Google has wanted to change the web, and practically the entire Internet has turned against it. In recent days, many large companies related to the Internet world have confirmed that they will not support Google’s new cookie system, and now one of the most important has also opposed it.
At the beginning of the year we learned that Google was designing a new system called Federated Learning of Cohorts ( FLoC ), or federated learning of cohorts . The system groups users based on their interests and demographic profiles obtained through browsing history. With this, Google can show you advertisements and other content without having to resort to third-party cookies.
Browsers, EFF and WordPress, against FLoC
One of the drawbacks of this system is that there is no option to choose whether or not we want to participate without disabling third-party cookies, which prevents correct navigation on practically all websites. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) believes that this system can be used to more easily track users over the Internet. The EFF itself has created a website called « Am I FLoCed? »Which allows us to know if Google is conducting this test with our profiles. Currently the test only affects 0.5% of Chrome users, although they will soon expand it to 5% (around 100 million users)
Companies like Brave or DuckDuckGo have come out against the use of FLoC in their browsers , and now it has been WordPress who has announced that they will not support this function, marking FLoC as a security threat. In addition, they will release a version of their CMS that blocks participation in this system.
To explain its decision, WordPress states that FLoC may cause discrimination between users or user groups, in addition to sharing your information without your express consent. In addition, without your action, many sites that use WordPress may end up participating in FLoC without knowing it, making it easier for Google to know more information about users.
Therefore, WordPress will add the following code to its websites by default to deactivate it:
function disable_floc ($ headers) {
$ headers [‘Permissions-Policy’] = ‘interest-cohort = ()’;
return $ headers;
}
add_filter (‘wp_headers’, ‘disable_floc’);
WordPress will disable it by default
In the event that there is someone who wants to participate, the web developers will only have to remove the code. In the future they may decide to include a simple button to enable or disable participation. The update will arrive as part of WordPress 5.8 in July 2021 , but they are considering introducing the code in earlier versions to increase their coverage.
Currently, 41% of the web pages of the network use WordPress , so this decision is very important in order to guarantee the privacy of users. Systems like FLoC would give Google a lot of power, and for this reason several lawsuits are already being prepared against Google for this system. If you want to be sure that they are not testing FLoC with you, you can try visiting the link that we have put before if you want to continue using Chrome, or use browsers such as Firefox, Edge, Safari, Opera, Brave or Vivaldi, which are not compatible with the function.
