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Comment by Tom4hawk | Hacker News Reader

FLoC is basically something implemented in a browser. Why website owner should be bothered by it? If client decided to use browser with FLoC than it's their decision. The only interesting thing might be to inform user that they are using shitty browser that doesn't respect their privacy and make sure that website works in other browsers.

What if Google decides that they will ignore that header? Is there anything preventing them from doing that? Do we know why they decided to even implement this "workaround" with header?

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> If client decided to use browser with FLoC than it's their decision.

For lots of people that’s not the case. Their work mandates which browser they can use, which is (partialy) why it took so long for IE to go away.

> If client decided to use browser with FLoC than it's their decision

Is it an informed decision?

Most normal users use Chrome because "everyone else does", and won't even have a clue what FLoC is.

> Most normal users use Chrome because "everyone else does", and won't even have a clue what FLoC is.

“Because it was installed on my machine bundled with some third-party software” is also a big factor (but obviously, nobody will give you this answer, because they don't even know where Chrome came from)

It's definitely not an informed decision. That's why I mentioned that you can inform your users about this issue. I just think that this decision should not belong to webmasters/site-owners.

I certainly do see your point here. But the reality is that Google doesn't have users' best interest at heart, and is not going to be the one to responsibly inform user so they can make an informed decision on their own.

> Why website owner should be bothered by it?

at least following cases would cause this:

(1) They are disliking tracking

(2) They are disliking Google

(3) Google is competing with them

(4) They want to be liked by people disliking tracking or Google

(5) they don't want to help other competing websites to steal their customers using targetted ads

Even if we only consider the direct self-interest of website owners, website owners may want to disable FLoC in order to prevent competing websites and adversaries from being able to target that website's visitors with ads. The more effective those ads are, the more they are taking away business from the websites that have not disabled FLoC.

> Is there anything preventing them from doing that?

Potential privacy laws, competition, bad press,... but technically, nothing. Same as DoNotTrack.

In fact that's the whole idea behind FLoC. It is supposed to be a privacy improving feature! For now, the usual tracking methods based partly on third party cookies work for them, certainly better than FLoC would, and they are definitely more privacy invading.

But with things like GDPR, and with privacy being a bigger and bigger selling point, Google feels like it had to find something else and FLoC is their answer.

I don't know how the story will end but most likely in the same way as DoNotTrack, which started out badly, and turned into a joke when browsers started enabling it by default, disregarding the recommendation.

This new header seems like DoNotTrack 2.0 that Google will be forced to ignore once it gains some adoption to preserve their core business.

It's essentially virtue signalling.

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