Cookies : Google’s “self-determination” as to which system it wants to replace cookies has been criticized by some in the advertising industry.
It comes as the tech giant said the user-based tracking system, Topics, was about to replace its previous proposal, Floc.
One marketing executive stated: “These constant decisions do not inspire confidence.
Third-party Cookies use personal browsing history to target ads that follow from site to site.
Privacy activists and regulators have fought hard against them.
Google has also agreed to limit its number to websites accessed. Through its Chrome browser, which controls approximately 65% of market share.
It had planned to block them from this year but postponed it to 2023.
‘Slightly Cookies idea’
Floc (Federated Learning of Cohorts) aims to hide. The identities of individual users by providing them with a group, or herd, with the same browsing history.
But this view was unpopular with both proponents of privacy and advertisers
Farhad Divecha, founder of digital marketing agency. AccuraCast said it was “absurd for many advertisers. who are not analysts of technical data”.
“The program received a lot of criticism when Google introduced it,” he said, “and it sounds like a half-baked opinion Google released earlier due to changes in advertising and privacy.”
“Last year it made it clear that Google Cookies is still not sure which way is best going forward.”
Critical interests
In a blog post, Google confirmed that Floc will now be replaced by Topics, a similar system that can combine users into topic categories, selected from about 350 categories such as eligibility or departure.
Articles identify users’ interests and keep this for three weeks before deleting them.
When someone visits a website Cookies , Articles will show the site and three advertising partners of their interests from the past three weeks.
But we will not share sensitive information, such as gender or race, Google says.
Identify users
And users will be able to delete the ones they don’t like – or disable the feature completely.
But one advertising and technology company asked how Articles could help advertisers better target users.
“Google’s latest proposal on topics is limited to one channel – its Chrome browser – and cannot be used on most devices that consumers use to access the Internet open,” said The Trade Desk UK vice president Phil Duffield.
“This means that advertisers are limited in their basic targeting methods.”
‘Lips service’
Meanwhile, Bennet Cyphers, of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, told The Verge that although better than Floc, Topics “will still tell foreign companies’ followers what kind of sites you are browsing Cookies “.
And a privacy-focused browser, Brave, with more than eight million active users, said the transformation of Google’s system was actually just the same.
“The Topics API [application programming interface] is the same as Floc’s,” writes the company’s privacy director, Peter Snyder.
“In both suggestions, the browser views the sites you visit, uses that information to sort your browsing interests, and the browser shares that information with advertisers.”
And it was not for Google to “be the solution to what users consider ‘critical’ data”.
“People have to decide what they see as critical – not Google,” Mr Snyder said.
And Google ‘s efforts Cookies were simply “talking verbally to protect the open web” while maintaining its dominance.
