Google Topics: What’s the New Cookie Policy?

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Google unveils Topics, what will change with cookies?


The announcement from Vinay Goel, Product Director Privacy Sandbox and Chrome at Google, confirms that Google has removed FLoC from its Privacy Sandbox program . The company plans to replace it with the Topics API, which Goel outlines in a blog post on The Keyword blog. Topics are based on the idea of ​​associating topics with a user’s browsing behavior. Programs like Chrome will still analyze browsing history to determine these topics, but users will no longer be assigned to cohorts. A “handful” of topics that represent a user’s primary interests are determined and retained for three weeks. Old topics will be deleted after those three weeks while new topics will be added, based on the user’s browsing behavior. The entire process happens locally, according to Google.



Google Topics



The observation of the failure of the FLoC project
With “Federated Learning of Cohorts” (FLoC), Google wanted to replace the cambodia telegram controversial cookies of third-party browsers. However, other stakeholders whose support was needed to enforce the system could not be convinced. Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla and others saw the concept as unsuitable for various reasons.



Now, the Mountain View IT giant is trying something new. Topics is the name of this project. It is part of the “Privacy Sandbox” initiative and aims to enable the delivery of interest-based advertising while protecting users’ privacy.

Google's Topics method is thus the successor to the failed FLoC project and is intended to enable the delivery of interest-based advertising while protecting privacy.



Why was FLoC rejected by other browsers?
Companies like DuckDuckGo, Brave, or Vivaldi rejected FLoC for a number of reasons, including that cohort information could become a powerful fingerprint identifier, since cohorts consisted of a few thousand users. Other objections included letting Google determine what it considered sensitive information, which the company wanted to exclude from being used for advertising purposes, and informing any site about its interests, even if the sites had never been visited in the past.



However, even with Topics, Brave has posted a statement on its site stating that Topics does not address all of the company’s criticisms. In particular, it is still Google that decides what is sensitive and therefore excluded from being used for advertising purposes. Topics limits the exposure of a user’s interests to sites visited in the past and to advertisers that have loaded on those sites. The limitation benefits large advertisers, including Google, and disadvantages smaller advertisers.



Ultimately, the Topics method, as presented, doesn't improve privacy; it's more of a proposal to make the least private browser a little less bad. This is an effort by Google to catch up with other browsers that offer real privacy protections (and have done so for years).



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Floks vs. Topics
The background to the initiative is primarily the further development of the online advertising market. The days of pre-booked banner campaigns in the style of classic display and billboard advertising are largely over. Advertising space is often sold in a real-time auction. The position of an ad is no longer the only relevant criterion; the target group to be reached also plays an important role in pricing. After all, not all products and services are relevant to the same customer base. Hardly anyone knows this better than Google, for whom advertising remains the main source of income.

However, the question arises as to how the data is obtained in order to be able to assign users to target groups. And also how to deal with it. Tracking cookies from dubious advertising networks, which make the surfing behavior of users traceable across many pages, have rightly fallen into disrepute.



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What will change with cookies: local interest collection
cookies Topics

The Google update with Topics should now address the problems with a solution implemented locally via the web browser and will integrate the corresponding functions into its own software, Chrome. Specifically, the navigation tool analyzes the pages you have visited in the current week and uses them to generate a list of interests. This process should take place without any communication with external servers – including those of Google itself. In addition, only pages that participate in Topics are taken into account for Topics targeting. Each of them is assigned a broad “general theme”, such as “sports”.



Selected topics are stored for three weeks and then deleted, a blog post explains. Browser fingerprinting and other techniques that could track or identify the user are avoided.



You will also be able to see the Topics that are attached to you and tell Google whether you are interested or not.

If you visit another site that participates in Topics, three are randomly selected from the current stock of topics, one from each of the last three weeks and transmitted. The respective portal is then informed by technical means that the visitor is interested in, for example, “fitness”, “travel” and “rock music”. This, in turn, enables the display of advertisements that correspond to this. The Topics update takes place every 3 weeks.



Topics testing is expected to begin this year 2022
Potentially sensitive categories such as gender, sexual orientation or skin color are not included in the list. Additionally, transparency features can be configured in the browser. In Chrome, you will be able to see the current list of topics, remove individual interests or even disable topics completely.

According to Google, Topics is currently in the early stages of development. Initial testing and feedback will be obtained before the end of this year. The results should then be used to determine the schedule for further testing and the official launch.



Conclusion
With more and more companies dropping support for FLoC, it was clear that Google had to do something. Topics replaces FLoC and addresses some of the major concerns raised against FLoC. The question remains whether Google will be more successful in convincing other browser makers and companies to include Topics in their pr