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by ithkuil 1020 days ago
What stops a browser implementing the API but feeding made up information through it?
3 comments

Nothing.

Until Web Environment Integrity lands too.

(afaik there's no FloC attestation, but I'm not 100% confident about that)

unfortunately, both blocking the API, or faking it, will be abused to track users, unless a significant number of users do it in the same way...
Because a tracker could detect that your topic of interest are fake? How would they know?
If they're relatively unique they can just track you across sites and use your browsing history instead.
Depends, but either the topics never changing, or them changing too randomly, could all be detected when combined with other tracking, and become part of your identity as such...
Simple. If the Topics API is disabled, then you are a nerd who spends too much time on sites like Hacker News, and they can show you ads accordingly.
I imagine a browser extension could do that.