Many websites use cookies to track your behavior. DuckDuckGo says its browser extension will prevent the technology from working.Ĭonsumers also have other tools to avoid the tracking, and a simple one lets you check to see if FLoC is active on your browser. Google announced that FLoC had already been rolled out to some Chrome users, reportedly numbering in the millions, in advance of a wider rollout sometime in the next two years. “It does behavioral tracking by default, and there is no such thing as a behavioral tracking mechanism imposed without consent that respects people’s privacy.” "FLoC is simply not good for privacy,” Gabriel Weinberg, CEO and founder of DuckDuckGo, said in statement. The company's already dominant tracking and advertising business could become even more powerful. And the change seems likely to consolidate more data in Google's hands, hamstringing competitors. Google will continue tracking consumers, albeit in a slightly more anonymous way. While FLoC's adoption by advertisers is likely to expand over time as the feature becomes widespread, Google notes it to be 95% as effective as third-party cookies, the tracking mechanism which it plans to make obsolete in Chrome by early 2022.On one hand, privacy advocates welcome the end of third-party cookies because it stops one of the main ways consumers are monitored by a wide variety of companies.īut they argue that the move eliminates one privacy problem by introducing another. Although these IDs are non-descriptive and represented by an "anonymous-looking number," DuckDuckGo says that through FLoC, Google exposes users' derived interests and demographics to websites they visit, using data from detailed profiles that the search giant has built up and maintained over the years. Highlighting privacy concerns of this new approach, DuckDuckGo notes that websites and third-party trackers have access to groups' FLoC IDs and IP addresses, which they can use to target ads and content at individuals. Google's privacy-focused rival says that its own search engine has also been configured to disable FLoC by default however, the experimental feature was silently turned on for millions of Chrome users in the US, which the Electronic Frontier Foundation has termed a "terrible idea" and a concrete breach of user trust.ĮFF says Google should design its browser to work for users, and not for advertisers Although the company suggests users simply stop using Chrome as the most effective way to block FLoC - it's the only browser currently supporting this feature - those looking to continue using Chrome can install DuckDuckGo's extension that now comes with enhanced tracker blocking. However, privacy advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Google's own search-engine rival DuckDuckGo, remain unconvinced by this tracking method, which is currently being tested on Chrome users and could eventually make its way to the Web.ĭuckDuckGo has announced that its Chrome browser extension has been updated to block Google's new tracking technology. In context: Google pitched its Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) tracking technology as a more privacy-respecting alternative to third-party cookies, letting advertisers track user cohorts or groups with similar browsing histories instead of targeting individuals.
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