[luckylion]

> That's a very reasonable determination for any privacy-respecting browser to make. Users should be able to have defaults that closely align with their preferred user-agent behavior.

I understand this as "Microsoft produced a privacy-respecting browser and had their user's best interest on their mind", and I find it hard to engage that, because we seem to be living in wildly different realities.

> We could do this anyway. We don't need to present an option ahead of time to make advertisers happy.

We won't, so let's enjoy the situation we have, because change in the right direction that doesn't get us 100% of the way is bad and we'd prefer to remain where we are right now.

[danShumway]

> and I find it hard to engage that

Fair enough. If Firefox and Chrome enabled DNT by default, do you think the outcome would have been different? Ie, do you think that advertisers rebelled specifically because they thought Microsoft was hypocritical about tracking?

I don't. I don't think there's evidence that advertisers were mad at Microsoft, and the reasoning I have for that is that they stopped respecting DNT across the entire browser ecosystem, not just on IE. The other point of evidence I have is that advertisers are similarly angry about every other privacy-mechanism that gives users choice, even in browsers like Safari and on platforms like iOS.

I think my theory is a pretty consistently reasonable explanation for all of those scenarios. Why are advertisers mad about iOS privacy changes? Is it because Apple is hypocritical? Or is it because a lot of people use iOS, and advertisers don't want to see widespread adoption of any privacy tools? You can find a consistent correlation between how angry advertisers get about any privacy-enhancing proposal and the number of people it would impact.

> so let's enjoy the situation we have, because change in the right direction that doesn't get us 100% of the way is bad

I don't think that's what anyone at all is saying. I disagree that FLoC is a change in the right direction, and I disagree that it will make any legislation any more likely.

I could just as easily make the same point back to you. You're arguing that we should embrace a new tracking standard that makes privacy worse just because an arms race where browsers try to stop tracking entirely on their own isn't a perfect solution.

But an arms race where browsers close tracking vectors where they find them is better than a legal status quo where browsers add new tracking vectors of their own volition. And I don't see any evidence that adding FLoC is going to make US Senators feel better about privacy bills, or that it's going to change how advertisers lobby those Senators.

[luckylion]

> Ie, do you think that advertisers rebelled specifically because they thought Microsoft was hypocritical about tracking?

No, but I don't think Firefox would've done that, because they had no interest in killing the feature (which was predicted to happen soon as they announced, certainly their smart people were aware of the consequences of their actions -- and they have very good connections to ad-tech, they're part of it, hence their understanding of the response and interest for the events to play out exactly like they did).

For Mozilla, I would have had a much easier time to assume good faith, for Microsoft I find that very hard to believe, much like their Shenanigans with IE on Windows and not allowing removal, making browser install hard etc wasn't done because they thought IE was the best browser and users couldn't possibly want to switch.

Similarly, I don't believe Google suggests FLoC because they want to protect privacy by any means necessary. But that doesn't mean that it's not better for the average user than what we have today. And we won't get any movement without Google.

> But an arms race where browsers close tracking vectors where they find them is better than a legal status quo where browsers add new tracking vectors of their own volition.

Two of the four major browsers are built by ad-tech companies, another one is almost entirely funded by an ad-tech company. That leaves Safari, and Apple has no intention to offer it to all users.

Google will not fight against itself (and it's the only relevant player on both sides), there will be no arms race. As for US Senators: who in ad-tech has more to spend than Google, Facebook, and Microsoft?