Google goes it alone with its proposed advertising technology to replace third-party cookies. Every major browser that uses the open source Chromium project has refused to use it and it is not clear what this will mean for the future of web advertising.
A few weeks ago, Google announced that it was starting testing a new advertising technology in Google Chrome called Federated Cohort Learning or FLoC. Use an algorithm to analyze your browser history and place you in a group of people with similar browsing history so that advertisers can target you. It is more private than cookies, but it is also complicated and has some potential privacy implications if not implemented correctly.
Google Chrome is built on an open source project, so FLoC was implemented as part of that project that other browsers might include. I’m not aware of any Chromium-based browser other than Google’s own to implement it, and I’m very aware of many who will refuse it.
One note I will leave here is that I am relieved that no one else is implementing FLoC right away, because the way FLoC is built puts a lot of responsibility on a browser. If poorly implemented, FLoC could leak sensitive information. It’s a complicated technology that seems to keep you semi-anonymous, but there are enough details to hide dozens of devils.
Anyway, here it is Brave: “The worst aspect of FLoC is that it materially harms users’ privacy under the guise of being confidential.” And look Vivaldi: “We will not support the FLoC API and intend to disable it, no matter how it is implemented. It does not protect privacy, and it is certainly not beneficial to users to inadvertently provide privacy for Google’s financial gain. ”
We arrived at Opera for comments and here is the company statement:
As you probably know, Opera has a long history of introducing privacy features that benefit our users: it was the first major browser to introduce built-in ad blocking, browser VPN, and other privacy-centric features. The significance now is the end of third-party cookies, which will reduce the amount of tracking on websites on the web. While we and other browsers discuss new and better advertising alternatives for maintaining the confidentiality of cookies, including FloC, we have no current plans to enable features like this in Opera browsers in their current form. In general, however, we believe that it is too early to say in which direction the market will move or what the main browsers will do.
DuckDuckGo is not a browser, but it has already made a browser extension to block it. And the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is very much against FLoC, has even created a website to let you know if you’re one of the few Chrome users who have been included in Google’s early tests.
But it is perhaps the most important browser based on Chromium that was not created by Google Microsoft Edge. It’s a big test for the FLoC technology proposed by Google: if Microsoft doesn’t support it, it would mean that Chrome will really do it alone with this technology.
In the great tradition of congressional technology hearings, I asked Microsoft a yes or no question: Do you intend to implement FLoC in Edge? And in the same great tradition, Microsoft responded:
We believe in a future where the web can give people privacy, transparency and control, while supporting responsible business models to create a vibrant, open and diverse ecosystem. Like Google, we accept solutions that give users clear consent and do not circumvent consumer choice. Therefore, we do not accept solutions that use users’ identity signals without consent, such as fingerprinting. The industry is on a journey and there will be browser-based proposals that do not require individual user IDs and ID-based proposals that are based on consent and relationships with first parties. We will continue to explore these approaches with the community. Recently, for example, we were pleased to introduce a possible approach, as described in our PARAKEET proposal. This proposal is not the final iteration, but an evolving document.
This is a lot to unpack, but it seems like a “no”. However, it is a “no” with an important context. But before I get too deep, let’s talk about some non-Chromium browsers – because an important part of all of this is that Google’s FLoC technology is still a proposal. Google says it would like to make it a fundamental part of the web, not just a new feature in its browser.
Here’s a statement a Mozilla spokesman gave us about the plans Firefox:
We are currently evaluating many of our privacy proposals, including those submitted by Google, but we have no current plans to implement any of them at this time.
We don’t believe that the industry needs billions of data points about people, which are collected and shared without their understanding, to deliver relevant ads. That’s why we’ve implemented Enhanced Tracking Protection by default to block more than ten billion trackers a day, and we continue to innovate in new ways to protect people using Firefox.
Advertising and privacy can coexist. And the advertising industry may work differently than it has in previous years. We look forward to playing a role in finding solutions to build a better web.
As for Apple Safari, I admit that I did not go for comments, because at this time it is not difficult to guess what the answer will be. Apple, after all, deserves some credit for changing everyone’s default views on privacy. However, the story here is actually much more interesting than you might guess at first. John Wilander is a WebKit engineer at Apple who works on Safari’s smart tracking prevention features, which improve privacy. He was asked on Twitter whether or not Safari will implement FLoC and here is his answer:
I did not say that we will implement and have our policy to prevent prosecution. That’s it for now. Serious proposals for standards are worth thinking about and I appreciate that Brave shares them.
– John Wilander (@johnwilander) April 12, 2021
Wilander’s response contradicts Microsoft’s statement that “the industry is on a journey” when it comes to balancing new advertising and privacy technologies. But it talks about something really important: web standards, people take their jobs seriously and are seriously engaged in the web standards process that creates the open internet.
I often shed light on this process as slow, controversial and frustrating. It’s all those things. But it is also the last line of defense against the complete and total fracture of the web into pages that are only compatible with certain web browsers. It’s not the web at all.
So what you would expect to be a hard “no” from Apple (and what will almost certainly be a hard “no” in the end) becomes instead a commitment to the process of web standards and taking in serious of Google proposals. Ditto Microsoft.
All this happens because every major browser already has or will soon block third-party cookies, the default way to identify you and track you on the web. And every major browser is committed to making sure you can’t be personally identifiable to third-party advertisers. Even Google’s own advertising team said the same thing.
The end of these cookies is called Cookiepocalypse and it is apocalyptic, because no one really knows what advertisers will do once these tracking methods are hijacked. At the moment, the main browser providers propose new and different solutions.
Apple, Google and Microsoft all have ideas about how web advertising should work. We’ve talked extensively about Google’s FLoC, but you might be surprised to hear that Apple isn’t just trying to stop all ads; has its own ad proposals that improve privacy. And that random reference to PARAKEET in the Microsoft statement? Another advertising proposal.
The problem here is that Cookiepocalypse is already close. Many browsers already block third-party cookies. Google Chrome is the big problem with blocking third-party cookies, but it is also the browser with the largest market share.
Google is committed to discontinuing third-party cookies in 2022, but it seems very unlikely that the web standardization process will reach an answer by then. In fact, one of Google’s other proposals won’t start testing until the end of this year – much too late to be implemented by the advertising industry if Google lives up to its original promise. Who knows what the advertisers will do then?
The technology here is complicated, the process is slow and the result is unclear. This is the same for the web course. Normally, I would tell you not to worry and let the W3C take its course. But the stakes are high: your privacy, vast sums of money, and the interoperable nature of the web itself could go up in smoke if these browser makers can’t find a way to wrap all these needles. Cookiepocalypse, indeed.
Update, 14:15 ET April 16: statement added from Opera.