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by ranguna 1892 days ago
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.

1 comments

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.