June 10, 2021
Google’s automated cookieless ad targeting method or Federated Learning of Cohorts is supposed to protect privacy by providing people with a greater degree of anonymity than the third-party cookie offered. Instead, it may make it quicker and easier for advertising companies to identify and access information about people online.
As privacy and data ethics advocates warned, companies are starting to combine FLoC IDs with existing identifiable profile information, linking unique insights about people’s digital travels to what they already know about them, even before third-party cookie tracking could have revealed it. And identity tech firms say the IDs will help improve the accuracy of systems that detect people’s identities and could even serve as persistent identifiers.