Here is an interesting twist, some at WordPress said it wants to by default and automatically block Google's FLoC on its websites. WordPress wants to treat FLoC as a security concern and said "FLoC places people in groups based on their browsing habits to target advertising."
Contrary to headlines, "WordPress" hasn't made any decisions or changes yet with regards to #FLoC. It is more correct to say there is a proposal from a WP contributor to block FLoC by default. https://t.co/YNRYuFWoaZ
— Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) April 19, 2021
Since early on the Electronic Frontier Foundation was not a fan of this Google method of tracking users as groups. WordPress agrees and wrote "Why is this bad? As the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains in their post "Google’s FLoC is a terrible idea>", placing people in groups based on their browsing habits is likely to facilitate employment, housing and other types of discrimination, as well as predatory targeting of unsophisticated consumers. This is in addition to the privacy concerns of tracking people and sharing their data, seemingly without informed consent – and making it more difficult for legislators and regulators to protect people."
In version 5.8 of WordPress, FLoC is scheduled to be disabled by default, this release is slated for July 2021.
This could be a major deal in that WordPress powers about 40%+ of all websites on the internet. WordPress said "WordPress powers approximately 41% of the web – and this community can help combat racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination and discrimination against those with mental illness with four lines of code."
To be clear, this is currently in the "proposal" state and it is not 100% going to happen.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
