I don't think I'm setting that up, but maybe I'm not understanding. Because to me what Google is doing is a clear attempt at maintaining the status quo of an ad-funded internet while removing the ability for fine-grained 3rd party tracking.

So when people say this is a threat to the "free internet" I'm asking what that means - because right now the status quo has a lot of upsides, a few of which I listed. I want to hear what the alternatives are. What is it people are asking for?

What's the implementation of this that you think would be better?

It's a threat to the "free" (as in freedom) internet in that with this as the tracking mechanism, Google via Chrome is directly tracking your interests. It effectively makes "serves you ads and tracks your interests" a core part of what it means for a browser (Chrome) to be a browser.

Many folks feel like this is a capitalism-flavored move on par with "all phones should track the bad behavior of their owners and report it to the government." The point is that it hands over a lot of control.

What if Google decides to expand the topics to include things like "seeking reproductive care" in a state like Texas? Could that be used to try to target folks seeking abortions, potentially with legal action? All of these are hypotheticals, but they're all potential destinations if we continue in this direction.

Hence the EFFs warning.

> Google via Chrome is directly tracking your interests

But Chrome doesn't send Google that data. The data doesn't leave Chrome. What leaves are the features.

> "all phones should track the bad behavior of their owners and report it to the government."

But behavior and identity are not being conveyed in this instance.

> The point is that it hands over a lot of control.

But you can disable it.

> What if Google decides to expand the topics to include things like "seeking reproductive care" in a state like Texas?

That would suck, but:

a) If this is done as intended it's anonymous

b) That would be insane