[justinplouffe]

What bothers me the most about FLOC is that there is no reason or advantage for me as a user to run it unless I'm forced to. Cookies, even if they get hijacked for tracking, are genuinely useful to persist state and having them on results in a better experience. Even in the case of something more invasive like DRM/EME, I might want to turn it on in exchange to be able to watch some new show on a streaming service. Turning on FLOC brings nothing to the user in return and feels like charity towards advertisers.

[jedberg]

I like personalized ads. If I have to suffer with ads to support the websites I like, I'd rather have them personalized. Instagram is really good at this -- I probably click on at least 1/4 of the ads I get, and have definitely made purchases based on Instagram ads.

So as a user, the benefit would be better ads. Honestly I'll probably leave FLOC on if given the option (although I use Firefox and Safari, and as far as I know neither will really support it).

[saurik]

FWIW, I am "personally" sick of the Internet reminding me of the thing I already bought yesterday, along with doubling down on ads for things I only engage with because I want to show my friends how stupid the ad/product is, which seems to be the state of the art of "personalized" Internet ads. I would honestly get more value--if I am forced to see ads--out of less personalized ads.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbKdKcGJ4tM <- best commentary on ads ever

[leipert]

Interesting. I just dislike ads altogether. Especially Instagram feels very manipulative. So far nothing we have bought based on Instagram or Facebook ads has been useful in the long run.

Personally I prefer to either have a need for something (I want to solve problem X) and do some research based off of that. Or I share an experience with a friend where they make a recommendation.

Funniest Facebook ad by the way: I work for <employer> and my partner gets ads for <products of employer> on Facebook.

[kmeisthax]

I can see why entirely unrelated ads could be seen as a bad thing... but the problem with FLoC - or really any ads personalization - is that it's fundamentally based upon a privacy violation. Ergo, even if the data is only being used to serve more relevant advertising, you're still trusting some process or third-party not to use your data for more nefarious purposes.

FLoC is not immune to this: it relies on the device being able to track users and then provide advertisers "blurry" access to that tracked data. The problem is that we already have plenty of other tracking mechanisms that we can't reasonably restrict and that will interfere with the privacy protections built into FLoC. You will always be able to fingerprint and FLoC will always provide some fingerprintable entropy.

Even if FLoC was trustworthy enough to do what it claims, your interest cohorts alone can reveal your secrets. There's the classic example of Target knowing a woman was pregnant before her father was, for example. Yes, Google is going to try and filter out sensitive interests in cohorts, but that's an additional layer of trust you can't control. What if Google's definition of sensitive interest differs from yours?

[lawl]

I don't mind ads if they're not intrusive or even useful.

HN has ads, in the form of job listings for YC companies. They don't bother me in the slightest, and if i lived in the US they might even provide value to me.

The hundreds or thousands of ads i'd see if i'd surf without an adblocker do not.

Maybe you do have a product i'm interested in and don't know about. But there's not hundreds of things i'm going to buy every month.

If it was like: here's 5 products we think might be highly relevant to you every month. Sure, sign me up.

But it's (almost) never that. Most of the time the entity selling ad slots realizes, hey, if we sell more ad slots, we make more money. So they keep pushing the button to get a reward. Until they die because they overdosed on ads.

[o8r3oFTZPE]

Idea: Send ads to jedberg but not everyone.

The problem with ads, no matter how "personalised", is that they are sent to everyone by default. Almost no one changes defaults. Often there is not even an option to opt-out. Whether two users got the same or different ads ("personalisation") is not the issue. The issue is that they were sent ads when they did not conscisouly request them.

Thus, the fact that jedberg likes ads is not an argument for sending ads to everyone. In the same way that if some user dislikes ads it is not an argument to stop sending ads to jedberg.

Users are not being given a choice. When they are given a choice, e.g., to reject tracking on their smartphones, the result can be a decision that the online advertising industry dislikes.

Tech company employees can call themselves users, but there is a serious bias and conflict of interest that other users being subjected to ads do not have.

What if we just send ads to tech company employees. The tech worker cohort. They will not complain because they believe ads are "necessary". Problem solved.

[_ZeD_]

>>> I like personalized ads.

why?

no, seriously, why?

"personalized" ad creeps me out, and I really don't understand how people can tolerate a banner like "We know you buyed Some Thing from amazon so we think you would like to purchase Related Thing from us" and not freak out

[sixothree]

Better ads isn't a product I have much interest in. I have very much literally never seen a targeted ad I like or even found useful. This sounds like Google employee speak to me.

[throwaway2048]

HN is the only place on the internet I've seen people expound their love for personalized advertising.

[remram]

I don't understand this. If you want personalized ads, wouldn't you rather subscribe to consumer newsletters, that you can specifically tailor to your interest and are working for you and showing genuine reviews, rather than ads sold to the highest bidder and that try to manipulate you?

Additionally why do you want to view those recommendations while you are actively trying to do something else?

[driverdan]

> If I have to suffer with ads to support the websites I like

You don't. Use an adblocker and be done with them.

[Waterluvian]

I agree. I like personalized ads. Where I'm bothered is when they're "too" personalized.

Like I buy an oven, why are you showing me ovens? Stop over fitting. Just know that I'm an active nerd and advertise me active nerd stuff.

[masswerk]

Interesting. I really like(d) to be included in the bigger picture. What goods there are and how they are advertised is part of our culture (as is the quality part of advertising in it self). Being cut from most of it (to see the same over and over again, things I usually made up my mind on long ago) hurts.

[HWR_14]

> I probably click on at least 1/4 of the ads I get, and have definitely made purchases based on Instagram ads.

In an anonymized (or not) way, can you tell me something you found via an Instagram ad that you were not aware existed and then purchased?

[catlifeonmars]

> feels like a charity towards advertisers.

This. FLoC has no value proposition for end users.

Your position regarding cookies lumps two categories of cookies together. Cross-site cookies, and same-site cookies. Tracking isn’t exclusive to cross-site cookies, but the effectiveness (and invasiveness) of tracking is orders of magnitude more effective with cross site cookies. With the near-elimination of cross-site cookies, it turns out you can have your useful client side state and eat it too.

[jedimastert]

> Turning on FLOC brings nothing to the user in return and feels like charity towards advertisers.

I would call it a charity to the site owner whose (presumably) free content you're consuming. What it brings to the user is the ability of the site owner to continue making content.

[Qub3d]

FLoC isn't needed to show ads any more than cookies are. If we hadn't gotten everyone used to the gravy of personalized ads, this wouldn't be an issue. But going back to placing ads based on, say, the website or the expected audience in general is like getting the camel out of the tent[0].

[0]: The Camel's Nose - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel%27s_nose

[md_]

Isn’t the DRM comparison exactly right, though? Improving ad targeting enables an ad-supported online ecosystem.

Admittedly, there’s a tragedy of the commons issue: I have no individual incentive to enable FLOC. But, similarly to your DRM example, at some point publishers could require it, no?

[no_time]

> at some point publishers could require it, no?

They could. However they wouldn't have a way of enforcing you play along and don't have a separate floc ID for every site you visit

[m00x]

AFAIK, FLoC is only for third-party cookies, which don't really add any value these days other than tracking you across websites.

[bogwog]

Which means that the most likely outcome is that Google won't let Chrome users disable it, or they'll hide it behind some dark patterns, re-enable it after every update, etc.