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Google’s FLoC Is a Terrible Idea

(www.eff.org)
604 points wyldfire | 2 comments | 04 Mar 21 15:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.444s | source
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karmakaze ◴[04 Mar 21 17:08 UTC] No.26344983[source]▶
> Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC)

I hate the use of new/uncommon acronyms/initialisms without immediate clarification, a form of clickbait. So many paragraphs down to see what it's called. Expected more from EFF.

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1. jcrawfordor ◴[04 Mar 21 20:32 UTC] No.26347857[source]▶
In the case of reverse-engineered acronyms like this one, I think there's a judgment call that you need to make: in some cases it is simply not useful to expand the term. They explain what FLoC means very early on, but the expansion of the acronym conveys very little information since it is technical, somewhat nonspecific, and it's clear that the acronym was designed before its meaning.

Consider, for example, that it's uncommon to expand military program acronyms because their meaning is often less useful than saying "it's just a word."

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2. inopinatus ◴[04 Mar 21 22:18 UTC] No.26349240[source]▶
The EFF is also milking the super creepy feeling from Google naming their technology for labeling humans, after the group noun for sheep.