Firefox and major Chromium browsers like Edge, Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi are not joining FLoC, Google's proposed ad technology to replace third-party cookies
Brave had already taken a unilateral stance by disabling FLoC across its releases, arguing that the system harmed privacy. The broader refusal now aligns Firefox with several Chromium-based rivals, turning a single-browser objection into a challenge to Google’s ability to make FLoC a cross-browser advertising mechanism.
The split fits Mozilla’s earlier choice not to mirror Google’s restrictive Manifest V3 implementation for ad blockers, and later coverage of widening differences in browser extension blocking shows that privacy and advertising controls were becoming a point of browser differentiation.
First-order effects
Google loses adoption from Firefox, Edge, Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi for FLoC, limiting the proposal’s reach beyond Chrome.
Users of the refusing browsers will not be enrolled in FLoC through those browsers; Brave’s existing block is reinforced by a wider vendor alignment.
Second-order effects
Advertisers, adtech firms, and publishers face a less uniform replacement for third-party-cookie targeting, because FLoC-based audience signals would not travel across the major browsers named in the report.
If browser vendors continue to reject Google-designed ad and extension mechanisms, browser privacy policy will be set through competing implementations rather than a common Chromium-led standard.
Control of the browser access layer is becoming a strategic lever: vendors can differentiate on tracking and ad-blocking rules while limiting the reach of advertising systems designed by platform owners.
The trend: Browser vendors are increasingly treating privacy and advertising controls as product-level points of differentiation, constraining Google’s ability to establish common web-ad infrastructure.
I can't believe I'm having to write this code in a fucking web server. What a mockery of the web, human rights, and the GDPR. Fuck you, Google! #FLoC #Google #SurveillanceCapitalism https://twitter.com/...
Why Google retreated from cookie tracking: “[Google's new FLoC tracking] groups you based on your interests and demographics, derived from your browsing history, to enable creepy advertising and other content targeting without third-party cookies.” ☠️ https://spreadprivacy.com/..…
Oh, Google's letting websites opt out of being tracked by FLoC? Cool how they took their own grabby data collection practices and made them everyone else's responsibility to know about.
If you're a web developer make sure you opt your site out of Google's FLoC tracking. (For WordPress folks I'll try to have a plugin for this in the next few days) https://plausible.io/...
It's why Facebook was running national ad campaigns, Facebook's trade group was filing lawsuits, et al. Meanwhile, Google and others are faking privacy efforts on browser to keep up. https://twitter.com/...
I have often defended Google, but Google FLoC is just wrong. The concept of adding tracking into the browser, sidestepping publishers and users is just unacceptable. In my latest newsletter, I encourage everyone to help stop it: https://baekdal.com/...
Heads up for folks using Chrome. What a massive breach of privacy! I switched to @firefox ages ago, and love it for both daily browsing and development work. I can't recommend it enough. Firefox on Android is also the best mobile browser I've ever used. https://digiday.com/...
@verge Update, here's Opera's statement on FLoC. This reads as exactly right to me. It's too soon to really know what's going to happen with ad tech ...but the clock is ticking down much faster than the usual web standards process can move. https://www.theverge.com/... https://tw…
Microsoft Edge, Mozilla's Firefox, and Apple's Safari are all not implementing Google's FLoC ad proposal right now. Or maybe (probably?) ever. But instead of a hard no, they're pointing to the web standards process. That's actually important: https://t.co/L3Kz0QUR5j https://t.co/…
Google is trying to force FLoC on the industry in a non transparent way, even using its comms and engineering departments to spread misleading points from Google-authored “research” on how without FLoCs publishers' revenue will decline. Ignore them. /6
There are solid, innovative tech and regulatory solutions that recognize the data between a user and the companies controlling the sites and apps they choose to use is a fair value exchange (iOS 14.5, browser tracking prevention, CPRA). But they all seek to block tracking. /5
Because we care about the privacy and security of @ApiPlatform end users, #FLoC tracking is now disabled by default in new projects using the framework! #FLoCoff #noFLoC https://github.com/...
If Google wants industry trust here, it would first publicly commit to cease collecting/linking/using any site data from Chrome or android OS as a 1st party in their ad systems unless it's collected as a true 1st party on a Google-owned website. Then call me for #2. /8
Fuckers: “But don't just take it from us. Google itself has said this new approach is at least 95% as effective as third-party cookie tracking, continuing the ability to target people based on age, gender, ethnicity, income, and many other factors.”
Google's scheme “FLoC” to protect its surveillance advertising biz model and the economics of horizontal data mining across the web to be blocked by actual privacy-focused browsers (Google's Chrome is not one). /1 https://digiday.com/...
Why browsers including Mozilla's Firefox are not enabling Google's ‘privacy sandbox’ targeting method - and why some like Brave and Microsoft Edge actually don't have to do anything at all to stop FLoC. https://digiday.com/...
Opt your Next.js site out of Google's FLoC by setting this custom HTTP header for all incoming requests in next.config.js file more info about FLoC: https://amifloced.org/ https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...