Criticism of Google’s FLoC proposal was intense among privacy advocates and rivals in the browser field. Regulators weren’t too impressed either with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and regulators in the EU both opening investigations into the proposal.
Several major browsers publicly rejected the proposal and refused to implement the technology in their products.
Concerns were raised about the volume of interests
FLoC could assign to users! the rcs data opt-out nature of the system! advertisers accessing browser data from users who haven’t even visited their website! the implementation of FLoC IDs and the risk of companies combining datasets to identify individuals.
Privacy-centric browser Brave was among the strongest critics: “FLoC adds an enormous amount of fingerprinting surface to the browser! as the whole point of the feature is for sites to be able to distinguish between user interest-group cohorts.”
Rival search engine DuckDuckGo raised similar concerns! arguing that “FLoC is bad for privacy: It puts you in a group based on your browsing history! and any website can get that FLoC ID to target and fingerprint you.”
With the Topics API
Google is addressing many of the concerns buy australia phone number list raised about FLoC. First of all! it’s drastically reducing the number of interests assigned to users and deleting user data on a regular basis.
Vinay Goel also specifies that Google is working on user settings that will allow them to control the interests being assigned to them and opt-out of the feature altogether. This still sounds like an opt-out system of sorts! though! so we’ll have to see how these settings are implemented and whether they satisfy privacy demands and GDPR regulations.
It sounds like Topics won’t have the ability to track users across devices! either – so that’s another key concern eased.
This suggests Google is taking the feedback seriously but the key detail missing from Goel’s announcement is how the Topics API will handle user IDs. The system needs to assign interest topics to users somehow and critics will want specific information about the inner-workings of this ID process before passing judgement on the Topics API.
What does this mean for advertisers?
In the immediate future! Google’s Topics azerbaijan business directory API proposal isn’t going to change anything. In fact! it’s likely to maintain the status quo for a little longer now that Google is starting from scratch with a new Privacy Sandbox proposal! which will take time to test and optimise. It also remains to be seen whether the new proposal will ease enough concerns to satisfy critics and regulators.
Either way! advertisers have to accept that the old days of targeting are coming to an end. Google will do everything it can to provide effective targeting options for its advertisers but it’s difficult to predict what shape this will take.
Hopefully! we’ll get more technical information about the Topics API over the coming weeks
As our advertising team explains in our top PPC tips and trends for 2022! the best thing you can do now is to diversify your advertising channels to reduce your dependence on any one platform like Google.
It turns out Google was barely affected by the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature rolled out in iOS14 – at least! not in terms of revenue or stock value. Meanwhile! Facebook has been hit hard by the privacy feature and the network expects to lose another $10 billion in 2022 as a result of the feature.
Companies that rely on Facebook advertising to generate revenue are also suffering. The lesson is to diversify your channels so you’re never overly reliant on any of them when things change. The same thing applies to being overly reliant on PPC! in general! instead of having a robust SEO and social media strategy.
Has your PPC strategy been affected by cookie-less browsing?
If your PPC results are suffering after the iOS14 update or you’re concerned about the impact of cookie-less browsing! our advertising team can help you adapt your strategy. Call us on 02392 830 281 or fill out the contact form below to arrange a chat.
