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Computer scientists from MIT Media Lab have exhumed the corpse of Google's FLoC ad targeting scheme and found that it lacked its key advertised ingredient: privacy.

FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts. It consists of computer code designed to deliver interest-based ads without the privacy problems of current cookie-based ad technology.

"FLoC provides a privacy-preserving mechanism for interest-based ad selection," explains Sam Dutton, Google Chrome developer advocate, on Google's web.dev site.

It was to have been one of a number of technologies with bird-themed names within what Google optimistically calls "The Privacy Sandbox" – an initiative "to create technologies that both protect people's privacy online and give companies and developers tools to build thriving digital businesses."

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Passenger wrote: ↑

Sat May 15, 2021 7:59 am

Yet another privacy violation scheme:

Read this before clicking second link (also appears in article)
Tor users, beware: 'Scheme flooding' technique may be used to deanonymize you
https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/14/ ... ting_flaw/

Not just Tor affected.

https://schemeflood.com/

Passenger wrote: ↑

Thu May 05, 2022 11:33 am

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Google's FLoC flopped, boffins claim, because it failed to provide promised privacy
The Register

Computer scientists from MIT Media Lab have exhumed the corpse of Google's FLoC ad targeting scheme and found that it lacked its key advertised ingredient: privacy.

FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts. It consists of computer code designed to deliver interest-based ads without the privacy problems of current cookie-based ad technology.

"FLoC provides a privacy-preserving mechanism for interest-based ad selection," explains Sam Dutton, Google Chrome developer advocate, on Google's web.dev site.

It was to have been one of a number of technologies with bird-themed names within what Google optimistically calls "The Privacy Sandbox" – an initiative "to create technologies that both protect people's privacy online and give companies and developers tools to build thriving digital businesses."

...