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Comment by whimsicalism | Hacker News Reader

The FLoC (related to DNT) is absolutely Google leveraging their market position with Chrome to improve their advertising

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And it flopped. I don't think its replacement, "Topics" is much more likely to succeed either. That being said I think it's important to note that those are at least designed to work for the entire advertising industry, not just Google.

> And it flopped.

Their opt out header was adopted faster than "do not track". Nobody wanted anything to do with it.

> are at least designed to work for the entire advertising industry, not just Google.

It is an API where the entire data flow is controlled by Google and was meant as replacement for one that Google had no control over. Meanwhile Chrome has always shared additional data with a hardcoded list of Google services (officially for debbuging and A/B testing ) and provides direct integration with Google accounts and related tracking. FLoC and Topics exist for the advertising industry the same way an eviction notice exists for its recipient.

> was meant as replacement for one that Google had no control over

That sounds like pure speculation. From what I've actually heard, it was meant to enable targeted advertising without exposing PII, because Google has a vested interest in both protecting user privacy and selling ads (because they suffer from eroding user trust).

FLoC is part of Google's Privacy Sandbox which is a multi-solution effort to improve consumer privacy on Chrome similar to Safari's ITP. I am curious how you perceive Safari's 1P and 3P cookie changes? And how would you respond to Safari's changes as a competing browser? Would you leave 3P cookies and avoid any privacy efforts?

I consider the Privacy Sandbox a dark pattern

A feature that records details of the types sites someone visitors and then shares them with any other site that asks isn’t really a privacy feature

Can you support your main claim? Privacy Sandbox has settings for publishers, SSPs, DSPs, and consumers to opt in/out of the solutions. It is not perfect. I would want zero tracking and zero advertising in an ideal world. Today, sandbox is in 1% of all browsers. Someone with Sandbox experience can correct me if I am wrong.

I am curious. How do you view 3P cookies from a consumer perspective? My mom would consider those a dark pattern without transparency or control for ads or general tracking. What about sharing your phone number with any entity? How do you feel about Apple's tracking transparency where it removes data from app developers but Apple retains data for itself or Apple's private click measurement?

The dark pattern is claiming that something that shares your information is a privacy feature in order to trick people into turning it on. An actual privacy sandbox (like uBlock origin) just blocks things like malware scripts and tracking pixels with no concession to the people who are trying to track you. An actual privacy sandbox does not have features for publishers, SSPs, or DSPs. It--as part of the user's agent--has features for the user.

Users can opt out of the Privacy Sandbox features if they know they are there and they understand the options, IMV the settings for this are unclear at best almost to the point of being misleading.

We all know the power of defaults which is why users have to opt-out of participating in Topics rather than opting in.

The browser is supposed to be the users agent but for most people the Topics API isn’t acting in their interests. I suspect if you asked people whether they we happy for any site that asked to know the sorts of things they browsed the web for they’d say no.

As for 3rd-party cookies they should have been killed off long ago, the reason the death is delayed is because Google is primary an AdTech company and other adtech companies persuaded the UK competition authorities that Chrome killing them off without a suitable replacement would be anti-competitive hence misnamed ‘Privacy Sandbox APIs’

Apple has its own set of issues e.g. why can’t content blockers block in app ads but Apple’s issues are a separate conversation

Every company maintains data about your use on their platform. That’s expected. I don’t expect to go to Sears and shop for a refrigerator and see Sears ads on other pages advertising products I looked at specifically

This is an interesting point. Could you elaborate please?

Google creates and implements its own privacy solution in its browser. Once released, other advertisers are behind and no longer have access to their tracking -> Google dominates the market because it delivers better ROI for advertisers because it knows how to track on Chrome because it built the privacy solution.

> while giving its own ad teams inside details & time to adapt to the new paradigm

I've worked in ad tech my entire career and many years competing against Google ad solutions. To my knowledge, Google strictly separates Chrome privacy efforts from Google Ads, and these work streams are part of the Consumer Markets Authority oversight. https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/investigation-into-googles-priv...

I highlight these nuances for readers who are not closely tracking ads and privacy efforts. It is easy to make claims like "giving its own ads teams inside details" without proof, but in ad tech we know Chrome is working with multiple testing companies. Some of us happen to work in ads, but we also believe in greater consumer privacy and are eager for an improved ads paradigm.

i think it's worth noting that the 'CMA oversight' is the result of an investigation being initiated against Google for these exact anti-competitive practices and that Google has been forced to change their process by the CMA as a result of that investigation.

I don't think you work for Google or are a sock, but it is clear from your comment history that you are extremely supportive of Google and a considerable proportion of your comments on HN writ large are just defending Google across multiple different threads/issues.

My comment history probably makes it clear where I work (maybe years back) and it is not Google. I see my recent comments are reactively supporting specific Google products. I don’t have a strong stance for them at entity level and if anything I ding them for killing some of my favorite web tools. I earnestly believe that ad tech is fighting to maintain user level tracking with limited transparency, look at the efforts by LiveRamp and The Trade Desk. Those are overt efforts to use emails as currency where consumers would have limited control for relevant ads. I am surprised Google truly would eliminate 3p cookies in chrome and mobile IDs on android when both platforms benefited in ads revenue post Apple ATT and ITP. I support the privacy sandbox principles as an ad tech person and a regular consumer. I caveat that if new information comes to light regarding their intentions then I would change my mind.

I was fairly pro Apple until they half attempted to provide ads solutions in the wake of App tracking transparency and I realized their gain was on App Store ads revenue. Amazon wishes they had a browser but their stores and hardware provide sufficient ads signals. Meta has plenty of ads scandals over the years. It’s a messy landscape but only a few organizations are developing ad tech and consumer privacy solutions in the open.

Although I understand the sentiment of the Google’s ability to create better ad products in this area, I’m very consumer focused on the topic of privacy, and I want further restrictions and even incredible fines on ad companies that are focused on eliminating personal privacy rights.

That being said, I personally think that the Chrome team might be choosing solutions that better suits other Google products instead of ease of implementation and security/privacy in mind.

The Topics API doesn't seem to have any abuse opportunity since it's entirely enforced by the browser itself. There's nothing the JavaScript API can do that could give Google an advantage here given as far as I know there's only a single function that can be called in the first place.

I think more research would need to be conducted to see whether this change is actually anti-competitive or not.

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