Google has announced that it is abandoning its FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) project, a controversial method of replacing third-party cookies with an advertising system based on users’ interests. Instead, Google offers the Topics API, a new solution that allows browsers to learn users’ interests based on their activities on the web. The Topics API works by identifying five interests per user, e.g. B. Fitness or Travel and Transportation, based on websites visited over the course of a week. These interests are stored in the browser for three weeks before being deleted. Google claims that these categories are selected entirely on your device and do not involve any external servers, including Google servers.
Privacy Sandbox is an initiative launched by Google to offer alternatives to third-party cookies that respect the privacy of Internet users. Instead of tracking users’ web browsing to identify their interests individually, the idea is to divide them into large groups based on the interests they share. Instead of measuring users’ interactions with ads using solutions that could reveal their identities, it is possible to preserve their anonymity by limiting the amount of data shared about them. Instead of being collected by companies when they serve ads, user information can be stored on their devices to remain private.
The aim pursued is therefore to reconcile the economic model of the Internet, based largely on targeted advertising, with the protection of privacy, by promoting tools that aim to be more efficient and less intrusive, something that is currently not the case with the use of cookies the case is . Only when the privacy sandbox tools currently being tested have proven themselves will Google plan to ban the use of third-party cookies in Chrome.
Privacy Sandbox APIs
Privacy Sandbox APIs are application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable web browsers to play a new role. Rather than working with limited tools and protections, APIs enable a user’s browser to act on their behalf (locally, on their device) to protect their personal information while browsing the web. This is a change of direction for browsers. The future vision of the Privacy Sandbox is for browsers to provide specific tools to meet specific use cases while maintaining user privacy.
Among the Privacy Sandbox APIs we can name the following:
- FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts): an API that allows advertisers to target groups of users with similar interests without needing to know their individual browsing history.
- FLEDGE (First locally run group decision experiment): an API that allows advertisers and publishers to create and run advertising campaigns based on user interests without sharing their personal information with third parties.
- TURTLEDOVE (Two unrelated requests, then locally executed decision to win): an API that allows advertisers and publishers to serve personalized ads based on users’ interests without revealing those interests to anyone.
- Dovekey (demand-side optimization with verifiable events and retainable encryption): an API that combines the functionality of FLEDGE and TURTLEDOVE, providing advertisers the ability to use a third-party server to optimize their ad bids.
- PARAKEET (Private and anonymized ad requests that maintain effectiveness and increase transparency): An API that allows advertisers and publishers to serve relevant ads to users without sharing their personal information with third parties using a proxy service managed by a trusted third party.
- SPARROW (Secure private advertising running remotely on a web server): An API that allows advertisers and publishers to serve relevant ads to users through a publisher-managed server without sharing their personal information with third parties.
- AGGREGATE REPORTING API: an API that allows advertisers and publishers to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns without revealing individual user data using secure calculation and data aggregation techniques.
- MEASURING API CONVERSION: An API that allows advertisers and publishers to measure conversions (e.g. purchases or sign-ups) generated by their ads without revealing individual user data, using encryption and noise reduction techniques.
- EVENT LEVEL API: An API that allows advertisers and publishers to measure events (e.g. clicks or impressions) related to their ads without revealing individual user data, using encryption and noise reduction techniques.
API topics
When a user visits a website that uses the Topics API for advertising, the browser shares three of their interests with the website and its advertising partners, selecting one interest from the last three weeks. According to the Topics API GitHub page, there are currently around 350 topics available in its advertising taxonomy (although Google plans to add a few hundred to thousands over time). Google makes it clear that topics do not include sensitive categories such as gender or ethnicity. And if you use Chrome, the company plans to develop tools that will let you view and delete topics, as well as disable the feature.
Google’s Project FLoC was a form of interest-based tracking that identified you based on your cohort, a group of users with similar interests. Privacy critics such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have argued that this system poses additional privacy risks, such as: B. facilitating the identification of users through browser fingerprinting, a tool that allows websites to obtain specific information about your device and browser. and may also reveal information about your demographics, which may result in targeted discriminatory advertising. Because of these concerns, browsers like Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, and Mozilla have all refused to use it.
Privacy Sandbox is now generally available
General availability means that the Privacy Sandbox technologies are in a stable state and ready to be widely used by advertising solutions to support key business use cases.
Sent by Google
Having reached this point following extensive industry feedback, we do not plan to make any significant changes to the API interfaces until third-party cookies are phased out. Companies that integrate Privacy Sandbox APIs into their solutions can now expand their deployment and testing to assess their readiness for the planned phase-out of third-party cookies in Chrome in the second half of 2024. This includes experimentation to assess the effectiveness of Privacy Sandbox in line with our commitments and in consultation with the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and certain testing groups supported by Chrome.
Starting in the fourth quarter of 2023, we will enable the industry to increase its testing efforts with the ability to simulate the deprecation of third-party cookies for a percentage of its users. Then, in the first quarter of 2024, we will disable third-party cookies for 1% of all Chrome users, establishing the necessary environments to test the effectiveness of the Privacy Sandbox APIs.
Google’s initiative has been sharply criticized
The argument here is that one day (not now, but one day) Google promises to disable third-party tracking cookies in Chrome, and that the new advertising platform, which has some limitations, is better. The fact is that third-party cookies typically only affect Chrome users. Both Apple and Firefox have been blocking third-party cookies for years and will not implement Google’s new advertising system: only Chromium browsers still allow them.
That’s actually how this whole process started: Apple dealt a major blow to Google’s biggest source of revenue by blocking third-party cookies in Safari in 2020. For confidentiality reasons, Google did not follow suit until it could secure its advertising activities. Cohort FDR learning and now the Topics API are part of a plan to provide an alternative tracking platform, and Google argues that there must be an alternative tracking platform: you just can’t be a spy. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also confirmed this when they called Google’s FLoC a terrible idea in the comments [de Google] are based on the false assumption that we have to choose between the “old tracking system” and the “new tracking system”. It is neither one nor the other. Instead of reinventing the wheel of tracking, let’s imagine a better world without the myriad problems of targeted ads.
Google has announced that it will block third-party cookies in the second half of 2024, likely after ensuring that the Privacy Sandbox will allow it to keep its profits high. Did any user in the world want a user tracking and advertising platform* integrated directly into their browser? Probably not, but it’s Google, and they control Chrome, and that still probably won’t get people to switch to Firefox.
Source: Google
And you ?
What do you think of Google’s Topics API? Is this an acceptable solution to replace third-party cookies?
Do you think Google respects user privacy with its Privacy Sandbox proposals? What are the risks and benefits of these proposals for users and advertisers?