Google's new tracking system being tested

[ShrirajHegde]

Am I FLoCed?

[drishtantmkawale (Drishtant Maruti)]

Good read, this!

@ShrirajHegde

https://amifloced.org/

“FLoC runs in your browser. It uses your browsing history from the past week to assign you to a group with other “similar” people around the world. Each group receives a label, called a FLoC ID, which is supposed to capture meaningful information about your habits and interests. FLoC then displays this label to everyone you interact with on the web. This makes it easier to identify you with browser fingerprinting, and it gives trackers a head start on profiling you.”

The dreadful statement

I was unaware that something like this even exists!
Anyways, what do the proprietary software companies (such as the one mentioned in the article) aim at, while handling a user’s browsing data apart from improving the so-called browsing experience (by giving suggestions and all)?

[ShrirajHegde]

@drishtantmkawale

I was unaware that something like this even exists!

It is being tested, it hasn’t been rolled out yet. As it mentions, google is testing it on specific users.

@drishtantmkawale

Anyways, what do the proprietary software companies (such as the one mentioned in the article) aim at

Limitless profit, with disregard to everything else. The goal is to do this without startling the users

@drishtantmkawale

so-called browsing experience

so-called “browsing experience” is just a euphemism for privacy violation by tracking users across web

[ShrirajHegde]

Google is doing this in a not-so sneaky way, by making google websites like meet and youtube not fully compatible with non-chromium browsers. (only firefox and safari left at this point). Sometimes new implementations are rolled out to break things even on chromium browsers other than chrome

Also effectively neutering privacy-enhancing extensions like uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger

I have posted an article by developers of uBlock