Items tagged with floc
Big corporations seem to always think they know what is best for consumers, and often jam policies down their throats whether they want them or not. Case in point, Google is moving away from traditional tracking cookies in its Chrome browser to a system called Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC, which has drawn widespread scrutiny. For those who have no interest in FLoC but want to stick with Chrome, there is a way to disable it. We'll get to the steps in a moment, but first let's talk about cookies and FLoC for a moment. Cookies are what sites use to track user sessions or data, so that if you leave a website and return to it later, you are still logged in. Third-party cookies also track...
Read more...
Google is on a mission to crumble the third-party cookie infrastructure that the web is largely based on, as it relates to lucrative targeted advertising efforts, and rebuild things with an initiative called FLoC, or Federated Learning of Cohorts. Not without controversy, Google's FLoC ad-tracking has drawn an antitrust probe. In addition, WordPress has proposed treating FLoC as a security threat. Let's back up a moment, shall we? We covered what you need to know about FLoC, but to recap, it is part of an effort at Google to develop open-source "privacy-preserving technologies that make third-party cookies obsolete and enable publishers to keep growing their businesses and keep the web sustainable."...
Read more...
Earlier this year, Google announced the Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC, which would improve user privacy around the web. While this has led to some scrutiny, such as a Department of Justice antitrust probe, it will hopefully bring a safe and responsible end to third-party cookies. The technology is now rolling out as part of a developer origin trial in Chrome. First and foremost, the uninitiated among us may be asking, “What is a cookie and what does it have to do with a flock?” Cookies are the means by which a website can track user sessions or data, such that you stay logged when you leave a website and come back to it later. Third-party cookies are a subset of cookies in...
Read more...
Google could potentially face an antitrust lawsuit if the United States Depart of Justice ultimately determines its pivot away from supporting third-party tracking cookies gives it an unfair advantage in the lucrative online advertising space. Nothing has been determined either way, but there is apparently a probe into the situation. The issue at hand is Google's move away from allowing third-party cookies in its Chrome browser and replacing them with what it is calling the "Federated Learning of Cohorts," or FLoC for short. What exactly is FLoC? It is a way of tracking people via their cohort, or put more plainly, it is an algorithm that sorts people into groups of thousands of other people...
Read more...
Back in January, Google gave us an early taste of what it is calling Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC. With the tech industry -- led by players like Apple -- moving more towards a privacy-centric approach to handling customer data and internet surfing habits, change was bound to happen. Instead of individually tracking users with cookies, FLoC uses an algorithm that can group together thousands of people with similar browsing habits. A user's internet "behavior" is kept locally on-device (maintained by the browser), and personalized ads can still be sent to users. However, because the data is anonymized and users are pooled in large groups, they are not easily identifiable/trackable....
Read more...
Cookies of the edible kind are delicious and comforting, whereas cookies of the technological kind can save, store, and track data in web browsers across browsing sessions. Companies can use them for good or bad things depending on the implementation from a website, like Twitter, Facebook, or others. When it comes to advertising on the internet, some cookies get to hitch a ride on other websites and then get placed on your computer, which leads to privacy concerns. Therefore, Google is ending support for third-party cookies and replacing the technology with the “Federated Learning of Cohorts” (FLoC). In 2019, Google announced the “Privacy Sandbox,” hoping to find better...
Read more...
