Google has proposed a new method for web activity tracking called Topics to serve ads to users, replacing third-party cookies in a bid to create a more private web browsing experience with key controls in the hands of users. For the unaware, cookies are bits of code embedded in a website's codebase that tracks users across the web, creating a profile of interests and behavior for showing them targeted ads. But, of course, they are a privacy nightmare, which is why web browsing solutions like DuckDuckGo exist in the first place.
To overcome the risks posed by third-party cookies, Google proposed an alternative called FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) which was essentially an artificial intelligence-powered interest-based learning system. The core premise was identifying users based on their interests and then putting them into a group (or cohort) of other users with similar interests. The likes of Edge, Mozilla, and the privacy-centric Brave group rejected the notion of implementing it, citing increased privacy risks. With FLoC plans nixed, Google is now proposing a topic-based tracking system.
Topics appear to be a concoction of privacy-focused cautions and user-facing users. When someone surfs the web using Chrome, it identifies Topics such as sports or food based on the browsing history. More importantly, Topics are determined solely based on on-device web browsing, and the collection process doesn't involve any Google server activity. The browser will collect a total of six Topics each week. When it comes to sharing with advertising partners, Google says it will hand out only three Topics, one from each week in the past. Users will be able to see all the Topics logged in their name, delete some of them, or disable the feature in its entirety. Whether that promise takes the same route as Google's shady location tracking tactics remains to be seen.
Work Under Progress
And to avoid any form of controversial profiling or bias, the Topics system will ditch sensitive identifiers such as race or gender. Google claims that Topics is a safer option than third-party cookies, and embracing it will ensure that websites don't have to rely on problematic activities like browser fingerprinting to profile users and serve them relevant ads. Lately, the industry has been warming up to the idea of anonymized, grouped data to study user behavior as a safer alternative compared to collecting data on a per-user basis, with Apple being one of the biggest names to herald the change. On the other hand, websites might be able to specify Topics for web pages using tools like meta tags and headers. However, the GitHub repository for the proposal does warn that the mapping of sites to specific Topics might not always be accurate.
There are about 350 Topics in its current form, but the number will fall anywhere between a few hundred to a few thousand. The company will begin a developer-focused trial of Topics in Chrome browser soon and will also serve it to ad companies and websites for a test run. The final shape of user controls and other technicalities of the Topics system remains to be finalized yet pending user feedback during the pilot testing phase. However, the Topics proposal still has a lot of unanswered questions such as who should select Topics for a browsing session (the website or the browser's machine learning model), what happens if a website conflicts with the Topic recommended by the browser, who is responsible for creating and maintaining the Topics list, and what should be the standard for selecting or rejecting sensitive Topics, among others.