Developer suggests topic IDs for FLoC
Google’s replacement cookie, FLoC, has been in turmoil for six months with data protection officials and marketers. Now a developer is introducing topic-based IDs instead of numeric IDs.
FLoC, Federated Learning of Cohorts, should be Google’s privacy-friendly replacement for third-party cookies. The data collected from users would be combined with those from people with similar interests. Individuals would “disappear into the crowd” in the cohorts. At least that’s the thought.
Data protection activists, of all people, protested against FloC: On the one hand, there was no consent, no opt-in by the users themselves, as was the case with cookies. On the other hand, it is also possible with FLoC to identify individual persons. In the EU, FLoC has not been tested due to GDPR concerns.
Josh Karlin, a lead developer of Google Privacy Sandbox, speaks loudly Digiday Now of a possible adaptation: Instead of working with opaque and numeric cohort IDs, websites and people should be assigned to topic categories. In one meeting To the Internet Engineering Task Force on July 30, 2021, he explained how this could work: An algorithm generates topic-related IDs such as “fitness” or “performing arts” and assigns them to the websites or people. The numeric IDs are “difficult to express and difficult to understand”. Karlin also mentions an opt-in or opt-out for topics so that users could assign themselves. According to Karlin, nothing has been decided yet.
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Google seems to be registering privacy concerns
The adaptations presented send a signal, even if Google does not implement the topic-based IDs: Google has recognized that the previous implementation of FLoC is not transparent for users and the advertising industry – and the data protection concerns are justified. Karlin himself admits that the FLoC IDs enable so-called fingerprinting. Individual snippets of data are collected and compiled into a data set – which can ultimately even be traced back to a specific browser and a specific person. The topic IDs reduce the number of signals sent, which makes fingerprinting more difficult. In addition, efforts by advertisers to link the numerical IDs with interests would be superfluous.
In tests in the USA, ad tech companies had already linked the FLoC IDs with other available data and thus recorded more and faster data than was possible with cookies. The topic IDs would mean more transparency for advertisers, ad tech companies, website operators as well as users – because it would be clear why advertisements are being played to whom. Karlin believes that users will not only be able to see what is being said about them, but will also be able to understand it.
Many companies block FLoC implementation
Shortly after the introduction of the Privacy Sandbox, the browsers Vivaldi and Brave announced that they would block FLoC. Duckduckgo, Mozilla and Microsoft also announced that they would not implement the whole thing. It was also recently revealed that WordPress and Amazon are blocking Google’s FLoC. With so much headwind, it was actually foreseeable that Google would have to work on the technology again. It remains to be seen whether FLoC will actually come in 2023.
