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Credit to Author: Matt Burgess| Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 19:31:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Matt Burgess<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s plan to<\/span> remove third-party cookies from Chrome hasn\u2019t gone smoothly. Back in January 2020 the company announced it would overhaul Chrome by removing cookies that follow people around the web within two years. Well, now it\u2019s January 2022 and Google is back with another plan. This week the company announced it was scrapping Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC)<\/a>, a key part of its plan, and replacing it with a new system called Topics.<\/p>\n Topics is just one element of Google\u2019s wider Privacy Sandbox<\/a> plan to bring about the end of third-party cookies in Chrome. On the face of it, it's a move to improve user privacy. But many privacy experts have argued that it\u2019s impact will be limited. And even the ad tech industry isn\u2019t happy<\/a>, with rivals arguing that Google is attempting to reshape online advertising in its image. In the third quarter of 2021 alone, the search giant made $53 billion from advertising<\/a>\u2014but the online world in which Google operates is changing.<\/p>\n When it comes to limiting third-party cookies, Google is way behind its rivals. Safari, Firefox, and Brave have all restricted them for years. Apple\u2019s Safari started doing so back in 2017<\/a>. But what Google does will have by far the biggest impact. Chrome hogs 63 percent<\/a> of the global browser market\u2014meaning Google is likely to set a standard that others might be forced to follow. After failing with FLoC, the company is now presenting Topics as a different plan for the future of online advertising. Onlookers aren\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n Topics works by analyzing your browsing history to work out the things you\u2019re interested in. If you like cars, for example, Topics will show you adverts for cars on the websites that you visit. To work out that you like cars, each website that uses Google\u2019s Topics API will be assigned an overall category. A website about tattooing, for instance, may fall into the body art category; a city newspaper would likely be assigned to the local news category<\/a>.<\/p>\n As you move around the web, Chrome will record the categories you visit the most. Then, each week, your five most popular categories will be gathered up\u2014Google says this process is done on your device and not on its servers\u2014and a sixth random topic will be added to add some noise in the system. These six categories are then shared with the websites you visit and are used to target the ads you see. The data is deleted after three weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cTopics was informed by our learning and widespread community feedback from our earlier FLoC<\/a> trials,\u201d Google product director Vinay Goel said in a blog post<\/a>. That earlier system used browsing history to group people with thousands of others with similar interests. If Google\u2019s algorithms determined you were interested in dogs, you\u2019d be put in the same category as others who like dogs. The plan was ditched after a number of major websites and rival browsers said they wouldn\u2019t use the system. Regulators in the EU<\/a> and the UK\u2019s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) also opened investigations into Google\u2019s proposals<\/a>. Privacy advocates warned that it was bad for privacy, and the advertising industry wasn\u2019t too impressed either<\/a>. So how about Topics?<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a couple of improvements in Topics,\u201d says Hamed Haddadi, chief scientist at Brave, a privacy-focused browser and search engine. He says that under FLoC, people could have been grouped into more than 30,000 different categories, which would allow advertisers to gain specific knowledge of their interests. This information could then be combined with other data to build up an incredibly detailed picture of each and every one of us.<\/p>\n This is less likely in Topics, as there are around 350 interest categories that can be assigned to people. Although this number is likely to increase\u2014Google\u2019s technical description says<\/a> its eventual goal will be to source these topics from a third party, and there could be a \u201cfew thousand topics.\u201d Haddadi also says adding a sixth random topic into people\u2019s interests makes the system a little more privacy-conscious.<\/p>\n Another potential difference between FLoC and Topics is that Google claims the latter will attempt to avoid assigning \u201csensitive categories\u201d to people\u2014such as allowing individuals to be shown ads based on their race or gender. FLoC was criticized<\/a> for potentially being able to generate or infer sensitive attributes through people\u2019s behavior and interests. Google says people will be given more control over the interest areas that are assigned to them and can change settings, block topics, and opt out in Chrome. But, realistically, it\u2019s unlikely many people will change Chrome\u2019s settings in this way.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the risk of websites working out someone\u2019s sensitive personal traits isn\u2019t completely eradicated by Topics. \u201cIt is still possible that websites calling the API may combine or correlate topics with other signals to infer sensitive information, outside of intended use,\u201d Google\u2019s description of Topics says. Over time it would be possible<\/a> for a site to \u201cdevelop a list of topics that are relevant to that user,\u201d and this may reveal sensitive information. There are other privacy and security issues Google says it needs to fix<\/a>. Google plans to test Topics in Chrome in the coming months, and the system could change based on feedback.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the competition issue. The smaller number of interests assigned to people could potentially hand yet more power to Google in an online advertising industry it already dominates. Paul Bannister, cofounder of the ad management firm CafeMedia, says that Topics seems to be a step forward for people\u2019s privacy, but a potential step back for advertising firms. The 350 current interests included in Topics are broad, Bannister says, and this means it\u2019s less likely to be useful for advertisers who are trying to target individuals with products that they\u2019re more likely to buy. \u201cThose topics are fixed, so it's harder to find unique segments that are really interesting to your marketing campaign,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cAs it stands, Topics seems to be only a solution for the Chrome browser. It is neither cross-browser nor cross-platform,\u201d says Phil Duffield, UK vice president at the Trade Desk, a tech and software company. The company built its own cookie-replacement rival<\/a> that is based on identifiers linked to the email address people use to sign in to websites. \u201cAs with any complex technical challenge, there is no silver bullet, but we do believe in the importance of future solutions being interoperable and easily used by all players across the industry,\u201d Duffield says.<\/p>\n Haddadi believes that Topics, in its current form, would improve privacy in Chrome, but that it still falls short of the standard set by almost all other browsers. \u201cIt's just raising the bar for Chrome while a lot of other browsers, including Safari, Firefox, Brave, and Tor, already have extensive third-party blocking mechanisms.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, Topics may help Google stay at the top of the advertising industry for decades to come. Regulators could force Google to change its approach\u2014the CMA\u2019s investigation into Google\u2019s Privacy Sandbox is still ongoing, and the regulator has already told the firm to make some changes<\/a>. While Apple\u2019s advertising business is rapidly growing<\/a>, Google will still be Google. The company owns the world\u2019s largest browser and search engine, and a huge advertising network. Topics might differ from FLoC, but it\u2019s purpose remains the same: to maintain Google\u2019s control over the ads we see.<\/p>\n