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Comment by inopinatus | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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