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Comment by topspin | Hacker News Reader

This is what EFF says about this scheme:

"A flock name would essentially be a behavioral credit score: a tattoo on your digital forehead that gives a succinct summary of who you are, what you like, where you go, what you buy, and with whom you associate."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/dont-play-googles-priv...

BTW, Chrome users have been part of this system for nearly a year now.

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EFF tends to... sensationalize things more than I'm comfortable with.

I wonder why that is cause I feel like they didn’t used to be as hyperbolic or dramatic

I’ve always chalked it up to fundraising strategy, but I admit my opinion is reactive, I haven’t done any research.

I suspect part of that might be a reaction to us (as in the population in general) getting used to privacy violations. It takes a bit more drama to get our attention in a world where we are all willing to voluntarily carry a personal tracking device 24/7...

EFF has been taken over by privacy zealots. They used to be more focused on what their name says: freedom. That is, fighting censorship and regulation of the internet.

And the privacy folks love their hyperbole

It’s hardly a new idea to count privacy as part of freedom.

Yeah, but privacy used to be a part of the mission, with the understanding that privacy was a good thing but not the only thing. It seems like over the years the focus has shifted to privacy being the ultimate goal, and every other aspect of the mission happens in the name of privacy. And there's no acceptance of the idea that some well-informed people are willing to make a decision to sacrifice some privacy in exchange for convenience or cost, anybody who considers sacrificing some of their own privacy is treated as a moron who needs to be protected from themselves.

They’ve definitely zeroed in on it. I think it is understandable, though, from their position—privacy seems most acutely at-risk, at least stateside, and the vast majority of people affected aren’t among those well-informed.

> what their name says: freedom.

Not necessarily disagreeing with your actual point, but neither of the F's in EFF stands for "freedom".

EFF tends to be far more timid than what I am comfortable with.

The EFF needs to get to the point that politicians seriously consider fighting them. Its the only real way to effect change in the US. As we have seen multiple times, the other folks keep introducing bills over and over again. That needs to be a hard stop and the only way to get there is fear because logic just doesn't work for tech.

And the only way to get politicians to seriously consider fighting for you is:

- give them money

- offer them a political advantage over their opponents

- build up enough grassroots support among their constituents that not supporting your positions would be effectively career suicide

The best organizations utilize all three.

I completely agree with you, but...

> because logic just doesn't work for tech

is more than a little ironic to me. I suppose it's like people saying you can't 'out-logic' a judge through a technicality, or that the law does not mean they are Perfect Laws of Logic; they're designed to be interpreted by judges.

I admire the EFF though, and I support what they advocate for. I was going to say I'd like them to be more pragmatic, but I suppose their hardline opinions are most of the reason they exist as an advocacy organization.

Logic is fine for technical folks and a lot of general public, it doesn't work very well in the political arena where waving the bloody shirt is the norm. Logic is a poor weapon in an emotional debate and doesn't work worth a damn.

True. I just found that quote ironic is all.

To your actual point, though, I think you've totally nailed it. I'm not sure if emotion and politics are permanently inextricable, but from my limited, unfortunate experience, it seems as though any kind of logical argument doesn't or can't (!) sway anyone (myself, of course, included!)

So you give the EFF what kind of TameAntelope score? 0.3 ?

I love the EFF! I just don't like this one specific aspect of the articles I see written from them.

It's hardly a big deal, I almost regret commenting about it.

I give you a 0.9 sitkack score (quite good actually) for the honest response. :)

Is a sitkack score a thing or am I missing out on a joke?

Their usernames

Thanks!

I donate money to the EFF regularly, but their click-baity hysteria annoys me too.

Google openly choose the collective noun for sheep as the name of a technology for labelling humans; I don't think the EFF's response should be the primary source of discomfort here.

This made me laugh, and you're not wrong exactly, but I will note that "flock" is also used for birds, and birds are frequently used as a metaphor for freedom just as much as sheep are used as a metaphor for mindless group-following behaviour.

Either way, I wouldn't read too much into it.

These proposals have generally been named after bird things:

https://github.com/michaelkleber/pigin https://github.com/WICG/turtledove https://github.com/WICG/sparrow https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/master/TERN.md https://github.com/prebid/identity-gatekeeper/blob/master/pr...

I believe "FLoC" comes from the phrase "birds of a feather flock together", which is a decent metaphor for how the proposal works

(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)

You should really investigate your biases if the first thought that comes to your mind is that Google chose flock because it thinks customers are sheep.

Of course Google does not think its customers are sheep. Google thinks its users are sheep. Chrome users are not the customers.

The nice thing about this new Google technology is that it makes it easier to fleece a flock of users, while making the users think they have privacy.

My first thought was birds, so perhaps I might turn that around and recommend a reciprocal investigation. Because only on further reflection did I see the darker side, and realise the likes of Google do not get to make the “oh-we-didn’t-realise-that” argument.

They're not quite as aggressive as Greenpeace, but they have the same mainstream credibility problem.

This sounds like the YouTube-algorithm applied to the advertising web.

One false click and you're damned for weeks.

You can use YouTube logged out. I have an RSS reader for all my favourite channels.

Although the RSS feed is very basic. No description or thumbnails. Also premiers show up before the are available and other inconveniences.

You can use the web logged out but you can’t escape Google trying to convince me I’m from India.

But you can't use Youtube premium logged out.

I must not be the only one who watches YouTube in private browsing mode, so one wrong video won’t totally ruin your recommends

Just click Not Interested a couple times and the faulty recommendations go away, right?

https://adssettings.google.com/

> BTW, Chrome users have been part of this system for nearly a year now.

The OP says "The API exists as a browser extension within Google Chrome," which made me think it was a separate browser extension that I would not have if I had not chosen to install.

Are you saying it's built into Chrome instead? Cite? And if so is there any way to disable it?

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