Is Google new Tracking replacing FLoC Beterr?

 FLoC is gone, now is the Google 'Topics' better? 

Google attacked over latest plan to replace tracking cookies

By Joel Khalili published about 5 hours ago in TechRadar

Google Topics does nothing to address core privacy concerns, says Brave

The company behind privacy-centric web browser Brave has hit out against Google’s latest plan to replace third-party cookies, which it says will do little to minimize the opportunity for violations of privacy.

Introduced earlier this week, Google Topics (a substitute for the controversial FLoC proposal) offers a way to serve up ads to people based on broad interest categories, such as travel or fitness, instead of using granular and often sensitive data hoovered up by cookies.

The system relies on three weeks’ worth of browsing data, which is stored locally on-device, to place people into a variety of different buckets, which in turn determine what types of ads the person will receive. Web users can opt out of any particular topic via their browser at any time.

According to Brave, however, Topics “only touches the smallest, most minor privacy issues in FLoC, while leaving its core intact”. The new proposal pays “lip service” to protecting the open web, but in reality is yet another tool designed to preserve the Google monopoly, the company claims.  .. '

Google Killing Off FloC

 Notable  How does this change the interaction with consumer, their privacy and 

Google Kills Off FLoC, Replaces It With Topics

By TechCrunch, January 25, 2022

FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts), Google's controversial project for replacing cookies for interest-based advertising by instead grouping users into groups of users with comparable interests, is dead. In its place, Google today announced a new proposal: Topics.

The idea here is that your browser will learn about your interests as you move around the web. It'll keep data for the last three weeks of your browsing history and as of now, Google is restricting the number of topics to 300, with plans to extend this over time. Google notes that these topics will not include any sensitive categories like gender or race.

To figure out your interests, Google categorizes the sites you visit based on one of these 300 topics. For sites that it hasn't categorized before, a lightweight machine learning algorithm in the browser will take over and provide an estimated topic based on the name of the domain.

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Google Privacy with FLoC

Here is how Google is thinking the demise of cookie tracking and how it will handle tracking and maintain privacy. 

Privacy, sustainability and the importance of “and”   from the Google Blog.

Marshall Vale  Product Manager, Privacy Sandbox

When other browsers started blocking third-party cookies by default, we were excited about the direction, but worried about the immediate impact. Excited because we absolutely need a more private web, and we know third-party cookies aren't the long-term answer. Worried because today many publishers rely on cookie-based advertising to support their content efforts, and we had seen that cookie blocking was already spawning privacy-invasive workarounds (such as fingerprinting) that were even worse for user privacy. Overall, we felt that blocking third-party cookies outright without viable alternatives for the ecosystem was irresponsible, and even harmful, to the free and open web we all enjoy. 

Since 2019, we’ve been working on a collaborative open-source effort — the Privacy Sandbox — to develop a set of new privacy-preserving technologies that make third-party cookies obsolete and enable publishers to keep growing their businesses and keep the web sustainable, with universal access to content. It’s a polarity to balance, but one we think is critical to keep the web open, accessible and thriving for everyone.

Today, a new piece of web technology — Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) — will start to roll out as a developer origin trial in Chrome. Keeping in mind the importance of “and,” FLoC is a new approach to interest-based advertising that both improves privacy and gives publishers a tool they need for viable advertising business models. FLoC is still in development and we expect it to evolve based on input from the web community and learnings from this initial trial.

Here’s a bit more information on how FLoC currently protects your privacy:  .... " 

FLoC vs SWAN Tests Cookies for Browse Tracking

 Which have the higher potential for misuse? 

Online advertisers take on Google with their own third-party cookie alternative

Google has "FLoC"; these advertisers propose "SWAN."

D. Hardawar    @devindra  March 31st, 2021  in Engadget

When Google announced its plans to stop supporting third-party cookies for ads, a move away from tracking users based on their individual browsing history to create personalized ads, it was like a nuclear bomb for the online advertising industry. Yesterday, Google started officially testing its alternative solution, FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts)  , which anonymously serves ads to groups based on similar behavior. The major problem for the ad industry? FLoC is entirely Google's creation, which isn't exactly appealing to the company's competition in the space. So a group of online advertisers is proposing an alternative (with an appropriately cute name) of their own, SWAN, Bloomberg reports.   ... '