Google gives up "Floc" and proposes "TOPICS" -better web advertising mechanism to replace Cookie tracking

　Google announced the "Topics API" on January 25 (local time).The knowledge obtained from the "FLOC" experiment and the new API developed based on the feedback received from the community.It is something to replace.

　Targeting ads are an indispensable technology for free content, but this technology has despised the privacy of users.From this reflection, the industry has been exploring how to eliminate the support of third -party cookies in a step further, and to balance profits and balance privacy protection.In the case of Google, the "Privacy Sandbox" and its algorithm "FLOC" correspond.

Is the dark cloud block of COOKIE counterproductive to privacy protection?Google proposes "Privacy Sandbox"

　"FLOC", that is, "Federated Learning of COHORTS" "analyzes user browsing history by machine learning, forms a" cohort "(cohort) together with thousands of users with similar interests and interests.。The only advertiser can request which cohort belongs, and the individual and specific browsing history is not shared.

　However, the concept of "Floc" was difficult to handle, and it was pointed out that new fingerprints (fingerprint data used to track individuals) would only be added to the web browser.In fact, there is no web browser trying to follow "Floc".Regarding the initially planned "Federated Learning", it has been found that the calculation on the device can provide sufficient practicality and excellent privacy.

　The "Topics API" has been reconstructed based on these reflections, is more difficult to understand, difficult to abuse fingerprints, and seems to be a transparent mechanism that respects users.

　In the "TOPICS API", we select "Topics", which represents users' interests and interests based on browsing history, for example, "fitness" and "travel / traffic".This process is all performed on the device without going through an external server.

　The topic is expected to eventually be thousands, but it seems to be about 350 in the early stages.In addition, sensitive information such as race and gender is not included in the topic.

　When connected to a web server that operates topic ads, the Topics API selects a total of three topics from the past three weeks and share with the site and advertising partner.When selecting topics and providing them to servers, treatments (randomization and noise additions) are also performed to prevent user identification.

　You can check what topics actually shared on the user.It also provides a user control function that deletes your favorite topic and disables the topic itself.

　The company wants to add a "Topics API" -related function to "Google Chrome" soon and make a trial for developers.The company wants to improve the final design of the user control and the API operation based on the trials and feedback obtained in trial.