Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome
fyi
from the article above:
The argument here is that someday—not now, but someday—Google promises to turn off third-party tracking cookies in Chrome, and the new ad platform, which has some limitations, is better than the free-for-all that is third-party cookies. The thing is, third-party cookies mostly only affect Chrome users. Apple and Firefox have both been blocking third-party cookies for years and won’t be implementing Google’s new advertising system—it’s only the Chromium browsers that still allow them.
That’s actually what started this whole process: Apple dealt a giant blow to Google’s core revenue stream when it blocked third-party cookies in Safari in 2020. While it was a win for privacy, Google’s not following suit until it can secure its advertising business. The Federated Learning of Cohorts and now the Topics API are part of a plan to pitch an “alternative” tracking platform, and Google argues that there has to be a tracking alternative—you can’t just not be spied on. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also argued this when it called Google’s FLoC a “terrible idea,” saying “[Google’s] framing is based on a false premise that we have to choose between ‘old tracking’ and 'new tracking.’ It’s not either-or. Instead of re-inventing the tracking wheel, we should imagine a better world without the myriad problems of targeted ads.”USE FIREFOX