Blog

Back in the early March of 2021, Google announced that they would stop using third-party cookies for tracking and collecting surfing habits and interests of internet users.

One might think – “Hey, this seems like a good thing right? I’m not going to be tracked and followed like I used to be.” Well… It’s true and it’s not. You see, even though internet users won’t be tracked with ongoing, “traditional” style using third-party cookies, Google is working on implementing a new solution that will do the same thing with few variations.

Cookies and Bans

The method Google was using to track online users was through so-called third-party cookies. This way, every time you visited a website that uses Google’s ads network, the website deposited a little cookie intended for Google (cookie was also coming from Google and not from the website, hence the name third-party cookie). This way, based on the information gathered from those cookies, Google created a nice profile of individual users who visited a specific website. Where have you been, what have you visited, how much time you spent on the page, what were you looking for, what were you reading, etc.

With all of this information stored in individual profiles, Google could later sell them to advertisers who now have all the info they need to present you with more targeted ads. On paper, this might look like a good thing, right? You’re seeing ads you like, ads you need, and not ones that are irrelevant to you. The problem with this method was not whether it’s functional or not…

Problem was that it was conducted absolutely without any sort of consent from the users. Practically people were forced to be tracked without their consent. Some regulations tried to stop that (GDPR for example) but it caused super annoying pop-ups on websites which forced users to simply click “accept all” to dismiss them. In other terms, the situation came from forced to be tracked without consent to force to give consent to be tracked. Not much of an improvement right!?

The good news is that Google is planning to completely remove this functionality in 2022. Other browsers like Safari or Firefox, for example, already disabled third-party cookies.

Is There a Catch?

Of course, there is. First of all, if you’re using Google’s websites like Gmail, G-Docs, and so on you’re going to get in touch with first-party cookies, ones that Google itself placed on those websites to gather valuable information about you and your internet habits and interests.

On the other hand, Google wouldn’t be the giant it is if people in charge were to make bad business decisions. Ads make around 50% of every month’s revenue of Google, so it’s hardly imaginable that it would just let it go. What they implemented is a new solution, hardly can be called revolutionary, and it’s called FloC.

FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts. This method is doing the same thing, it’s tracking you. The differences are cosmetic. You see, Google knows what a website is all about through SEO and data people willingly submit to Google when they create a website, wheatear it’s metadata, GSC, and so on.

So if you are visiting a certain website or a particular page, Google knows what that website or a page is about, and automatically through Chrome will store that information on you. This way it will again, create a profile of you only this time it’s not an individual profile based on the info gathered through cookies but more of a member of a group. Or in terms of FLoC – Cohorts.

Wordpress is Furious

Shots were fired when WordPress officials stated that they intend to automatically block Google’s FLoC as a security concern.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains in their post "Google’s FLoC is a terrible idea", placing people in groups based on their browsing habits is likely to facilitate employment, housing, and other types of discrimination, as well as predatory targeting of unsophisticated consumers. This is in addition to the privacy concerns of tracking people and sharing their data, seemingly without informed consent – and making it more difficult for legislators and regulators to protect people."

They also added that “WordPress powers approximately 41% of the web – and this community can help combat racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination and discrimination against those with mental illness with four lines of code."

Conclusion

What will be the outcome of this battle one can only assume. As for the users, they also have mixed feelings. Is it worth enough having good and fast user experience or not? We will let users decide.