GOOGLE

WordPress Proposes Blocking Google’s FLoC

Published

3 years ago

April 19, 2021

WordPress Proposes Blocking Google’s FLoC

WordPress discussed a proposal to block Google’s new user tracking scheme called FLoC. While most expressed support others raised valid concerns. No decision has been made to block FLoC. Discussions will continue in the official WordPress Slack channel.

Google FLoC

Being able to track what people are interested in by using third party cookies is lucrative for Google. Ads targeted by user interest are said to convert at a higher rate are are thus more valuable to both advertisers and Google because these kinds of ads can be sold at a premium.

But third party cookies are going away because many browsers are already blocking them automatically.

Google responded to the slow death of third party cookie tracking by rolling out a new way to track users called, Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC).

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FLoC is an anonymous way to assign an interest to people based on their browsing patterns. Those browsing patterns are used to categorize users into user interest buckets.

Competitors and Privacy Groups React with Alarm

That has inspired alarming articles from sites like the Electronic Frontier Foundation which decried it as “terrible idea.”

Competitors to Google and it’s Chrome browser (Brave, DuckDuckGo, and Vivaldi) have also taken action to block FLoC and render it unable to track users.

They have called FLoC “nasty” and claim that it enables “discrimination” and is a “dangerous step that harms user privacy.”

Developers have also already published two plugins that block FLoC from WordPress.

Discussions at WordPress to Block FLoC

As mentioned earlier, no firm decision has been made to block FLoC. The official WordPress core developers are discussing a proposal to block FLoC. So it’s not a done deal.

Some in the developer community questioned the suggestion of adding FLoC blocking to previous older versions of WordPress that publishers are still using, citing that it might undermine trust.

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“Love the feature idea, it will need work. Practically it won’t be easy to back port, it has potential to damage the trust in automatic updates.”

Someone else agreed that FLoC should be treated as a security update but that they had concerns about making the opt-out something noticeable and with a clear explanation of what WordPress is doing.

This is an important point because some users may want to opt back in if opting out impacts their ad revenue earnings through the Google AdSense program.

They commented:

“It makes sense to treat it as a security, matter. And, in principle, I agree with @roytanck that it should add the opt-out header by default, but seeing there is (kinda) a tradition in WordPress to let the user decide and if it is not opt-out by default, WP should highlight this issue and present it in a very clear noticeable… notice when the update is released and a very clear help message in the settings pages in the future versions.”

However others questioned the reasoning behind calling this a security update.

“While I agree with the overall sentiment here, I think it is a mistake to treat this as a security update and risks abusing user trust in automatic updates. To call it a security update appears to me to be intentionally misusing the term in order to roll it out via automatic updates.

The implicit contract with users for security autoupdates is that they are used in order to protect the user from their site …being compromised imminently. This isn’t the case with FLoC, and may in some cases damage the site’s behaviour.”

That commenter followed up by labeling the action against FLoC a political statement and questioned calling it a security update:

“I’m on board for the political statement of countering Chrome’s encroachment on privacy, as well as the alignment of this with WP’s values generally, but making this change as a “security” update is a step too far.”

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That person wasn’t alone in questioning calling it a security threat.

Someone else asked:

“Can someone even explain, providing concrete facts not just assumptions, as to how having a browser be part of a group of hundreds of thousands of similar other browsers for a week is a security threat?”

Another commenter similarly questioned calling this a security threat:

“If WordPress treats FLoC as a security concern, how would it justify letting users opt in? Security fixes are unilateral by definition, users don’t get to opt back in to the threat that was eliminated.”

Someone else questioned blocking FLoC while historically turning a blind eye to the arguably more invasive third party cookies.

“Where do we draw the line at what WordPress should be blocking in core for privacy?

Should WordPress block ALL third party tracking cookies like Facebook too?”

It was also suggested later on that this may be an issue for the individual to deal with, not for WordPress, similar to how WordPress is neutral about third party tracking cookies.

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They commented:

“This sounds like an individual privacy concern, and not something that WordPress – as a neutral publishing platform that can be used to share whatever where ever you want, should take a stance on.

WordPress doesn’t block other forms of browser tracking, why should this be any different? WordPress allows you to use an unscrupulous ad provider on your site, but importantly it doesn’t prevent you from using it either.”

WordPress Proposal on FLoC

Changes to WordPress are discussed within the developer community, sometimes beginning with a proposal. Proposals are not always carried out.

It may be misinformation and clickbait to claim that WordPress has made a firm decision to block FLoC. There are many technical issues to be worked out such as whether or not this is a security issue, whether it should be backported to earlier versions of WordPress (as a “security fix”) as well as deciding whether it’s even WordPress’ place to take a stand against FLoC seeing how WordPress was neutral about third party tracking.

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Nevertheless, blocking FLoC appears to have overwhelming support both inside the core developer group and anecdotally outside it in the general WordPress developer community.

How to disable FLoC in @WordPress https://t.co/emgRqU3rkR pic.twitter.com/WY6eR3RZc6

— Jon Henshaw (@henshaw) April 18, 2021

Citations

WordPress Proposal Discussion
Proposal: Treat FLoC as a security concern

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Google’s FLoC Is a Terrible Idea

Brave Browser Blocks FLoC

DuckDuckGo Publishes a Browser Extension to Block FLoC

Vivaldi Browser Rejects FLoC

Searchenginejournal.com

GOOGLE

Google’s Next-Gen AI Chatbot, Gemini, Faces Delays: What to Expect When It Finally Launches

Published

4 days ago

December 4, 2023

Max

In an unexpected turn of events, Google has chosen to postpone the much-anticipated debut of its revolutionary generative AI model, Gemini. Initially poised to make waves this week, the unveiling has now been rescheduled for early next year, specifically in January.

Gemini is set to redefine the landscape of conversational AI, representing Google’s most potent endeavor in this domain to date. Positioned as a multimodal AI chatbot, Gemini boasts the capability to process diverse data types. This includes a unique proficiency in comprehending and generating text, images, and various content formats, even going so far as to create an entire website based on a combination of sketches and written descriptions.

Originally, Google had planned an elaborate series of launch events spanning California, New York, and Washington. Regrettably, these events have been canceled due to concerns about Gemini’s responsiveness to non-English prompts. According to anonymous sources cited by The Information, Google’s Chief Executive, Sundar Pichai, personally decided to postpone the launch, acknowledging the importance of global support as a key feature of Gemini’s capabilities.

Gemini is expected to surpass the renowned ChatGPT, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, and preliminary private tests have shown promising results. Fueled by significantly enhanced computing power, Gemini has outperformed GPT-4, particularly in FLOPS (Floating Point Operations Per Second), owing to its access to a multitude of high-end AI accelerators through the Google Cloud platform.

SemiAnalysis, a research firm affiliated with Substack Inc., expressed in an August blog post that Gemini appears poised to “blow OpenAI’s model out of the water.” The extensive compute power at Google’s disposal has evidently contributed to Gemini’s superior performance.

Google’s Vice President and Manager of Bard and Google Assistant, Sissie Hsiao, offered insights into Gemini’s capabilities, citing examples like generating novel images in response to specific requests, such as illustrating the steps to ice a three-layer cake.

While Google’s current generative AI offering, Bard, has showcased noteworthy accomplishments, it has struggled to achieve the same level of consumer awareness as ChatGPT. Gemini, with its unparalleled capabilities, is expected to be a game-changer, demonstrating impressive multimodal functionalities never seen before.

During the initial announcement at Google’s I/O developer conference in May, the company emphasized Gemini’s multimodal prowess and its developer-friendly nature. An application programming interface (API) is under development, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate Gemini into third-party applications.

As the world awaits the delayed unveiling of Gemini, the stakes are high, with Google aiming to revolutionize the AI landscape and solidify its position as a leader in generative artificial intelligence. The postponed launch only adds to the anticipation surrounding Gemini’s eventual debut in the coming year.

GOOGLE

Google Brings Bard Students Math and Coding Education in the Summer

Published

6 months ago

June 8, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

$Google Brings Bard Students Math and Coding Education in the Summer$

Google is stepping up its AI efforts this summer by sending Bard, its high-profile chatbot, to summer school. The aim? To boost the bot’s math and coding smarts. These developments are excellent news— when Bard first debuted, it was admittedly not a finished product. But Google is steadily plugging away at it, and have now implemented implicit code execution for logical prompts, and handy Google Sheets’ integration to take it to the next level.

Thanks to implicit code execution, Bard can respond to inquiries requiring calculation or computation with Python code snippets running in the background. What’s even more amazing is that coders can take this generated code and modify it for their projects. Though Google is still apprehensive about guaranteeing the accuracy of Bard’s answers, this feature is said to improve the accuracy of math and word problems by an impressive 30%.

In addition to this, Bard can now export directly to Sheets when asked about tables. So, you don’t need to worry about copying and pasting, which comes with the risk of losing formatting or data.

From the company’s I/O keynote address, it is clear that they are focused on making the most of what Bard can offer. As they continue to speak highly of the chatbot, we’re sure to expect more features and capabilities when the summer comes around.

GOOGLE

Google Bard vs. ChatGPT: which is the better AI chatbot?

Published

10 months ago

February 20, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Google Bard vs. ChatGPT: which is the better AI chatbot?

Google Bard and ChatGPT are two of the most prominent artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots available in 2023. But which is better? Both offer natural language responses to natural language inputs, using machine learning and millions of data points to craft useful, informative responses. Most of the time. These AI tools aren’t perfect yet, but they point to an exciting future of AI assistant search and learning tools that will make information all the more readily available.

As similar as these chatbots are, they also have some distinct differences. Here’s how ChatGPT and Google Bard measure up against one another.

Which is better, Google Bard or ChatGPT?

This is a tricky question to answer, as at the time of writing, you can only use Google Bard if you’re part of a select group of early beta testers. As for its competition, you can use ChatGPT right now, completely for free. You may have to contend with a waitlist, but if you want to skip that, there’s a paid-for Plus version offering those interested in a more complete tool the option of paying for the privilege.

Still, when Google Bard becomes more widely available, it should offer credible competition for ChatGPT. Both use natural language models — Google Bard uses Google’s internal LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), whereas ChatGPT uses an older GPT-3 language model. Google Bard bases its responses to questions on more recent data, with ChatGPT mainly trained on data that was available prior to 2021. This is similar to how Microsoft’s Bing Chat works.

We’ll have to reserve judgment on which is the more capable AI chatbot until we get time to play with Google Bard ourselves, but it looks set to be a close contest when it is more readily available.

Are Google Bard and ChatGPT available yet?

As mentioned, ChatGPT is available in free and paid-for tiers. You might have to sit in a queue for the free version for a while, but anyone can play around with its capabilities.

Google Bard is currently only available to limited beta testers and is not available to the wider public.

Banner of Google Bard intro from February 6.

What’s the difference between Google Bard and ChatGPT?

ChatGPT and Google Bard are very similar natural language AI chatbots, but they have some differences, and are designed to be used in slightly different ways — at least for now. ChatGPT has been used for answering direct questions with direct answers, mostly correctly, but it’s caused a lot of consternation among white collar workers, like writers, SEO advisors, and copy editors, since it has also demonstrated an impressive ability to write creatively — even if it has faced a few problems with accuracy and plagiarism.

Still, Microsoft has integrated ChatGPT into its Bing search engine to give users the ability to ask direct questions of the search engine, rather than searching for terms of keywords to find the best results. It has also built it into its Teams communications tool, and it’s coming to the Edge browser in a limited form. The Opera browser has also pledged to integrate ChatGPT in the future.

ChatGPT	Google Bard
Accessible through ChatGPT site. Only text responses are returned via queries.	Integrated with Google Search. You only need to change a Google setting to get your regular search results when using Google Bard AI, and vice versa.
ChatGPT produces answers from its trained database from 2021 and before.	Google Apprentice Bard AI will be able to answer real-time questions.
Based on GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer).	Based on LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications).
Service has a free and paid plan option (called ChatGPT Plus).	Service is free.
Has built-in plagiarism tool called GPT-2 Output Detector.	No built-in plagiarism detection tool.
Available now	Still in beta test phase

Google Bard was mainly designed around augmenting Google’s own search tool, however it is also destined to become an automated support tool for businesses without the funds to pay for human support teams. It will be offered to customers through a trained AI responder. It is likely to be integrated into the Chrome browser and its Chromium derivatives before long. Google is also expected to open up Google Bard to third-party developers in the future.

Under the hood, Google Bard uses Google’s LaMDA language model, while ChatGPT uses its own GPT3 model. ChatGPT is based on slightly older data, restricted in its current GPT3 model to data collected prior to 2022, while Google Bard is built on data provided on recent years too. However, that doesn’t necessarily make it more accurate, as Google Bard has faced problems with incorrect answers to questions, even in its initial unveiling.

ChatGPT also has a built-in plagiarism checker, while Google Bard does not, but Google Bard doesn’t have the creative applications of ChatGPT just yet.