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Google’s FLoC Is a Terrible Idea

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604 points wyldfire | 1 comments | 04 Mar 21 15:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.295s | source
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ttt0 ◴[04 Mar 21 17:39 UTC] No.26345385[source]▶
Will I be able to opt out from this?
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izacus ◴[04 Mar 21 18:08 UTC] No.26345850[source]▶
I'd assume that you can use a browser that doesn't send this data?
replies(2): >>26346276 #>>26346282 #
kibwen ◴[04 Mar 21 18:36 UTC] No.26346276[source]▶
Until Google sites start deliberately breaking if you don't send this data (or your browser is known to implement any other feature intended to circumvent it), thereby destroying the market share of any browser that dares to do so.
replies(1): >>26346356 #
oytis ◴[04 Mar 21 18:42 UTC] No.26346356[source]▶
You can send bogus data in this case.
replies(1): >>26346469 #
kibwen ◴[04 Mar 21 18:50 UTC] No.26346469[source]▶
I mention this. If Firefox were to come out and say "we're going to start spoofing this data", Google servers would start rejecting Firefox users within the week. No major browser would dare do it, not even Safari and Edge, because plenty of people are forced to use Google services for work. At best, you would have a small number of people using minor browsers and passing around patches for major browsers to spoof the data discreetly.
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1. oytis ◴[05 Mar 21 09:59 UTC] No.26355021[source]▶
There is a slight difference between a monopoly and a dominant market position. The latter is only achieved by consistently being better than competitors and it is easy to lose once this is no longer the case. Google with all its current power is not in the position to dictate what all the browsers should do - and prohibiting Firefox from its servers is a) an evil move that would make people reconsider their dependency on Google services (and there are a lot of companies that would be happy to get these customers) b) Is easy to circumvent by using Chrome for Google services and Firefox/whatever for anything else.