After being confronted with a copious avalanche of criticism, FloC (Federated Learning of Cohorts), Google's controversial project to replace cookies , will finally be left gathering dust in a drawer. This is what Google has finally decided, but it already has a replacement for FloC: Topics.
According to the Mountain View company , Topics basically consists of using the browsing history of the last three weeks to identify the user's interests on the Internet.
, although Google intends to gradually increase this number.
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The aim of the Internet giant's new initiative is to put new tools in the hands of the lithuania number data advertising market , which will inevitably be left orphaned by the imminent demise of cookies.
Using Topics, Google will analyze the topics that have attracted the most attention of Internet users in recent days based on their browsing habits and will thus create a Top 5 of topics. Then, when the advertising platforms of the websites visited by the user request it, the browser must provide them with three random topics to confront the Internet user with ads directly related to their interests.
Google says Topics is rooted in a more transparent and private system than FloC , which relied on aggregated data collection and, according to some critics, continued to open the door to the possibility of tracking individual users.
«With Topics, your browser will determine a handful of topics — like “Fitness” or “Travel & Transportation” — that represent your top interests for that week based on your browsing history. Topics are kept for only three weeks, with older ones being deleted. Topics are curated entirely on your device without involving any third-party servers, including Google’s. […] Topics enables browsers to give you meaningful transparency and control over data , and in Chrome, we’re building user controls that let you view topics, remove ones you don’t like, or disable the feature entirely,» explains the Mountain View company.
Topics prides itself on being a more transparent and secure system than FloC
Although Google appears to have high hopes for Topics, it is not clear whether this initiative will ultimately become a reality. The multinational insists, however, that Topics will result in more genuine interactions with the advertising displayed on the websites visited by the user . In addition, the new API would also place significant obstacles to the use of covert tracking methods to generate online profiles.