type of website you're looking at, rather than based on vacuuming up as much private info as possible about users.

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sodality2 ◴[04 Mar 21 18:14 UTC] No.26345953[source]▶
Yeah, revenue for that is pennies to the dollar compared to tracking. I am not defending it but it is not a simple switch to stop being evil and everything is fine. Hundreds of thousands of services would shut down that relied on ads to function. Which, again, they are relying on a predatory business model, but still.
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1. rileymat2 ◴[04 Mar 21 18:48 UTC] No.26346441[source]▶
Is the revenue for that pennies on the dollar because tracking exists, or is that what it is worth?

I have no expertise in this, but I don't see why anyone would pay for banner ads for more than pennies on the dollar if tracking is an option.

Wouldn't removing tracking change the economics?

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2. Shared404 ◴[04 Mar 21 18:51 UTC] No.26346486[source]▶
This is a good point.

Also, this specific situation seems like a good candidate for regulation, which removes the need for businesses to be ethical of their own accord.

3. marcosdumay ◴[04 Mar 21 19:08 UTC] No.26346706[source]▶
On practice, everybody was announcing at Google when it used the site's content to decide what to show, and kept announcing at them once they changed into targeting the user instead. The change went mostly unnoticed.

On the other hand, it can be that people detected the change on their results metrics, and decided to increase their spending because of the change. I really don't know how to differentiate this scenario from a normal increase on internet advertising that should naturally happen at the earlier days of a fast growing web. I don't think even Google (that has all the numbers) can tell them apart either.