> That framing is based on a false premise that we have to choose between “old tracking” and “new tracking.” It’s not either-or. Instead of re-inventing the tracking wheel, we should imagine a better world without the myriad problems of targeted ads.
I don't want to be tracked. I never have wanted to be tracked. I shouldn't have to aggressively opt-out of tracking; it should be a service one must opt-in to receive. And it's not something we can trust industry to correct properly. This is precisely the role that privacy-protecting legislation should be undertaking.
Stop spying on us, please.
It also seems like FLoC could make it more politically viable to crack down non-consensual tracking. Publishers wouldn't be able to say "we have no choice but to deal with this [third party tracker] scum" but could continue to gate content by subscription or (consensual) FLoC as necessary for their business model.
Pushing publishing and advertising towards proactive consent about targeting puts them into a dialog with the market about what's ok, instead of letting them hide behind a bunch of shifting tracker businesses.
The best default is not to track at all.
Unless this ends up as some closed source DRM style blob (in which case we might as well kiss goodbye to the open web that can be accessed by standards compliant browsers), I can't see how anyone can stop this.
On the other hand, given the widespread use of ad blockers and tracking block lists, perhaps this simply isn't a design goal - just accept that 20% of techies will block it anyway and return 0 or simply not run a browser that supports it, and focus on the majority who think Chrome is synonymous with "the internet" and run it without add-ons.