Our new enemy: Google Topics (exFLoC)
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Apparently FLoC is dead, but new enemy has emerged - Topics!
With Topics, your browser determines a handful of topics, like “Fitness” or “Travel & Transportation,” that represent your top interests for that week based on your browsing history. Topics are kept for only three weeks and old topics are deleted. Topics are selected entirely on your device without involving any external servers, including Google servers. When you visit a participating site, Topics picks just three topics, one topic from each of the past three weeks, to share with the site and its advertising partners. Topics enables browsers to give you meaningful transparency and control over this data, and in Chrome, we’re building user controls that let you see the topics, remove any you don’t like or disable the feature completely.
https://blog.google/products/chrome/get-know-new-topics-api-privacy-sandbox/
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@stardust Post it here? https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/59563/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floc-ed/171?page=9 (Read that earlier but forgot to post).
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@npro crossposted there too.
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@stardust Yeah but this cross-posting is most unfortunate. I've only just seen this dedicated new thread now, having already made various Topics posts in the FLoC thread [coz, at that stage, i'd not seen there was a new thread]. Now we have fragmented posts, which IMO is unfortunate.
It's a bugger [ie, more work] for Mods, but IMO all Topics posts in the FLoC thread should be moved to this thread. Dare i say that in the other thread, they are... OT?
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@guigirl let's wait for the official topic about topic
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@stardust Huh? What's this current thread?
Disclaimer: I've not yet had brekkie or coffee...
Oh, you mean a V blog thread? Excellent, even more fragmentation ahead...
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Google super evil intentional misdirection strategy strike again!
This is the same evil strategy they did with "Autoplay" for HTML5 video standard in the early days. Big G know everyone hate autoplay video on pageload, so they create another Play next video in playlist function & name it AUTOPLAY! So now when someone raise the discussion about blocking autoplay (on pageload), some idiots will defend it & said they want autoplay function because it make their live easier - without understanding people are talking about autoplay on pageload & not the autoplay playlist function! So, this debate always end up in circles where stupid people shouting at everyone else & defending autoplay...
Now, Big G is doing this again by rebranding FLoC to TOPICS, to create confusion & get some stupid people to do the fighting for 'em. So everyone, please don't fall for this old trick & repeat the same stupid history. You know what they said about Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice...
Now, instead of TOPICS, they should call it what it really is: TAG. Just be honest upfront & make it clear that internet users are like tagged cattle to 'em, free to be observed, tagged, & sold to highest bidder in the capitalistic market. LOL
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Edit | Rats! I didn't see @pafflick's post…
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From reading the explanations in the links, I gather that topics cannot be generated if you keep emptying your history.
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@streptococcus said in Our new enemy: Google Topics (exFLoC):
From reading the explanations in the links, I gather that topics cannot be generated if you keep emptying your history.
well, I guess they still can generate topics on the fly while you browsing
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The lovable company does it again.
Chrome’s “Topics” advertising system is here, whether you want it or not
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/googles-topics-advertising-system-starts-rolling-out-to-chrome-canary/Nightly Chrome canary builds can now track user interests and run ad auctions
Google is on a quest to kill the third-party web cookie, which is often used by advertisers to track users for targeted ads. Unlike other browser companies like Apple and Mozilla, which block third-party cookies outright, Google is one of the world's largest advertising companies. It doesn't want to kill the third-party cookie without first protecting its primary revenue source. Google seems to view user tracking as a mandatory part of Internet usage, and instead of third-party cookies, it wants to build a user-tracking system directly into its Chrome browser. Google's eye-roll-inducing name for this advertising system is the "Privacy Sandbox," and on Thursday, the company released its latest tracking solution in Chrome's nightly "Canary" builds.
Topics will have Chrome locally track your browsing history and build a list of interests, which Chrome will then share with advertisers whenever they ask for ad targeting.
Google's first swing at a Chrome user-tracking system was called FLoC, but after many privacy advocates spoke out against that idea, Google dropped it and pivoted to the current "Topics" solution. There isn't a huge difference between the two systems, other than it seems less likely that someone would be able to individually target a user with the Topics API. It's hard to not find both proposals extremely gross. Google argues that it is mandatory that it builds a user tracking and advertising system into Chrome, and the company says it won't block third-party cookies until it accomplishes that.
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@guigirl said in FLoC --> “Topics” advertising system.:
"Privacy Sandbox,"
Next on Google: "Mafia Boss" renamed to "Saint"
Google argues that it is mandatory that it builds a user tracking and advertising system into Chrome, and the company says it won't block third-party cookies until it accomplishes that.
Not even sick, just
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What a nice thread!
and Google of course! -
@stardust All posts created in this thread that do not include a middle-finger, shall be flagged.
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@guigirl Oh geez, now i have to flag myself!
I did not think this thru carefully enough...
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@guigirl I'm confused
Is this added to Chrome or to Chromium?
Or am I just too naive to think they are/should be different things?
Just in case
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@tbgbe said in FLoC --> “Topics” advertising system.:
to Chrome or to Chromium?
Ofc that's the right question, & tbh atm i don't know. The article ostensibly concerns
chrome, but it does sayThe latest Chromium Blog post laid out the current timeline, "Starting today, developers can begin testing globally the Topics, FLEDGE, and Attribution Reporting APIs in the Canary version of Chrome. We’ll progress to a limited number of Chrome Beta users as soon as possible. Once things are working smoothly in Beta, we’ll make API testing available in the stable version of Chrome to expand testing to more Chrome users."
Given the technical relationship of chrome to chromium, i confess in my cynicism i felixungered my way to concluding that it's coming to chromium not only chrome. It would be delightful if i'm wrong & it's only actual Chrome
dolts oopsusers who are gonna cop this... but, i have a hard time trying to persuade myself that gargle won't want to infect the entire chromium userland rather than only their direct band of inbred lost souls.[gargle
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@guigirl If they do add this to chromium, presumably the APIs could be removed/disabled (given enough resources) by other devs.
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