Google, the internet giant is weaning itself from the diet of user tracking cookies that track user data for delivering the personalized ads. Google has been widely criticized for the privacy of third-party cookies. Though cookies help Google in delivering personalized ads, it has always caused privacy issues and raises the hackles of privacy defenders. Growing concerns of tracking cookies and privacy issues have stimulated the support for various internet rights legislation including GDPR across Europe. This has prompted Google in developing new ways for effectively targeting ads without compromising personal security by avoiding tracking too much of individual data. Google has tested alternatives instead of tracking cookies that can ensure the online privacy of the customers while providing advertisers relevant messages for creating targeted ads. This tested system called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) uses on-device processing that maintains a user’s web history private on the browser and thereby effectively hiding individual data in the crowd. Results demonstrated that FLoC can effectively replace third party cookies in generating interest-based audiences. Google expects to test the FLoC approach later this year using its Chrome browser. Advertising on the web is essential for targeting the leads, but it is facing high risk as its privacy approaches do not meet up changing user expectations on privacy regards. Google was also under pressure of growing trends in legislations for the protection of people’s data rights. These circumstances have stimulated them to search for an alternative for tracking cookies. The third-party cookies are regarded as privacy nightmares though it is useful for convenient logins and browsings to the frequently visited sites. Third-party cookies help in ad businesses, but it creates a lot of worries in terms of preserving privacy. Safari and Firefox browsers have already removed their third-party cookies. But Chrome which accounts for 63 percent of the global browser market, still using third-party cookies is a great concern for its users. Google’s decisions to remove third-party cookies and to replace them with FLoC will largely affect the independent media owners, independent advertising technology as well as marketers.
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