Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by gentleman11 on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @10:27AM (#27516004)

If Firefox had larger market share, Chrome wouldn’t have been able to make this opt out for websites rather than opt in because it would have given them a bad public image. I don’t think it’s fair that some company gets to force every website maintainer (most aren’t extremely technical and just use Wordpress or something similar) on earth to muddle through documentation for their particular setups to 1) learn it exists and 2) turn it off if desired.

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by gpm on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @11:05AM (#27516535)

> opt out for websites

This wording annoys me. The websites have nothing to do with it. Google choosing to turn it's browser into spyware that leaks information about what you used to do with it isn't the websites fault, the webserver doesn't do anything and doesn't have anything done to it, there is nothing for it to opt out of.

Google chose to give websites a way to request that the users browser doesn't include the fact that they visited this website in it's cohort calculation. That's fine, but the messaging around it is a transparent attempt at shifting the blame. It's not the website opting out or in, it's the website acting as an uninvolved third party bystander asking google to stop. Asking why a website didn't opt out is equivalent to a thief asking "well why didn't you stop me?" to the person looking on from the sidewalk.

We shouldn't accept this messaging. We should be very clear that Chrome is the entity spying on you, not the website, and that the website has no power to decide whether or not chrome spies on you, only the ability to make a polite request that it doesn't (or more accurately, does so less).

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by magicalist on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @10:44AM (#27516241)

> If Firefox had larger market share, Chrome wouldn’t have been able to make this opt out for websites rather than opt in

FLoC is only opt in for testing the proposal[0]. As a sibling comment says this is technically performative but publicly signals a stance against the proposal.

Though we also shouldn't forget that Amazon loves third party tracking and happily falls back to IP address associations if cookies aren't available.

Edit:

[0] https://developer.chrome.com/blog/floc/#take-part-in-a-floc-...

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by jmholla on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @03:05PM (#27520019)

Isn't it the opposite. It's opt-out for testing and is supposed to be opt-in when it goes live? I mean, I just disabled it and I am certain I didn't opt-in to it given that I had to go to about:config to have the setting show up.

You can opt-in to actively be a part of FLoC, but if you don't opt-out, Google may randomly choose you to be part of their testing.

Edit: I think your point may have been from the perspective of a website owner. Sorry.

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by paulpan on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @12:45PM (#27517987)

From a purely implementation standpoint, defaulting to opt-in instead opt-out leads to a long and arduous user migration process. Especially if it's a major change and/or somewhat controversial. Furthermore it tends to fragment the userbase and accumulation of tech debt (e.g. feature disparity). I think this is a huge factor in iOS versioning having such good consistency across its install base.

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by tgv on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @12:17PM (#27517601)

I've been using FF since forever (first Navigator, then a macos variant called Camino, and after it EOL'd, Firefox; tried quite a few others too, but always returned to FF). Never a problem, except of course with websites that don't test if it works on Firefox.

> shoot the messenger, it won't fix Firefox bugs or help their market share.

Your message doesn't really contribute to it either. If you hate Firefox with a passion and wish that Alphabet dominates the world and turns us all into clicking zombies, keep spreading it. Otherwise, better not.

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by hahahasure on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @02:21PM (#27519427)

I couldn't access this website with Firefox.

Firefox is doing the damage to themselves.

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by tgv on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @02:44PM (#27519736)

You can't access HN with Firefox? This website loads one simple html file, one style sheet with a handful of media queries, three gifs and a small js file, which only seems to do things like voting and hiding. While FF 3.6 won't do the styling properly, even that ancient version should be able to display the contents.

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by ysavir on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @12:24PM (#27517696)

If that's really the only thing keeping you from Firefox, which you would "love" to do, why not stop keeping dozens of tab open at a time?

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by dreamcompiler on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @01:53PM (#27518963)

because...it's a use case that I like that works fine in other browsers?

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by mdoms on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @03:06PM (#27520030)

If Firefox wants a bigger market share they need a significantly better product. That's just how the world works. I don't use Chrome but I sure as heck don't use Firefox.

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Re:Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC by tentacleuno on Wednesday June 16, 2021 @04:39AM (#27526285)

Perhaps better for privacy too, unlike the telemetry-riddled Firefox of today. LibreWolf sounds a hell of a lot better, though.

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