Why You Should Avoid Google Chrome’s New Floc Tracking

Well, that article went over my head, but it sound like nothing more intrusive than what we already put up with. I get ads for stuff I'm THINKING about buying that I never looked at online.

Anyway I only use Chrome when I want to shuffle photos around here. I don't like Chrome. For some reason Firefox on my particular computer with my particular operating system has to think for five minutes while I try to reposition an image. That's the ONLY time I use Chrome.

Frank,

The video discussion has this inside out.

Apple is not sharing personal data. This is just saying Google is aggregating the data. Facebook is also aggregating the data. The data will not longer be individualized.

Now Apple may still be using the data. In fact Apple might even try to a much greater degree to use the old fashioned data collection and compete with Google and possibly Facebook for ad dollars.

If you want to know the cause blame Apple. If you want to know who will have more of people's data look to Apple. If you want to know who is going to take advantage look out for Apple.

But if you are looking at articles and blogs figure it is half baked information like those guys.

Dave Bridburg
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Interesting. The last thing I'd ever do is take privacy claims from Google at face value. Their real intent is more likely to just gain even more power over online marketing by using their browser dominance to transition us to a new tracking technology they designed and will control.

Google and Facebook need to find new ways to make money besides tracking our behavior and targetting ads. They created valuable services - it's time to start honestly charging for their use.

If they charged fees for the use of those services the competition would rule within 24 hours.

This all has to do with iOS 14 privacy features allowing users more visible privacy options.

Google and Facebook even more so are trying to get advertisers to get on board with less data going forwards.

Dave Bridburg
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David - what competition? You mean DuckDuckGo? WeMe? LOL

I agree, this is likely a broadside aimed at Apple. That battle is just going to continue to get more interesting. We should remember though that iPhone is something like 15% of the phone market - the rest being Android, i.e. Google.

'Google and Facebook need to find new ways to make money besides tracking our behavior and targetting ads. They created valuable services - it's time to start honestly charging for their use.'

Jim,
if I do not use "valuable services": can I charge them for using my data?

Safari, Yahoo, and Bing

Any SM platform Apple wants to start. LinkedIn by Microsoft, Twitter and other older somewhat established mainstream players in the 50 million member area.

Dave Bridburg
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Many have suggested that FB and Google add paid service tiers with no tracking or ads.

I bet few people will pay a fee to disable tracking, that's probably one reason why it hasn't been offered, it wouldn't make any money.

There was an interesting pitch recently on the BBC program Dragon's Den by a tech company called Gener8, that challenges the notion of big business tracking all our web browsing for big corporates financial gain. This company has developed a model whereby individuals that agree to share their web browsing with Gener8 will get a return in the form of a product, tokens, or donations to charity. So instead of an individuals browsing preferences being sold off by Google etc to marketers exclusively for their own financial gain, this new model will give back (say 80%) of the value that is gained from a users web browsing. Users would still get targeted ads based on the data they supply to Gener8, but get a proportion of its value back (in the tv program, they suggested between 5 and 25 GBP per month back to the individual was likely).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8usz6i07qYs

This is only the latest "advancement" in demographics and marketing that's been in constant development for the last 75 years or more.

I'm sorry, but every time I read these kinds of posts I have to laugh. Having worked in the direct mail industry for 15 years during the '80s and much of the '90s, I learned a lot about how much data retailers and marketing firms have on the general public. The concern over privacy and data should have happened in the '70s at the latest. By the '70s retailers had so much data about individuals it would have made people's heads spin. But of course there was no Internet back then and people really had no way to find out. Not to mention that the methods used to gather this data were closely guarded proprietary secrets. But that train has left the station and can't be stopped.

Using DuckDuckGo is not going to fully protect your privacy. That's a myth. If you are truly concerned about your privacy, cancel your ISP, cut up your credit and debit cards, stop using store loyalty cards, don't renew your auto plates, and turn off all your utilities. Keeping one or more of these still gives them access to far more about you than you want to them to know.

What's more folks is that you do realize of course that all this data gathering benefits your sales, at least to some degree. Sean isn't just randomly throwing darts out when he advertises. The site is being marketed to specific demographics. Where do you suppose that data comes from?

Chuck,

I see what you are saying about specific demographics. I get it. Just at the end of the day no one really knows who will buy what. That is the paradox. In truth it all becomes a hodge podge of ads.

I was getting ads for a woman's product the other day. It made no difference. Besides what if I was married and bought it for my wife? but but but yep wrong demographic? Yes because I am not married. Factor left out.

By the time one of the advertisers nails more of the data down the others have run a thousand ads at me.

It is all a lot of that French term for it.

The economics of paper v electrons makes it less important to target these days.

Dave Bridburg
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Browsers are voicing this as well:

https://brave.com/why-brave-disables-floc/

https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/

Frank,

FLoC'ing is less than what Google and Facebook were doing in data collection.

The Bull runith over saying it is more than before.

Apple is refusing to give them the standard old data. Iphone users now have an option to deny them the data. That has triggered FLoC and the equivalent with FB. Both Google and FB are saying these "estimates" will not be based on individuals' data. Data that is disappearing with Apple's Privacy options.

Dave Bridburg
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This mornings Email writings from the NYT:

Snippet:

"Amazon knows this. My colleague Karen Weise has reported on the fierce debate inside Amazon about whether paid product commercials would erode customers’ trust. Jeff Bezos made the final call that showing ads might make things a little worse for Amazon shoppers but that the extra money would help the company invent amazing new things for customers.

Bezos’ assessment of short-term pain for long-term gain might be right. Or maybe he just got excited about the money.

Apple has argued that online advertising that tracks its users is an invasion of our privacy and declared a war with Facebook over ads. The company also wants to go bigger in selling advertising. (Apple says that its ads are less invasive than those of other companies.)

Let me propose an alternative for Amazon and Apple. Instead of grabbing for more cash with paid commercials, what if the companies improved their products and made more money that way?"

"ads might make things a little worse for Amazon shoppers but that the extra money would help the company invent amazing new things for customers"

LOL. Yes "extra money" always comes in handy.

It's going to take a while, but these companies will eventually start to drown in their own greed, and be pushed under by shareholder pressure.

smh

"Using DuckDuckGo is not going to fully protect your privacy. That's a myth." - DDG cannot protect your "privacy" in totality obviously, but it can protect your browsing history, Chuck ;-)

Also AdBlockers and using FBPurity on FarceBook helps as well. Gets rid of all those bloody annoying ads.

As does disabling images in gmail so the image servers stop getting fed unless you want to :D

There is no way complete privacy is going to be achieved in a digital world. At a most basic level every server in the world is going to track you and do it forever because they know nothing about you at first, which means you could present a danger. And as the sophistication of cyber attacks gets more complex, the tracking will follow. No way around it. If people want personalized experiences whether that's on Amazon, in Google Maps, or in Netflix, it requires some level of tracking. Even adblockers are becoming pointless on websites you are really and truly interested in. Unless you want to spend your days turning the filter on and off to read articles, etc. Even at most grocery stores these days, if you want real discounts you have to consent to be tracked. Of course sometimes this is good, in a case such as a product recall, but the rest of the time, not so much.

Everywhere you go collects data about you. Seriously, if you don't want this, leave the web.

The privacy extensions are all well and good but you lose parts of the sites and some sites actually won't work at all with them.

The Sky Is Falling posts are too late. It already is beyond this by the time you read it. If you have something ti hide then great, be afraid of it all, but I haven't and everyone knows all about me anyway. I will continue using what I like, when I like.

Most articles are written on one side of an argument. If they are not getting something out of it they will put it down. As SOON as they learn how to make money off it they change their tune.

Ask the EU if it's too late to reclaim privacy - they don't seem to think so. (Google "GDPR".)

In the U.S. we need our government to follow Europe's lead and give us some leverage. Right now I'd say public opinion is moving in that direction.

I don't do anything illegal nor (some would say) immoral, so I don't care about the tracking. In fact, I saved 10 bucks at Meijer a couple weeks ago because they sent me coupons in the mail for at least 12 of the things I buy every week, because they KNOW I buy them every week.

Come to think of it, my coupons this week are late.....

The EUs privacy options are a smoke screen. They still know as much about me as Google does.

Thing is any data on me that they have is old. My pattern just moves on. Most of the time Google and FB are left in the dark.

What "artist" what does that mean?

Sell him more art? Coals to New Castle.



Dave Bridburg
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Have any of you looked yourself up on white pages?

So if you buy that app, you can plug in anyone's name and the information from family members, to house payment, to criminal records, and everything you're about is revealed.

Of course they offer a program of privacy to you if you want to pay more. I looked up myself and the report was so boring that I cancelled my subscription. Half of my family members were wrong along with my address which I did not correct.

I wish I cared more about this stuff but with so many people on the internet, I do not matter at all, and that is fine by me.

My one dream when I started FAA was to watch my friends and family to search my name on Google and my pictures would be the first to show up.

Lisa,

I had the same dreams that people would find me in Google search looking up my name.

The numbers are tiny in that regard. Other people are looking up themselves. LMAO

Dave Bridburg
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@ Lisa - I checked my profile on one of those sites just using the free information. It was so out of whack I just had to laugh. They had me as registered with a political party I wouldn't be caught dead registering with (not registered with any party), they had my middle initial wrong, and a bunch of other stuff that was laughable. It was like a mishmash of information.

Mary,

I followed a bunch of chefs on FB when I decided to get active. FB thought I wanted to see every plate of food in the country. I kept scrolling for six months.

The chefs were a bunch of guys and gals in CA who were on chopped. They thought they were getting FB fame. A big zilch.

Dave Bridburg
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I generally do not use Chrome, mainly because I already assumed that it was tracking me. It's just a comforting illusion to think that Apple's Safari doesn't do as much of that, but really, you have to acknowledge that, everything you do on line is being watched by somebody. Having a previous life as admin of a government web site, I was always astounded at how much information people were willing to give up without knowing what was being done with that info. In my case, I know that we were the good guys, that we protected all of that information, didn't sell it and only used it for legally required reasons, but when people opened up a web page, they seemed to be willing to open up a vein, even outside of the protection of our secure web site, and gave away details they should not, to people they didn't know......"Hi, I'm Sam, a 55 year old white mail, address, phone, social security number, etc., and I'm hoping that you can help me."

It's a tough world out there in the web-iverse and, as Obi Wan would have put it, "a wretched hive of scum and villainy". To some extent people need to realize what they give away on web sites and take some personal responsibility since prevention is always better than punishment. Don't give away anything you would not want your worst enemy to have unless you know where it's going. You probably won't know where it's going since it gets sold and since a lot of this is offshore. Even if web scammers in the US took a straight path to the firing squad with no trial or appeal, it wouldn't change offshore ones.

The other half to this is to pay some attention to all the ad-crap that comes to you. If it's on target, you probably need to worry. If you've never played golf in your life, and don't want to, and your ads are for clubs and bags, then they're probably hitting you because of simple demographics like age, address, etc. That's not the same worry as when you think about a purchase, look on a web site and the ads roll in from other places. We have to face the facts that Chrome is only free because Google can harvest income by "other means". It ain't charity. It's like living in the city, where the rule is to not be a fool.

I've seen the enemy and he is us.

Absolutely right, Doug. Nuthin'; is "free" ;-)

As for those who say "I don't do anything wrong, so I don't care." Well, that's an optimistic (perhaps even naïve?) stance, in my opinion. The definition of "wrong" can change overnight in a totalitarian society and we're never too far away from that...

As always Information = Power. It just depends on who wields it and how they want to use it.

We all make our own choices...

JMHO..

Doug, love the Pogo reference.

I have a credit monitoring service. Got it after two unemployment checks were cashed using my SS number in Missouri (I live in Michigan). My accountant alerted me to it when he called to ask "are you collecting unemployment?". Long story short, the Michigan UIA office told him unemployment fraud was rampant in Michigan at that time.

In any case this credit monitoring service found two breaches of my email address (whatever that means) - one on My Fitness Pal, which I never used so I deleted the account and one on My Heritage.com, which I did use briefly, but I had my doubts about doing that one because of family history tracing online. So I deleted that account as well.

The cat, as they say, is out of the bag, but I never click on links in email, and I don't really surf. I guess all we can do is be careful.

Hi Mary Bedy, that is funny. You looked up yourself! I think most look up others.

David B, you are smiling!!! Yay

Sorry Lisa I changed the pic out. The quality was blurry. Wish I could have kept the pic. But needed something a bit more serious.

Dave Bridburg
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I just took down two pics of my vaccine card on FB. My birthday and full name do not need to be out there.

But worse as of now....I am now sitting maskless in SB. I need to ask the staff tomorrow morning about this. I think I am getting ads for using SB wifi. These popups are happening when I am there, but not anywhere else. Takes over my phone and my laptop.

adding just thought of something, the laptop is new. I will add a popup blocker.

Dave Bridburg
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