[feanaro]

> But state actors won't be able identity me individually, so I don't see the harm either.

Why wouldn't they be able to? FLoC tells them you're a dissenter, your IP tells them who you are.

Just because you can reset it doesn't mean that you should have to be constantly afraid of your browser working against you. You're just listing ways in which FLoC is slightly less terrible than some maximally terrible hypothetical version. It doesn't make FLoC proper less bad.

I would argue the very notion that your recent browsing history affects what you see in the present is a wrong and dangerous one.

[ranguna]

My browser is already working against me by allowing 3rd party cookies. When FLoC comes along 3p cookies will eventually be disabled by chrome as a long term goal. I see FLoC as less bad than 3p cookies in this case, because I can't tell trackers "hey, please reset all knowledge you have of the tracking of this specific cookie".

> I would argue the very notion that your recent browsing history affects what you see in the present is a wrong and dangerous one.

It already does, 3p cookies do exactly that and deleting them is a pain because you would also be getting rid of legitimate cookies, so you have very little or no control. Reseting your FLoC id is as easy as pressing a button and you don't have to worry about having to re-login everywhere.

[feanaro]

Third-party tracking cookies have not been a problem in my browser (Firefox) for quite a while now, since they get blocked by default. Firefox also recently introduced Total Cookie Protection, which is a feature isolating cookies by the origin on which they were created on. (https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/24/firefox_cookies_86/)

So the argument for FLoC is moot because this is actually a false dilemma. We shouldn't be acting as if it is a choice between either third-party cookie or FLoC. Rather, we should reject both.

Aside: In some ways, FLoC is worse than third-party cookies since the latter are not under central control and do not provide a way of automatically grouping an entire browser user population into similarity groups based on past browser history.