No more FLoC, Google introduces Topics for interest-based advertising

In its second attempt at trying to enable advertisers to buy ads based solely on a user’s browsing interests without having to use the “privacy-invasive tracking cookies”, Google has announced a new solution called Topics.

Topics replaces FLoC, or the Federated Learning of Cohorts; Google’s first attempt at blocking cookies on its Chrome browser. The company wants to block tracking cookies on Chrome by the end of 2023 and that would mean that companies will no longer be able to track what websites a user is checking out.

Google’s Topics is a new Privacy Sandbox proposal for interest-based advertising and its aim is the same as FLoC’s - to improve web privacy for users.

"Topics was informed by our learning and widespread community feedback from our earlier FLoC trials, and replaces our FLoC proposal," said Vinay Goel, Product Director, Privacy Sandbox, at Chrome.

While FLoC worked by grouping people into cohorts based on websites they were visiting, Topics works a little differently. With FLoC, advertisers could show ads to a selected group and they would not know anything about the individuals in that group or what their common interests were.

Goel told Reuters that in the tests run last year, some advertisers found FLoC to be less effective than cookies when it came to choosing users to target with ads and it also “carried the risk of exposing an individual’s browsing history”.

Now, Topics works by ‘highlighting’ five of a user’s interests based on their browsing history for a week. Topics are kept only for three weeks and older Topics are deleted.

"Topics are selected entirely on your device without involving any external servers, including Google servers. When you visit a participating site, Topics picks just three topics, one topic from each of the past three weeks, to share with the site and its advertising partners," Goel explained in a blog post.

"In Chrome, we're building user controls that let you see the topics, remove any you don't like or disable the feature completely," Google added. This means that with Topics, users will be able to control this data.

Google is expected to launch a developer trial for Topics on Chrome soon which will include user controls and will also enable website developers and companies buying ads to try it out.

And the company has said that the final design of the user controls and how Topics will work in general will be based on users’ feedback and the learnings over the trial.

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