Browser makers, now including Mozilla’s Firefox, are already ditching Google’s proposed cookieless ad targeting method FLoC

By Kate Kaye

Privacy-centric browser Brave and browser extension DuckDuckGo have decided to block Google’s proposed method of tracking and targeting ads to groups of people without cookies, and now Mozilla tells Digiday it, too, has no plans to implement Google’s FLoC — or Federated Learning of Cohorts — in its Firefox browser.

“We are currently evaluating many of the privacy preserving advertising proposals, including those put forward by Google, but have no current plans to implement any of them at this time,” a Mozilla spokesperson told Digiday.

Those proposals thwarted by Mozilla and others have been put forward by Google as part of its Privacy Sandbox initiative which includes a variety of tactics the company has introduced — some developed in conjunction with other participants in the open-source environment of the Worldwide Web Consortium — to mimic long-used practices enabled with third-party cookies for tracking individuals, targeting ads and measuring their effectiveness.

“We don’t buy into the assumption that the industry needs billions of data points about people, that are collected and shared without their understanding, to serve relevant advertising,” said the Mozilla spokesperson. The company enables enhanced tracking protection by default in its Firefox browser, which is used by less than 4% of global web users, according to Statcounter.

Brave, another browser marketed as a privacy-protecting alternative to Google’s Chrome browser, said on April 14 it “has removed FLoC,” citing in a blog post its concerns that the technique, “harms privacy directly and by design” because it “tells sites about your browsing history in a new way that browsers categorically do not today.” Though a reliable measure of Brave’s user base is not available, the company’s share of the browser market is likely a sliver of even what browsers like Firefox or Apple’s Safari — which garners around 20% of the market — have.

DuckDuckGo, yet another company that sells itself as a defender of personal data privacy, also said earlier this month it will let people using its Chrome extension tool block FLoC. The company also said it has configured its search product to opt out from FLoC tracking whether or not people use its browser extension.

The adversarial drumbeats knocking FLoC grow louder even as testing of the targeting approach gets underway in the U.S. and other countries. However, as privacy concerns stall trials in Europe and others including a U.S. lawmaker, criticize its potential discriminatory impact, Google’s FLoC will live on for now in the search giant’s own Chrome browser, which happens to be the world’s most prolific browser. That means advertisers, publishers and Google’s ad tech partners will have every intention of giving it a try.

“Even if Chrome is the only browser where [FLoC is] enabled, it has massive scale,” said Ian Trider, vp of real time bidding platform operations at ad tech firm Centro, who added that ad inventory won’t be affected if other browsers don’t allow it. “Ads can be served on sites loading on those browsers. …read more

Source:: Digiday