The Internet right now works with cookies. Cookies are small files that are stored on the computer and that we use to store information (such as the last visit, where we come from, a session that we have started, etc.) when using a website. These cookies also store valuable information about us, information that is normally read by the websites we visit and, associated with a unique ID, is used to spy on us and track us. Microsoft, Google, Amazon… all companies use these files for their own purposes. However, they may be nearing their end. And this is where FloC comes into play.
Google, as always, wants to have more control than anyone else over users and the Internet. And now, you have decided to take control of user tracking across the network. To do this, the company intends to end third-party cookies, which are so widely used and which provide so much valuable information to companies, advertising platforms and online stores, and in return wants to implement a technique known as FLoC.
What is the FLoC?
Broadly speaking, FLoC, Federated Learning of Cohorts , aims to help advertisers offer targeted ads based on the interests of users who visit the web but without providing a user ID, or other information, that can be used to identify to user. In theory, this should improve the privacy of users when connecting to the Internet, however, in practice all it does is allow Google to collect much more information from users and have much more control over all this data without depending on the cookies.
For this technique to work, the browser is responsible for automatically collecting the browsing habits of users, their preferences, activity and other data of interest. This information is grouped with the data of other users with similar preferences and habits and groups called “cohorts” are created. A cohort (from English, cohort), according to the RAE, is a “set of things or people that accompany or follow another thing or person.”
Each cohort has an ID , and it is this that is provided to the websites when we enter them so that they know our tastes and interests and can show us relevant information and data.
In theory, these cohorts aim to improve user privacy. However, after analyzing them, we can see that they contain much more information, and much more detailed , than advertisers obtain with third-party cookies. Google has also created its own algorithm, SimHash, to group this information and create the cohorts. And our ID can change every 7 days depending on our activity.
For this reason, the function that in theory was intended to improve our privacy, in practice does the opposite: provide much more detailed information to advertisers. And give Google absolute control over this information , which is invaluable for a company whose source of income has always been advertising and user data.
What problems can we have with FLoC
Google ensures that FLoC protects users because it does not associate them with a unique ID (at least for third parties), but only provides an ID of a group (the cohort) to which many users with similar interests belong. However, not everything is as beautiful as it seems. The main problem with this technique is that it kills third-party cookies because they are a privacy problem but, at the same time, it creates an alternative that collects much more information than these cookies. So something bad is being replaced by something worse , in theory.
Nor is it guaranteed that the ID that is going to be provided to the advertising platforms is really ours, that is, the ID that Google is interested in providing, an ID with which to display ads and interests that can be used to manipulate us.
The cohort provides websites with much more information than they can obtain through cookies and tracking. And this information can be used to create a much more complete and detailed footprint with which websites and organizations can track us.
Finally, there are many websites that allow us to log in through our Google profile. Therefore, if we do, we would already be identified and the web could associate our user with a specific cohort ID. In the end, privacy is not as great as they want us to think.
Companies against this technique
This new technique has not liked users, since they are seeing how in a short time they will have much less privacy on the network, nor to many of the Internet companies. One of the first to show their disagreement was DuckDuckGo , Google’s rival search engine. This company has already introduced functions to block FLoC on its extension and prevent it from being used to follow users.
Also, there are browsers that have already opposed this technique. Brave and Vivaldi , for example, are the first two to reject this new tracking system by disabling its functionality in both browsers. In the case of Firefox and Safari , for example, this new functionality is not even implemented, since, for now, it is only in the Chromium code. Still, with a bit of luck, FLoC ends up being just an experiment that doesn’t quite fit.
Check if your browser is using this technique
At the moment, FloC is in the experimental testing phase. Only 0.5% of Chrome users in specific countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines and the United States) have it activated (randomly) to analyze its operation. In any case, 0.5% of all Chrome users, even if they seem few, are actually millions of users.
However, at any time Google could increase this percentage to test how this new function performs in more massive use and to better refine its cohorts and algorithms. Therefore, to check if our browser is part of Google’s tests, we simply have to access this page of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
