The era of third-party cookies is coming to an end. Browser cookies, the technology that helped advertisers serve relevant and targeted online ads to users, will disappear, and Google will seal the deal once it completely removes them from Chrome by 2023.
In response to the series of data privacy issues in digital advertising that have plagued it for years, Google is testing federated learning by cohorts (FLoC).
You’ve probably used third-party cookies if you’ve ever served wordpress web design agency ads on your website. Even if you’re the one serving ads on publisher sites, removing cookies and replacing them with FLoC in Chrome will make lasting changes to how you advertise online.
Wait, what is FLoC in a nutshell? It’s an interest-based tracking tool from Google that uses machine learning to group people with similar browsing habits (to some extent) into a cohort. This adds a layer of anonymity, as the data is stored locally on users’ computers rather than on servers, while also allowing advertisers and publishers to target cohorts. Here’s Google’s definition of cohorts:
“Groups of people with common interests that could replace individual identifiers”
In other words, Google FLoC is the tech giant's attempt at a privacy solution that protects user data from surveillance and keeps the web open to advertisers. It's a browser API (application programming interface) forked from its Privacy Sandbox protocol.
What is FLoC used for?
To put the move to Google FLoC into context, it's important to know that major internet browsers, such as Safari and Firefox, took this path and blocked third-party cookies long before Google.
But the tech giant stressed that stopping traditional tracking doesn't solve the privacy problem. It even leads advertisers to find workarounds that can be more aggressive or harmful, such as fingerprinting, which identifies that a device has certain attributes (e.g., the operating system, browser, and browser settings used).
When it comes to digital advertising, the lack of an alternative to user data collection can ruin the user experience (UX) due to irrelevant and poorly targeted ads.
These are some of the reasons why Google is touting the FLoC browser API as an effective tracking tool that protects user privacy. FLoC focuses on aggregate behavior rather than tracking the behavior of individual users, thus providing an aggregate model to advertisers. In theory, this should make it difficult to identify specific user details.
FLoC's original evidence also shows that this interest-based online advertising tracking is approaching the impact of third-party cookies.
The federated cohort learning tool already promises greater anonymity and cost-effective digital advertising, which seems like a win-win for users and advertisers who value online privacy and security.
Main Google FLoC issues
In addition to Firefox and Safari, Brave, Vivaldi, and even Microsoft Edge have opted out of using the FLoC browser feature. Without browser cookies or FLoC, digital advertising as we know it will never be the same. Firefox owner Mozilla is exploring privacy-preserving online advertising options. Brave also launched Brave Ads, which rewards users for choosing to view non-invasive ads.
In some ways, what’s happening with these browser companies echoes the criticism of the Electronic Frontier Foundation: FLoC is a terrible idea for online privacy and security. The privacy risk may lie in the design itself. FLoC assigns a user’s browser a profile of browsing habits, creating a browser ID and assigning it to a cohort. While this is an anonymized user ID, it doesn’t contain any personal identifiers; fingerprinters and other trackers can still start with a cohort and identify your browser among thousands of possibilities instead of millions.
Additionally, websites and advertisers with website user tracking that helps them identify users, such as the “Sign in with Google” service, can link personal profiles to behavior by tracking FLoC user behavior. Access to sensitive information can also lead to discrimination against certain groups or large cohorts.
For the record, when it comes to a cohort that frequents websites dealing with sensitive subjects, such as medical, political or religious, Google guarantees that it will not be used, because all cohorts go through an eligibility test.