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Comment by darren_ | Hacker News Reader

I think the expectation is other browsers will implement by default - the intention incidentally is that FLoC isn’t a google specific tech, it enables private targeting by any ad vendor. The proposal seems to mostly to be by googlers but the association is with WICG which seems to have people from all over.

As I noted in my original message - yes, its client side, you can do whatever. (‘Whether the browser sends a real FLoC or a random one is user controllable’ https://github.com/WICG/floc)

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The user controllability is genius, that neatly ties up their problem. They have a legitimate option to get out of being targeted, which they know almost no one will ever use. They could probably even add a setup prompt on install that says something like "Let us know which of these categories apply to you, so we can tailor your browsing to your interests" and get people to fill out half of it for them so they don't have to guess.

> "Let us know which of these categories apply to you, so we can tailor your browsing to your interests"

This prompt will never happen. The last thing Google wants is any additional association between their brand and advertising.

Google's mode of operation has always been to sneak in the back door and count how many boxes of cereal you have while you are looking at underwear. Knocking on the front door and to ask if they can come in would likely never occur to them.

There is no mention of Chrome being an ad supported product anywhere when you install it. They want that association completely out of people's heads.

This is a misunderstanding of what these cohorts are. If you read the [FLEDGE readme](https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/master/FLEDGE.md) you can see that there are multiple types of owners of cohorts that fall into 3 categories:

1. Advertisers - who would add you to a cohort they own, so say "Nike - womens-running-shoes"

2. Publishers - who'd want these cohorts to better allow for advertisers to advertiser on their site, so "NYTimes - business-section-reader"

3. Third party ad-tech companies looking to create audiences for advertisers who work with them, so "Example Agency - mens-formal-wear". They'd partner with publishers so that when you go to somewhere like GQ or Man of Many and read an article on tuxedos then you'd get added to the cohort.

So you are right, you'd never see a prompt to add in your interests, but this isn't because Google doesn't want to associate with specific brands, it's that Google isn't necessarily an owner of a cohort (though they totally could create their own under any 3 of those categories).

I would bet many will be highly local though, by city/neighbourhood/block level

This would hopefully kill the endless cookie questioning

Cookie popups are now part of our superstitions, our Internet rites. A decent web page, it doesn't just track you and molest your integrity -- it asks first!

I don't think we'll get away from the cookie popups, ever. It's just like the "I agree to the TOS / EULA" checkboxes. Legally toothless, but you'd better have one, just in case.

And cookie popups are now part of any corporate general counsel's requirements if you're even running first-party cookies and/or any kind of analytics, regardless of third-party-cookie changes. They're not going anywhere.

I disagree. There is are many knowledgeable people out there that spend their time looking at the requirements of GDPR etc. and how those relate to cookies. If you can be properly advised that the kind of cookies you use aren't contravening the various privacy directives, it won't be long until they disapear.

I know one place where they were forced to add a cookie popup as part of a GDPR compliance tickbox exercise. The kicker? They didn't have any cookies. After a fruitless attempt to persuade the person working through the aforementioned exercise that you only need a cookie popup if you have cookies, the popup was implemented.

Of course you need to store the user's preference. So now the site needed to have a cookie. One cookie which just stores the fact that the user has or hasn't consented to cookies.

This could easily be solved with DNT.

It could have but because DNT wasn’t made part of the GDPR and sites refused to do the right thing on their own it went no where.

Even cookie pop ups are not respected. If you visit Facebook sites by accident they’ll leave their tracking cookies before you’ve had a chance to read the terms and leave the site.

I know. But it doesn't matter as DNT is universal. If you enable DNT, websites SHOULD (or better: MUST, but unrealistisc I know) honor that. For technical/functional cookies you don't need permission. The rest is off, DNT answers the question of "Do you accept" with a browser-based "No.".

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