In the future, Google wants to dispense with individualized tracking and perform pseudonymized group tracking. This means that the cookies set by third parties will be obsolete.
“Privacy First”
Already at the beginning of last year, Google had announced to abolish cookies from third parties, which enable targeted advertising. In doing so, the company wants to better comply with the data protection standards of the EU and also the USA. Google is committed to a future in which data protection on the web comes first, in line with the motto “Privacy First”. For users, this means that the company will no longer track individual Internet users for advertising purposes. In the future, the Chrome browser will no longer support cookies set by third parties (third-party cookies). Google itself does not plan any direct successors after the abolition, in contrast to some advertisers. The implementation is first to take place on the computer, so smartphone apps and Android are left out for now.
“Privacy Sandbox”
In order to use the advantages of digital advertisement, it is according to David Temkin (responsible for data security in the advertising range with Google), the following of individual consumers in the net not necessary. Users should be assigned to interest groups in the future in order to serve ads. Advances in pseudonymization, aggregation and data processing make this feasible. The Group is not simply looking to do away with cookie technology. A whole series of new procedures are to be introduced, which will enable targeted and tailored advertising.
The new measures are summarized by Google under the term “Privacy Sandbox”. The privacy of the individual user is thus no longer to be completely “thrown overboard”. One part of Google’s new measures is the so-called Federated Learning Of Cohorts (FLoC), which enables personalized advertising without creating a user profile. According to Google, FLoC will be implemented in the Chrome browser before the end of March. This will allow it to be tested directly in practice with users. In the next step, the new FloC concept will enter the test phase with Google Ads customers; this should be the case as early as the second quarter. A solution for Android is currently still under discussion.
Shifting targeting
Through the stored cookies in the browser, personal profiles were previously created to display targeted advertising campaigns. Through the new system, targeting is shifted to the browser, this is done by converting the browser history into hash values, which are fuzzy. If a user now has similar search histories, the same hash value is calculated. A part of the hash value is shared with the Google server. Google ensures that the interest groups addressed by advertisers are neither too large nor too small. This prevents access to individual user identities. In this way, the company meets the growing demand for more data protection.
