6 ms·

What bothers me the most about FLOC is that there is no reason or advantage for me as a user to run it unless I'm forced to. Cookies, even if they get hijacked

What bothers me the most about FLOC is that there is no reason or advantage for me as a user to run it unless I'm forced to. Cookies, even if they get hijacked for tracking, are genuinely useful to persist state and having them on results in a better experience. Even in the case of something more invasive like DRM/EME, I might want to turn it on in exchange to be able to watch some new show on a streaming service. Turning on FLOC brings nothing to the user in return and feels like charity towards advertisers.

md_ 5y ago
Isn’t the DRM comparison exactly right, though? Improving ad targeting enables an ad-supported online ecosystem. Admittedly, there’s a tragedy of the commons issue: I have no individual incentive to enable FLOC. But, similarly to your DRM example, at some point publishers could require it, no?
- no_time 5y ago
  > at some point publishers could require it, no? They could. However they wouldn't have a way of enforcing you play along and don't have a separate floc ID for every site you visit
jedberg 5y ago
I like personalized ads. If I have to suffer with ads to support the websites I like, I'd rather have them personalized. Instagram is really good at this -- I probably click on at least 1/4 of the ads I get, and have definitely made purchases based on Instagram ads. So as a user, the benefit would be better ads. Honestly I'll probably leave FLOC on if given the option (although I use Firefox and Safari, and as far as I know neither will really support it).
- throwaway2048 5y ago
  HN is the only place on the internet I've seen people expound their love for personalized advertising.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Is there any research on people's preferences in this regard?
  - ahelwer 5y ago
    It helps that that's where the money comes from.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    I'm sure there are some forums where people who sell ads like them too. :) But what can I say, I'm a realist. I spent a lot of years working on a website supported by advertising. I understand not everyone will or can pay for the websites they enjoy, and advertising is a good second option. And if we're going to have to live in a world with ad supported websites, I'd rather those ads be good.
    - ahelwer 5y ago
      You're defining "good" here to mean "effective at manipulating me to spend money", which is strange! I'd rather not be manipulated into buying things I didn't realize would finally fill the gaping hole inside my soul until two seconds ago. Would be perfectly content seeing ads for, I don't know, farm equipment until I happily perish of old age never once experiencing the fomo of not possessing a theragun.
      - jedberg 5y ago
        I'm defining good as "informing of things I didn't know existed". I consider advertising just another news channel. Copying from my comment above, here are some examples of things I've bought. I like trying out new things because I can afford it, but I don't always have time to go out and look for them. So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram ads: The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was a product I could buy with it already installed. I liked the idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my own. The existence of a commercial product vastly improved my life. I've already used it for over 1000 miles of self driving in just a couple weeks. It's a night and day difference when driving. I suppose I would have eventually heard about the product, but I'm glad I heard about it when I did. The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known it existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to give my kids something fun to build that sparks a conversation about Pride and what it means and why it's important.
- leipert 5y ago
  Interesting. I just dislike ads altogether. Especially Instagram feels very manipulative. So far nothing we have bought based on Instagram or Facebook ads has been useful in the long run. Personally I prefer to either have a need for something (I want to solve problem X) and do some research based off of that. Or I share an experience with a friend where they make a recommendation. Funniest Facebook ad by the way: I work for <employer> and my partner gets ads for <products of employer> on Facebook.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    I dislike ads too. I'd rather just pay to use the sites. But I also understand not everyone can afford that. The ads are there for them. So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram ads: The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known it existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to give my kids something fun to build that sparks a conversation about Pride and what it means and why it's important. The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was a product I could buy with it already installed. I liked the idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my own. The existence of a commercial product vastly improved my life. I've already used it for over 1000 miles of self driving in just a couple weeks. It's a night and day difference when driving. I suppose I would have eventually heard about the product, but I'm glad I heard about it when I did.
    - neolog 5y ago
      Are there many people who can't afford to pay for a pageview but can afford the product being advertised on that page?
      - jedberg 5y ago
        No, but that's the whole point of ads. They're like a progressive tax system. Also some ads are awareness campaigns. Like you see a bunch of ads for Coke and the subconsciously when you want a soda you grab a Coke.
      - fomine3 5y ago
- saurik 5y ago
  FWIW, I am "personally" sick of the Internet reminding me of the thing I already bought yesterday, along with doubling down on ads for things I only engage with because I want to show my friends how stupid the ad/product is, which seems to be the state of the art of "personalized" Internet ads. I would honestly get more value--if I am forced to see ads--out of less personalized ads. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbKdKcGJ4tM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbKdKcGJ4tM <- best commentary on ads ever
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    that was in deed brilliant!
  - 1_player 5y ago
    "This person bought a vacuum cleaner yesterday, they will probably want to buy another tomorrow" is what personalised ads are. I wanted to check the price of the cheapest SSD price I could find on Amazon, and I've been getting sale notifications of cheap-ass 64GB SSD since. Of course these advanced AIs are not so intelligent to see that I've bought multiple 1TB and 2TB SSDs lately or hundreds of different products, but it has decided I'm actually interested in crappy disk drives instead.
    - saurik 5y ago
      Yeah :/. It should be "this person bought a vacuum cleaner today, so let's wait two months and start showing them ads for vacuum cleaner bags" or "maybe they are buying equipment for a new apartment, so maybe they would also like a toaster oven and a lamp". Like, imagine you had an actual salesman--a good one, as opposed to the "targeted salesman" from the video--who you bought all your stuff through and who was excited to make commissions off of you. They would never waste your time or attention or trust asking you to buy a second vacuum cleaner. If someone buys a treadmill, they probably don't want a second one, but maybe they now want some free weights. The current algorithms are just so stupid... like, I almost appreciate the premise that if you had an "actual AI" helping find you stuff to buy that could be fun, but what we have is just wasting everyone's time.
- driverdan 5y ago
  > If I have to suffer with ads to support the websites I like You don't. Use an adblocker and be done with them.
  - jefftk 5y ago
    And then how is the website jedberg likes supported?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - imiric 5y ago
      That's the website's problem, not jedberg's. If they can come up with an unintrusive and frictionless way for me to support them financially, and I think their service is worth supporting, I'll do so. The problem is that the advertising business model is forced upon users. It's like the sleazy salesman holding the service hostage, and the only way to use it is to agree to be exploited and manipulated. To hell with that nonsense. Either come up with a business model that respects your users, or close up shop as far as I'm concerned.
    - Nicksil 5y ago
      >And then how is the website jedberg likes supported? What a bizarre argument; the implication that advertising is the sole method of remuneration and sourcing support for some venture is the responsibility of anyone besides the venture. The idea just reeks of entitlement.
      - imiric 5y ago
        The author works on ads, so I can't say I'm surprised.
- Waterluvian 5y ago
  I agree. I like personalized ads. Where I'm bothered is when they're "too" personalized. Like I buy an oven, why are you showing me ovens? Stop over fitting. Just know that I'm an active nerd and advertise me active nerd stuff.
- sixothree 5y ago
  Better ads isn't a product I have much interest in. I have very much literally never seen a targeted ad I like or even found useful. This sounds like Google employee speak to me.
  - noizejoy 5y ago
    I don’t work for Google, but I don’t mind ads for guitars and synthesizers :-)
- remram 5y ago
  I don't understand this. If you want personalized ads, wouldn't you rather subscribe to consumer newsletters, that you can specifically tailor to your interest and are working for you and showing genuine reviews, rather than ads sold to the highest bidder and that try to manipulate you? Additionally why do you want to view those recommendations while you are actively trying to do something else?
  - jedberg 5y ago
    I do subscribe to newsletters and I don't want to see those recommendations while I'm doing something else. But sites are gonna run ads. And if my choice is unpersonalized ad or personalized, I'd rather it be personalized.
- masswerk 5y ago
  Interesting. I really like(d) to be included in the bigger picture. What goods there are and how they are advertised is part of our culture (as is the quality part of advertising in it self). Being cut from most of it (to see the same over and over again, things I usually made up my mind on long ago) hurts.
- lawl 5y ago
  I don't mind ads if they're not intrusive or even useful. HN has ads, in the form of job listings for YC companies. They don't bother me in the slightest, and if i lived in the US they might even provide value to me. The hundreds or thousands of ads i'd see if i'd surf without an adblocker do not. Maybe you do have a product i'm interested in and don't know about. But there's not hundreds of things i'm going to buy every month. If it was like: here's 5 products we think might be highly relevant to you every month. Sure, sign me up. But it's (almost) never that. Most of the time the entity selling ad slots realizes, hey, if we sell more ad slots, we make more money. So they keep pushing the button to get a reward. Until they die because they overdosed on ads.
  - DistressedDrone 5y ago
    I tend to agree, although I hate ads on principle. But there are a lot of things I hate and don't have to think about. I don't go around protesting the war because in my country that's not something I have to care about, for example. But advertisers made me have to care. If I didn't have adblock, I'd be running JS from some unverified third party on every other site. Couldn't they restrict it to pictures? Of course not. So now I have to care, and I'm not going to cooperate with advertisers, who - before adblock got so mainstream - were content to serve us literal viruses as long as someone paid them.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    HN has ads, but don't I have to go searching for them to find them? I think it's Stack Overflow's ad model too. We'll curate a group of readers that are appealing to people seeking jobs, put up a "jobs" tab, and charge companies to list openings.
    - lawl 5y ago
      Nope, they're injected into the frontpage sometimes. It's the entries without an upvote button and comment page.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
- o8r3oFTZPE 5y ago
  Idea: Send ads to jedberg but not everyone. The problem with ads, no matter how "personalised", is that they are sent to everyone by default. Almost no one changes defaults. Often there is not even an option to opt-out. Whether two users got the same or different ads ("personalisation") is not the issue. The issue is that they were sent ads when they did not conscisouly request them. Thus, the fact that jedberg likes ads is not an argument for sending ads to everyone. In the same way that if some user dislikes ads it is not an argument to stop sending ads to jedberg. Users are not being given a choice. When they are given a choice, e.g., to reject tracking on their smartphones, the result can be a decision that the online advertising industry dislikes. Tech company employees can call themselves users, but there is a serious bias and conflict of interest that other users being subjected to ads do not have. What if we just send ads to tech company employees. The tech worker cohort. They will not complain because they believe ads are "necessary". Problem solved.
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  I can see why entirely unrelated ads could be seen as a bad thing... but the problem with FLoC - or really any ads personalization - is that it's fundamentally based upon a privacy violation. Ergo, even if the data is only being used to serve more relevant advertising, you're still trusting some process or third-party not to use your data for more nefarious purposes. FLoC is not immune to this: it relies on the device being able to track users and then provide advertisers "blurry" access to that tracked data. The problem is that we already have plenty of other tracking mechanisms that we can't reasonably restrict and that will interfere with the privacy protections built into FLoC. You will always be able to fingerprint and FLoC will always provide some fingerprintable entropy. Even if FLoC was trustworthy enough to do what it claims, your interest cohorts alone can reveal your secrets. There's the classic example of Target knowing a woman was pregnant before her father was, for example. Yes, Google is going to try and filter out sensitive interests in cohorts, but that's an additional layer of trust you can't control. What if Google's definition of sensitive interest differs from yours?
  - visarga 5y ago
    They give you cohort ID 0 branding you as someone with sensitive issues. That's just another way of disclosing information about us.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > I probably click on at least 1/4 of the ads I get, and have definitely made purchases based on Instagram ads. In an anonymized (or not) way, can you tell me something you found via an Instagram ad that you were not aware existed and then purchased?
  - jedberg 5y ago
    Copying from my comment above, here are some examples of things I've bought. I like trying out new things because I can afford it, but I don't always have time to go out and look for them. So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram ads: The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was a product I could buy with it already installed. I liked the idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my own. The existence of a commercial product vastly improved my life. I've already used it for over 1000 miles of self driving in just a couple weeks. It's a night and day difference when driving. I suppose I would have eventually heard about the product, but I'm glad I heard about it when I did. The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known it existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to give my kids something fun to build that sparks a conversation about Pride and what it means and why it's important.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      I am kind of amazed, because you are the first person I've interacted with who (a) claims to like personalized ads and (b) has actually answered that question. Those are interesting. I understand the Pride Lego set being an ad, but the comma2 was? Do you know why the comma2 was advertised to you?
      - jedberg 5y ago
        Why wouldn’t the comma2 have an ad? It’s a commercial product. No idea why it was marched to me, but it worked.
        HWR_14 5y ago
- _ZeD_ 5y ago
  >>> I like personalized ads. why? no, seriously, why? "personalized" ad creeps me out, and I really don't understand how people can tolerate a banner like "We know you buyed Some Thing from amazon so we think you would like to purchase Related Thing from us" and not freak out
  - cdirkx 5y ago
    There are different levels of personalization. I won't be okay with something based on my search/purchasing/location history, psychological profile, personal details etc. But I would be okay with something targeted at my age, gender, and the content of the page I'm visiting.
bogwog 5y ago
Which means that the most likely outcome is that Google won't let Chrome users disable it, or they'll hide it behind some dark patterns, re-enable it after every update, etc.
jedimastert 5y ago
> Turning on FLOC brings nothing to the user in return and feels like charity towards advertisers. I would call it a charity to the site owner whose (presumably) free content you're consuming. What it brings to the user is the ability of the site owner to continue making content.
- Qub3d 5y ago
  FLoC isn't needed to show ads any more than cookies are. If we hadn't gotten everyone used to the gravy of personalized ads, this wouldn't be an issue. But going back to placing ads based on, say, the website or the expected audience in general is like getting the camel out of the tent[0]. [0]: The Camel's Nose - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel%27s_nose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel%27s_nose
m00x 5y ago
AFAIK, FLoC is only for third-party cookies, which don't really add any value these days other than tracking you across websites.
catlifeonmars 5y ago
> feels like a charity towards advertisers. This. FLoC has no value proposition for end users. Your position regarding cookies lumps two categories of cookies together. Cross-site cookies, and same-site cookies. Tracking isn’t exclusive to cross-site cookies, but the effectiveness (and invasiveness) of tracking is orders of magnitude more effective with cross site cookies. With the near-elimination of cross-site cookies, it turns out you can have your useful client side state and eat it too.

md_ 5y ago

Isn’t the DRM comparison exactly right, though? Improving ad targeting enables an ad-supported online ecosystem. Admittedly, there’s a tragedy of the commons issue: I have no individual incentive to enable FLOC. But, similarly to your DRM example, at some point publishers could require it, no?

no_time 5y ago
> at some point publishers could require it, no? They could. However they wouldn't have a way of enforcing you play along and don't have a separate floc ID for every site you visit

jedberg 5y ago

I like personalized ads. If I have to suffer with ads to support the websites I like, I'd rather have them personalized. Instagram is really good at this -- I probably click on at least 1/4 of the ads I get, and have definitely made purchases based on Instagram ads. So as a user, the benefit would be better ads. Honestly I'll probably leave FLOC on if given the option (although I use Firefox and Safari, and as far as I know neither will really support it).

throwaway2048 5y ago
HN is the only place on the internet I've seen people expound their love for personalized advertising.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Is there any research on people's preferences in this regard?
- ahelwer 5y ago
  It helps that that's where the money comes from.
- jedberg 5y ago
  I'm sure there are some forums where people who sell ads like them too. :) But what can I say, I'm a realist. I spent a lot of years working on a website supported by advertising. I understand not everyone will or can pay for the websites they enjoy, and advertising is a good second option. And if we're going to have to live in a world with ad supported websites, I'd rather those ads be good.
  - ahelwer 5y ago
    You're defining "good" here to mean "effective at manipulating me to spend money", which is strange! I'd rather not be manipulated into buying things I didn't realize would finally fill the gaping hole inside my soul until two seconds ago. Would be perfectly content seeing ads for, I don't know, farm equipment until I happily perish of old age never once experiencing the fomo of not possessing a theragun.
    - jedberg 5y ago
      I'm defining good as "informing of things I didn't know existed". I consider advertising just another news channel. Copying from my comment above, here are some examples of things I've bought. I like trying out new things because I can afford it, but I don't always have time to go out and look for them. So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram ads: The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was a product I could buy with it already installed. I liked the idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my own. The existence of a commercial product vastly improved my life. I've already used it for over 1000 miles of self driving in just a couple weeks. It's a night and day difference when driving. I suppose I would have eventually heard about the product, but I'm glad I heard about it when I did. The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known it existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to give my kids something fun to build that sparks a conversation about Pride and what it means and why it's important.
leipert 5y ago
Interesting. I just dislike ads altogether. Especially Instagram feels very manipulative. So far nothing we have bought based on Instagram or Facebook ads has been useful in the long run. Personally I prefer to either have a need for something (I want to solve problem X) and do some research based off of that. Or I share an experience with a friend where they make a recommendation. Funniest Facebook ad by the way: I work for <employer> and my partner gets ads for <products of employer> on Facebook.
- jedberg 5y ago
  I dislike ads too. I'd rather just pay to use the sites. But I also understand not everyone can afford that. The ads are there for them. So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram ads: The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known it existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to give my kids something fun to build that sparks a conversation about Pride and what it means and why it's important. The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was a product I could buy with it already installed. I liked the idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my own. The existence of a commercial product vastly improved my life. I've already used it for over 1000 miles of self driving in just a couple weeks. It's a night and day difference when driving. I suppose I would have eventually heard about the product, but I'm glad I heard about it when I did.
  - neolog 5y ago
    Are there many people who can't afford to pay for a pageview but can afford the product being advertised on that page?
    - jedberg 5y ago
      No, but that's the whole point of ads. They're like a progressive tax system. Also some ads are awareness campaigns. Like you see a bunch of ads for Coke and the subconsciously when you want a soda you grab a Coke.
    - fomine3 5y ago
saurik 5y ago
FWIW, I am "personally" sick of the Internet reminding me of the thing I already bought yesterday, along with doubling down on ads for things I only engage with because I want to show my friends how stupid the ad/product is, which seems to be the state of the art of "personalized" Internet ads. I would honestly get more value--if I am forced to see ads--out of less personalized ads. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbKdKcGJ4tM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbKdKcGJ4tM <- best commentary on ads ever
- skinkestek 5y ago
  that was in deed brilliant!
- 1_player 5y ago
  "This person bought a vacuum cleaner yesterday, they will probably want to buy another tomorrow" is what personalised ads are. I wanted to check the price of the cheapest SSD price I could find on Amazon, and I've been getting sale notifications of cheap-ass 64GB SSD since. Of course these advanced AIs are not so intelligent to see that I've bought multiple 1TB and 2TB SSDs lately or hundreds of different products, but it has decided I'm actually interested in crappy disk drives instead.
  - saurik 5y ago
    Yeah :/. It should be "this person bought a vacuum cleaner today, so let's wait two months and start showing them ads for vacuum cleaner bags" or "maybe they are buying equipment for a new apartment, so maybe they would also like a toaster oven and a lamp". Like, imagine you had an actual salesman--a good one, as opposed to the "targeted salesman" from the video--who you bought all your stuff through and who was excited to make commissions off of you. They would never waste your time or attention or trust asking you to buy a second vacuum cleaner. If someone buys a treadmill, they probably don't want a second one, but maybe they now want some free weights. The current algorithms are just so stupid... like, I almost appreciate the premise that if you had an "actual AI" helping find you stuff to buy that could be fun, but what we have is just wasting everyone's time.
driverdan 5y ago
> If I have to suffer with ads to support the websites I like You don't. Use an adblocker and be done with them.
- jefftk 5y ago
  And then how is the website jedberg likes supported?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - imiric 5y ago
    That's the website's problem, not jedberg's. If they can come up with an unintrusive and frictionless way for me to support them financially, and I think their service is worth supporting, I'll do so. The problem is that the advertising business model is forced upon users. It's like the sleazy salesman holding the service hostage, and the only way to use it is to agree to be exploited and manipulated. To hell with that nonsense. Either come up with a business model that respects your users, or close up shop as far as I'm concerned.
  - Nicksil 5y ago
    >And then how is the website jedberg likes supported? What a bizarre argument; the implication that advertising is the sole method of remuneration and sourcing support for some venture is the responsibility of anyone besides the venture. The idea just reeks of entitlement.
    - imiric 5y ago
      The author works on ads, so I can't say I'm surprised.
Waterluvian 5y ago
I agree. I like personalized ads. Where I'm bothered is when they're "too" personalized. Like I buy an oven, why are you showing me ovens? Stop over fitting. Just know that I'm an active nerd and advertise me active nerd stuff.
sixothree 5y ago
Better ads isn't a product I have much interest in. I have very much literally never seen a targeted ad I like or even found useful. This sounds like Google employee speak to me.
- noizejoy 5y ago
  I don’t work for Google, but I don’t mind ads for guitars and synthesizers :-)
remram 5y ago
I don't understand this. If you want personalized ads, wouldn't you rather subscribe to consumer newsletters, that you can specifically tailor to your interest and are working for you and showing genuine reviews, rather than ads sold to the highest bidder and that try to manipulate you? Additionally why do you want to view those recommendations while you are actively trying to do something else?
- jedberg 5y ago
  I do subscribe to newsletters and I don't want to see those recommendations while I'm doing something else. But sites are gonna run ads. And if my choice is unpersonalized ad or personalized, I'd rather it be personalized.
masswerk 5y ago
Interesting. I really like(d) to be included in the bigger picture. What goods there are and how they are advertised is part of our culture (as is the quality part of advertising in it self). Being cut from most of it (to see the same over and over again, things I usually made up my mind on long ago) hurts.
lawl 5y ago
I don't mind ads if they're not intrusive or even useful. HN has ads, in the form of job listings for YC companies. They don't bother me in the slightest, and if i lived in the US they might even provide value to me. The hundreds or thousands of ads i'd see if i'd surf without an adblocker do not. Maybe you do have a product i'm interested in and don't know about. But there's not hundreds of things i'm going to buy every month. If it was like: here's 5 products we think might be highly relevant to you every month. Sure, sign me up. But it's (almost) never that. Most of the time the entity selling ad slots realizes, hey, if we sell more ad slots, we make more money. So they keep pushing the button to get a reward. Until they die because they overdosed on ads.
- DistressedDrone 5y ago
  I tend to agree, although I hate ads on principle. But there are a lot of things I hate and don't have to think about. I don't go around protesting the war because in my country that's not something I have to care about, for example. But advertisers made me have to care. If I didn't have adblock, I'd be running JS from some unverified third party on every other site. Couldn't they restrict it to pictures? Of course not. So now I have to care, and I'm not going to cooperate with advertisers, who - before adblock got so mainstream - were content to serve us literal viruses as long as someone paid them.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  HN has ads, but don't I have to go searching for them to find them? I think it's Stack Overflow's ad model too. We'll curate a group of readers that are appealing to people seeking jobs, put up a "jobs" tab, and charge companies to list openings.
  - lawl 5y ago
    Nope, they're injected into the frontpage sometimes. It's the entries without an upvote button and comment page.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
o8r3oFTZPE 5y ago
Idea: Send ads to jedberg but not everyone. The problem with ads, no matter how "personalised", is that they are sent to everyone by default. Almost no one changes defaults. Often there is not even an option to opt-out. Whether two users got the same or different ads ("personalisation") is not the issue. The issue is that they were sent ads when they did not conscisouly request them. Thus, the fact that jedberg likes ads is not an argument for sending ads to everyone. In the same way that if some user dislikes ads it is not an argument to stop sending ads to jedberg. Users are not being given a choice. When they are given a choice, e.g., to reject tracking on their smartphones, the result can be a decision that the online advertising industry dislikes. Tech company employees can call themselves users, but there is a serious bias and conflict of interest that other users being subjected to ads do not have. What if we just send ads to tech company employees. The tech worker cohort. They will not complain because they believe ads are "necessary". Problem solved.
kmeisthax 5y ago
I can see why entirely unrelated ads could be seen as a bad thing... but the problem with FLoC - or really any ads personalization - is that it's fundamentally based upon a privacy violation. Ergo, even if the data is only being used to serve more relevant advertising, you're still trusting some process or third-party not to use your data for more nefarious purposes. FLoC is not immune to this: it relies on the device being able to track users and then provide advertisers "blurry" access to that tracked data. The problem is that we already have plenty of other tracking mechanisms that we can't reasonably restrict and that will interfere with the privacy protections built into FLoC. You will always be able to fingerprint and FLoC will always provide some fingerprintable entropy. Even if FLoC was trustworthy enough to do what it claims, your interest cohorts alone can reveal your secrets. There's the classic example of Target knowing a woman was pregnant before her father was, for example. Yes, Google is going to try and filter out sensitive interests in cohorts, but that's an additional layer of trust you can't control. What if Google's definition of sensitive interest differs from yours?
- visarga 5y ago
  They give you cohort ID 0 branding you as someone with sensitive issues. That's just another way of disclosing information about us.
HWR_14 5y ago
> I probably click on at least 1/4 of the ads I get, and have definitely made purchases based on Instagram ads. In an anonymized (or not) way, can you tell me something you found via an Instagram ad that you were not aware existed and then purchased?
- jedberg 5y ago
  Copying from my comment above, here are some examples of things I've bought. I like trying out new things because I can afford it, but I don't always have time to go out and look for them. So examples of things that I've bought from Instagram ads: The comma2 (autopilot for my Honda van). I knew OpenPilot existed, but until I saw that ad, I didn't know there was a product I could buy with it already installed. I liked the idea but didn't have time to get it all set up on my own. The existence of a commercial product vastly improved my life. I've already used it for over 1000 miles of self driving in just a couple weeks. It's a night and day difference when driving. I suppose I would have eventually heard about the product, but I'm glad I heard about it when I did. The most recent Pride lego set. I would have never known it existed, but I'm glad I know now, because I want to give my kids something fun to build that sparks a conversation about Pride and what it means and why it's important.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    I am kind of amazed, because you are the first person I've interacted with who (a) claims to like personalized ads and (b) has actually answered that question. Those are interesting. I understand the Pride Lego set being an ad, but the comma2 was? Do you know why the comma2 was advertised to you?
    - jedberg 5y ago
      Why wouldn’t the comma2 have an ad? It’s a commercial product. No idea why it was marched to me, but it worked.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
_ZeD_ 5y ago
>>> I like personalized ads. why? no, seriously, why? "personalized" ad creeps me out, and I really don't understand how people can tolerate a banner like "We know you buyed Some Thing from amazon so we think you would like to purchase Related Thing from us" and not freak out
- cdirkx 5y ago
  There are different levels of personalization. I won't be okay with something based on my search/purchasing/location history, psychological profile, personal details etc. But I would be okay with something targeted at my age, gender, and the content of the page I'm visiting.

bogwog 5y ago

Which means that the most likely outcome is that Google won't let Chrome users disable it, or they'll hide it behind some dark patterns, re-enable it after every update, etc.

jedimastert 5y ago

> Turning on FLOC brings nothing to the user in return and feels like charity towards advertisers. I would call it a charity to the site owner whose (presumably) free content you're consuming. What it brings to the user is the ability of the site owner to continue making content.

Qub3d 5y ago
FLoC isn't needed to show ads any more than cookies are. If we hadn't gotten everyone used to the gravy of personalized ads, this wouldn't be an issue. But going back to placing ads based on, say, the website or the expected audience in general is like getting the camel out of the tent[0]. [0]: The Camel's Nose - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel%27s_nose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel%27s_nose

m00x 5y ago

AFAIK, FLoC is only for third-party cookies, which don't really add any value these days other than tracking you across websites.

catlifeonmars 5y ago

> feels like a charity towards advertisers. This. FLoC has no value proposition for end users. Your position regarding cookies lumps two categories of cookies together. Cross-site cookies, and same-site cookies. Tracking isn’t exclusive to cross-site cookies, but the effectiveness (and invasiveness) of tracking is orders of magnitude more effective with cross site cookies. With the near-elimination of cross-site cookies, it turns out you can have your useful client side state and eat it too.