Google has announced that it is phasing out FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) technology, Google’s rather controversial cookie replacement project. The essence of the technology was that in order to target ads, it groups users based on similar interests. Instead of FLoC, Google will use a new technology called Topics. The browser is supposed to communicate to advertisers about topics that users are interested in only when they navigate the web.
The Topics API will store search query data for the last three weeks, and the number of topics will be limited. Now there are 300 of them, in the future Google plans to increase their number and not include sensitive topics. To find out the interests of users, Google categorizes the sites they visit according to one of these 300 topics. For sites that were not previously classified, the machine learning algorithm will match the topic based on its domain name.
The technology works as follows. When a user lands on a Topics API-enabled site, the browser will share the three topics they are interested in, randomly one for each of the last three weeks. The site can then share this information with advertisers to figure out which ads to show. For example, if a user frequently visits sports sites, they will be shown ads for sports equipment. Ideally, this should make ad targeting more private. In addition, Google notes that this method is more transparent, it gives users more control than what is currently used. Most importantly, users will be able to independently view and remove topics from the list, as well as completely disable the Topics API.
Google is currently gathering feedback on its new offering. It is not yet known whether other browser developers will be interested in the Topics API technology. Previously, they criticized FLoC, calling this innovation to replace cookies a terrible idea, and the very fact of collecting data without user consent is unacceptable. It is worth noting that for advertisers, the Topics API is only one of the possible methods for deciding which ads to show to users.
Google intends to begin testing the Topics API at the end of the current quarter and has published technical details about the new technology.
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