Goodbye FLoC, hello Topics [LWN.net]

Goodbye FLoC, hello Topics

Posted Jan 26, 2022 22:26 UTC (Wed) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418)
Parent article: Goodbye FLoC, hello Topics

Right, this feature shouldn't exist. Assuming it does go forward,

> we're building user controls that let you see the topics, remove any you don't like or disable the feature completely

But "disabled" sounds like it isn't really disabled in practice. It sounds like it means sending 0 topics, which will categorize you as a special minority, one that websites will discriminate against, like the popups "You aren't helping us show ads! Stop or go away!". For this opt-out feature, disabled should be to send some of the most popular topics are so you appear normal.

to post comments

Goodbye FLoC, hello Topics

Posted Jan 27, 2022 5:03 UTC (Thu) by devkev (subscriber, #74096) [Link] (2 responses)

> Advertisers (and others) can request information via a JavaScript call to document.browsingTopics(), which will return zero to three Topic IDs

My initial reaction was "Ugh, more JavaScript". But then I realised this makes it very easy to have a browser extension which monkey-patches the method to return 3 random topics instead.

Goodbye FLoC, hello Topics

Posted Jan 27, 2022 11:13 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm sure google will, in time, disallow such privacy extensions by api removal.

Goodbye FLoC, hello Topics

Posted Jan 27, 2022 12:06 UTC (Thu) by devkev (subscriber, #74096) [Link]

There are an awful lot of extensions that rely on content page JS injection, so I think it's more likely they'd adjust the Chrome Store policies to disallow hooking browsingTopics() (including whatever automated extension testing they have). The end result is effectively the same - any such extension could only be side-loaded, which is fine for technical folks, but as good as non-existent for regular users.