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Google has decided to let the initial test of its FLoC ad technology conclude in a few days to work on improvements – though it isn t inclined to share feedback from test participants.
Privacy advocates would prefer if the online ad giant provided more insight into the test results, since Google s ongoing ad infrastructure rewrite affects every internet business and internet user, not to mention the digital ad industry generating $350bn annually.
FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts and promises a way to divide browser users into interest groups so they can be presented with interest-based ads without revealing personal information to advertisers. It s one proposal among many, collectively referred to as the Privacy Sandbox, intended to repackage targeted advertising technology so it can continue amid tighter privacy laws and technical limitations like the eventual discontinuation of third-party cookies.