While the company introduced FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) as a new approach to deliver and measure ads sent to Chrome users after it retired third-party cookie. But, FLoc has not been received as expected from the developer and advertising community, hence the new proposal called Topics.
The aim of phasing out third-party cookie remains to make the web more private and secure for users, as cookies track users online, and the data used by advertisers to serve targeted ads based on web users previous activities on the web.
What the new Topics API for Privacy Sandbox means?
Topics is a new Privacy Sandbox proposal for interest-based advertising, while the Privacy Sandbox initiative was initiated by Google to improve web privacy, and also give publishers and developers the tools needed to build thriving online businesses, while ensuring a safer web for all.
The new Topics API aggregates users' browsing history for a given week into a top pre-designated interests (i.e., topics), which are then retained on the device for a revolving period of three weeks.
Then, when a user visits any participating website, the mechanism will select three of the interests: a topic from each of the past three weeks to share with the website and its ads partners. As a control measure, users can view topics and also remove the topics altogether.
The Topics proposal, including the design features meant to preserve privacy, are available as an overview on privacysandbox.com or you can view the full technical explainer on GitHub. Google promises to launch a developer trial of Topics in Chrome soon that will enable developers and the ads community to try it out.
Albeit, the final design of the user controls and the other technical aspects of Topics will be decided based on feedback and what the trial results.
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