Google gets its way... or FLoC by another name...

[Blacklab]

arsTECHNICA article - 07Sep23 - 'Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome'.

Don't let Chrome's big redesign distract you from the fact that Chrome's invasive new ad platform, ridiculously branded the "Privacy Sandbox," is also getting a widespread rollout in Chrome today. If you haven't been following this, this feature will track the web pages you visit and generate a list of advertising topics that it will share with web pages whenever they ask, and it's built directly into the Chrome browser. It's been in the news previously as "FLoC" and then the "Topics API," and despite widespread opposition from just about every non-advertiser in the world, Google owns Chrome and is one of the world's biggest advertising companies, so this is being railroaded into the production builds.

Google's Privacy Sandbox News - 07Sep23 - 'Privacy Sandbox for the Web reaches general availability'.

Today, we mark a major milestone for the Privacy Sandbox for the Web, reaching "general availability" on Chrome for the relevance and measurement APIs. This milestone is a significant step on the path towards a fundamentally more private web.

[vannilla]

I will be surprised if there is someone surprised by this.

[mrnhmath]

A dominant force getting its way, who could've guessed. The need for Goanna grows each day.

[fatboy]

Every single day the importance of Pale Moon, Basilisk, Sealion, Netfusion and Epyrus Projects grow by a factor 10

[suzyne]

Am I correct in thinking that this is specific to Google Chrome, and not part of the open source Chromium?

And that there is little chance that the Topics API would become a W3C standard?

Could this move by Google be a good thing for the browser market as it provides another reason to avoid Chrome? And allows other browsers to distinguish themselves by not having the so called Privacy Sandbox!

[ron_1]

Am I correct in thinking that this is specific to Google Chrome, and not part of the open source Chromium?

It looks like it may be? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67120561/does-chromium-have-federated-learning-of-cohorts-floc

[suzyne]

It looks like it may be? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67120561/does-chromium-have-federated-learning-of-cohorts-floc

Things could have changed since that post (2 years ago), but it looks like it is in Chromium, which I guess makes sense if Google would like it to be used as widely as possible. If it has been in the code that long, and the other browsers based on the open source haven't implemented it, then it might be easy to not include or disable it, which is good!

[Night Wing]

Every single day the importance of Pale Moon, Basilisk, Sealion, Netfusion and Epyrus Projects grow by a factor 10

You need to add the Mercury browser to your list too.

[vannilla]

Could this move by Google be a good thing for the browser market as it provides another reason to avoid Chrome? And allows other browsers to distinguish themselves by not having the so called Privacy Sandbox!

Hardly, unfortunately.
We have reached a point where even the least technical user has gotten "prompt fatigue", which is the state where every message box, especially modal ones, are simply dismissed with the press of the button that makes them disappear as fast as possible and, possibly, permanently regardless of the nature of the prompt, because the person in question would have to deal with too many otherwise.
Most people were already fed up of prompts because they got in the way of their work and all the cookie modals exacerbated this issue, and if we add the fact that both cookie banners and this Google thing contains the keyword "privacy", it is perfectly normal to think they are related and since one normally already "accepts" the cookie policy of each website, might as well accept this one too so there are no more disturbances.
If you add this issue with developers using marketshare as a metric, you end up with the current status quo, except maybe that a group of people now has opted in to more Google tracking because they are fed up of yes/no dialog boxes.

[Potkeny]

I wonder how other "privacy-oriented" chromium-forks will deal with this.. maybe the time for switching back to firefox as secondary browser is coming, if FF will not implement something like this soon (absolutely not due to google-pressure, oh no).

[Moonchild]

Apparently it can still be disabled (for now). Go to:

Code: Select all

chrome://settings/adPrivacy

and flip off Ad Topics, Site-suggested Ads and Ad Measurement

(Source: Dave Plummer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Z6HNLuYk8)

[nicolaasjan]

I wonder how other "privacy-oriented" chromium-forks will deal with this.. maybe the time for switching back to firefox as secondary browser is coming, if FF will not implement something like this soon (absolutely not due to google-pressure, oh no).

Brave opposed to this when it was called FLoC in 2021.
https://brave.com/why-brave-disables-floc/

And later in 2022:
https://brave.com/web-standards-at-brave/7-googles-topics-api/

Vivaldi Technologies published an article on their blog yesterday, in which it revealed that it won't enable Google Topics in the browser:
Alert: No Google Topics in Vivaldi.

[Potkeny]

Vivaldi Technologies published an article on their blog yesterday, in which it revealed that it won't enable Google Topics in the browser:

And they can do that, for now. Will be interesting to see whether Google will try to bake this into chromium so deeply that forks can't easily disable it, or google will just not care about the small marketshare of the forks and ignore "the problem".

I guess as long as Edge enables it, they will be happy.

[Southern_Computer_Geek]

This milestone is a significant step on the path towards a fundamentally more private web.

[Blacklab]

Comprehensive look at Google 'Privacy Sandbox' history and implementation in article 'Explaining Google Chrome's new Privacy Sandbox'.

(Caution: Those of a right-wing persuasion should probably avoid author Corbin Davenport's review of the Brave browser linked in above article's section on 'What web browsers are using Privacy Sandbox?'... or have your apoplexy pills handy. )

PS. Vivaldi update 3 days ago clarifying their position Re: Privacy Sandbox: 'Alert: No Google Topics in Vivaldi'.

[Moonchild]

So, if I understand all this correctly:

Current/traditional tracking:

• Creates global data stores per installation
• Uses cookies and local data in that installation
• Is under the user's control
• Offers control what sites to store data for
• Offers control when to delete stuff/start fresh
• Is advertising-company independent

"Privacy sandbox"/Topics API:

• Creates a separate environment "sandbox"
• Creates global data stores per user
• Uses cookies and local data
• Sends this data to Google to store "in the cloud"
• Is not under the user's control
• Will follow the user when they hop to a different installation/os, associating with account logins and other identifying data
• Cannot be deleted
• Is married to Google

Ultimately with Google's plan to kill 3rd party cookies in Chrome, this means they are enforcing that advertisers use their ad platform for tracking/personalization, as the only way to still do that would be through the Topics API. Also, the "privacy" of a "privacy sandbox" will only be "private" for the user's locality, i.e. the user's profile will be part of the advertiser/Google's data collection instead of local storage on the computer that can be cleared. This does not make it more private as the same sandbox profile will be associated with the user in question, and as such from a user-advertiser relationship perspective, is less private, or rather: not private at all. The user is the one on the outside of the "privacy shield" in this case, and the ones being kept protected/private will be the advertisers and ad publishers.

[daemonspudguy]

(Caution: Those of a right-wing persuasion should probably avoid author Corbin Davenport's review of the Brave browser linked in above article's section on 'What web browsers are using Privacy Sandbox?'... or have your apoplexy pills handy. )

I actually agree with Corbin that you shouldn't use Brave, but not even necessarily because of Brandon Eich's support for the attempt to ban gay marriage (although it certainly doesn't help improve my opinions). The other points (the push for cryptocurrency, the ad network, the bloated experience) are already more than enough reasons for me to recommend avoiding Brave.

[moonbat]

the push for cryptocurrency, the ad network, the bloated experience

I have Brave on desktop as least bad Chrome clone alternate browser (and now I've stopped using it in favor of Floorp, which is a defanged Firefox) - but can confirm that the crypto and ad stuff is strictly opt-in. Of course the bloat in terms of features you don't need is ever present as in current Firefox; that's what happens when you don't have a powerful browser extension mechanism as opposed to just web extensions. The built in adblocker feels like a toy compared to uBlock Origin, for example.

[suzyne]

Came across this online FLoC test made available by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

https://amifloced.org/

Could be handy for anyone who uses Chromium based browsers as an adjunct to Pale Moon?

[Blacklab]

Likely that FLoC A/B trial was present in Google Chrome only... and hopefully wouldn't have got into the more privacy-orientated chromium-based (Blink-engined) browsers such as Vivaldi and Brave?

Anyhow, FLoC probably no longer exists in current Chrome in any recognisable form? The EFF's supporting 'Am I FLoCed?' article was dated April 2021, since when the blowback FLoC received caused Google to retrench, rethink, relaunch, and resume advance as is the company's oft-repeated methodology for getting what it wants... i.e Google's long-established 'frog-boiling' approach to slowly gaining and now keeping control of both internet standards and thereby control of the massively lucrative online advertising industry.

Thus, FLoC was duly replaced with the slightly different 'Topics API' approach to user data gathering, user profiling, and user profile data auctioning in January 2022. The 'Topics API' is now part of Google's 'Privacy Sandbox' which went 'live' in Chrome 115 from 24th July 2023. No doubt there will be new A/B trials in current Chrome and other compliant Blink-engined browsers to check the frogs are boiling nicely?

Google has got its way again. When 3rd party cookies are phased-out in late 2024 = Google's 'Topics API' will control all access to user profile data = near total domination of online advertising = monopoly position enhanced = vast new goldmine!