After a large number of developers and platforms expressed their disagreement with the implementation of FloC in the popular Google web browser, "Chrome" the search giant has unveiled recently that a change has been made to your plans to end Chrome's support for third-party cookies when accessing sites other than the domain of the current page (these cookies are used to track users' movements between sites in the code of ad networks, social media widgets, and systems web analytics).
Here on the blog we have shared the notes about it and the most recent case is that of Amazon which without more simply blocking FloC from its websites before the first day, in addition to that we cannot also forget the blocking by GitHub as well as WordPress, among others.
Many of you may wonder why many oppose FLoC and that is that the main problem is that users have to choose between "old tracking" and "new tracking" and many reviewers have repeatedly said that allowing third-party cookies was the biggest bug on the web and now letting it run under a different set of protocols is just as damaging as the old standard.
Despite all this, Google continues with implementation plans of FloC, although support for third-party cookies in Chrome was originally planned to end until 2022, this term has been changed at least a year and a halfas the implementation of a replacement for third-party cookies takes longer than expected.
As Google mentions that by the end of 2022, it is planned to complete the tests of the technologies that are replacing cookie tracking technologies and activate them in Chrome, after which it is planned to give ad networks and sites at least 9 months to migrate your systems, monitor your work and post comments. In mid-2023, Chrome will begin phasing out support for third-party cookies over a three-month period.
We plan to continue working with the web community to create more private approaches in key areas, including ad measurement, delivering relevant content and ads, and fraud detection.
The changes are being promoted as part of the Privacy Sandbox initiative, whose objective is to achieve a compromise between the need of users to maintain privacy and the desire of ad networks and sites to track visitor preferences. Instead of tracking cookies, it is proposed to use FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) technology to determine user interests without violating privacy, allowing you to highlight groups of users with similar interests without identifying individual users.
Today, Chrome and others have offered more than 30 proposals, and four of those proposals are available in proofs of origin. For Chrome, specifically, our goal is to have the key technologies in place by the end of 2022 for the developer community to start adopting.
The test implementation of FLoC in Chrome has caused resistance in the community and criticisms related to the fact that FLoC does not solve all the problems and creates new risks, such as the creation of conditions for discrimination against users and the appearance of an additional factor for the hidden identification and tracking of the user's movements.
Subject to our commitment to the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and in accordance with the commitments we have made, Chrome may phase out third-party cookies over a period of three months, starting in mid-2023 and ending in late 2023.
According to Mozilla, Floc technology needs to be improved And in its current form, its mass adoption is fraught with significant risks.
Finally if you are interested in knowing more about it about the note, you can check the details in the following link.