What's funny is, despite all the criticism this is getting on Hacker News, this move is probably going to end up doing more to improve the online privacy of the average user than every ad blocker and tracking blocker has combined over the last decade or so.
Google, the world largest ad provider and browser vendor, is essentially proposing to tear down the web's current free-for-all cookie-based ad targeting and conversion tracking system, and replace it with a privacy-respecting one built on standardized APIs implemented by the user's browser. If they're even moderately successful at this, it's going to be a huge improvement to the current status quo of online advertising from a privacy perspective.
For those who haven't, read the Chromium blog post on this effort[1] and the associated early proposals[2]. They're a lot more concrete about what exactly this new vision entails.
And for those cynics who are skeptical of this effort just because of their preconceptions surrounding the company proposing it, consider this: Google has every reason to want to improve the reputation of online advertising. Better, more privacy-respecting ads mean less people blocking ads, which means more revenue for Google. Last year Chrome implemented a built-in ad blocker for a similar reason[3]. Personalized ad targeting doesn't have to mean compromises to user privacy, and Google intends to prove it.
Even Privacy Budgets (a genuinely interesting proposal) is not particularly useful right now, because in order for a Privacy Budget to work, you first have to identify and build blocking tools for all of the potential fingerprinting vectors it encompasses -- that's the actually hard problem that Safari and Firefox are working on right now.
The only reason Google is at the table at all is because they have to be. They've disclosed multiple times in their earning reports that they consider adblocking to be a threat to their business, and adblock usage is pretty steadily rising. Right now adblockers are a minority, but if nothing changes they will eventually be a majority. Google's only here to stick a foot in the door and say, "but you're not gonna block all tracking, right? We'll come up with some advertising tools that are actually palatable."
But that's the problem: palatable isn't good enough any more. Given that Google is likely only here because they feel threatened, and given that other browsers like Firefox are putting in the majority of the work right now to actually block fingerprinting in the real world outside of proposal documents -- as a user, why should I be excited about compromising with the advertising industry?
Why should I be excited about blocking most tracking, when I have two browsers who are committed to blocking all tracking?
Google is really misreading the room here. Since when has the advertising industry ever showed restraint about anything? They're not going to stop fingerprinting just because an extra API exists. We can't bribe the industry into not tracking us with concessions, we just have to buckle down and block fingerprinting. There's no advantage to compromising; there's no reason to be excited about a theoretical new, better way to serve targeted ads when you can just block ads instead.
The fact that these proposals are compromises is precisely what makes them so potentially effective.
Instead of playing the usual game of cat and mouse where browsers move to block tracking and ad providers respond by coming up with creative ways to circumvent those restrictions ad infinitum, Google is creating a mutually acceptable compromise where ad companies don't have to fight against user privacy in order to make a profit.
It sounds like you believe you've got the upper hand in this fight, so you're more inclined to push for unconditional surrender rather than a peace treaty. That's understandable, and if you want to go that route I'm sure there will be other browsers and browser extensions which will continue to pursue that strategy. Just as, as you say, there will probably be advertisers who continue to peruse the "gather as much data on users as possible" route (though Google plans to fight those advertisers themselves to maintain the truce). But that's not the only valid solution to the problem, and I'm glad to see Google offering an alternative.
I do think that blockers have the upper hand, but even if they didn't, I wouldn't trust a compromise solution like this.
As a reminder, we're talking about an industry that uses wifi signals to track customer's positions through stores, that has embedded trackers in TV sets, that has bought credit reports on customers. The advertising industry is addicted to data; that's not going to change just because Google says so.
If Google's compromises here made me think that that advertisers weren't going to use fingerprinting any more, then I'd be more open to the idea. But even Google isn't pretending that proposals like FLoC will mean that browsers won't have to block fingerprinting.
And post DNT, I don't even trust that it would only be occasional bad actors. Advertisers have made it obvious that they're willing to compromise on privacy only if it doesn't cost them anything at all. The moment people en-mass start using private options, they'll back out of the arrangement the same way that they always have under the excuse that they have to stay competitive with advertisers who do fingerprint. Give it a year, and we'll be seeing think pieces about how FLoC just doesn't provide enough granularity, so we have to use FLoC and data-point X to be competitive.
So if we compromise with the advertising industry, and we still have to block fingerprinting to prevent bad actors, and it's the same amount of work to plug the same number of holes, what do we actually get out of this arrangement as users? It's not just that it's a compromise, it's a compromise that has no value to anyone except advertisers.
Seeing as how Google themselves (possibly the world's largest advertiser) seems willing to compromise, I don't think it makes sense to assume no other advertising company will be willing to follow them down that path. And even if no other advertisers were participating, isn't the fact that Google themselves are participating already a huge win? They are a pretty big player in the advertising industry after all.
As a user, what you get out of this arrangement is that a large number of online advertising agencies will stop trying to build systems that track your online activity, because they won't need to track you anymore to run their business effectively. They can get what they need in a way that doesn't hurt user privacy.
Yes, there'll be bad actors, but as you said that's a problem we'd have anyway. At least this way the number of bad actors will be reduced, and the economic advantage gained by such misbehavior will be minimized. Why would an advertising agency bother spending a ton of money trying to develop new fingerprinting techniques to fight cookie blocking if doing so doesn't result in any significant revenue increases over just using FLoC?
In effect, Google is fighting a two-pronged battle against online tracking: they're increasing the cost companies need to spend to track users, while simultaneously decreasing the economic benefit gained from doing such tracking in the first place.
Google, the world largest ad provider and browser vendor, is essentially proposing to tear down the web's current free-for-all cookie-based ad targeting and conversion tracking system, and replace it with a privacy-respecting one built on standardized APIs implemented by the user's browser. If they're even moderately successful at this, it's going to be a huge improvement to the current status quo of online advertising from a privacy perspective.
For those who haven't, read the Chromium blog post on this effort[1] and the associated early proposals[2]. They're a lot more concrete about what exactly this new vision entails.
And for those cynics who are skeptical of this effort just because of their preconceptions surrounding the company proposing it, consider this: Google has every reason to want to improve the reputation of online advertising. Better, more privacy-respecting ads mean less people blocking ads, which means more revenue for Google. Last year Chrome implemented a built-in ad blocker for a similar reason[3]. Personalized ad targeting doesn't have to mean compromises to user privacy, and Google intends to prove it.
[1]: https://blog.chromium.org/2019/08/potential-uses-for-privacy...
[2]: https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandb...
[3]: https://blog.chromium.org/2017/06/improving-advertising-on-w...