Chrome’s “Themes” ad system is here, whether you like it or not

Google is committed to destroying third-party web cookies, which are often used by advertisers to track users for targeted advertising. Unlike other browser companies such as Apple and Mozilla, which completely block third-party cookies, Google is one of the largest advertising companies in the world. He doesn’t want to destroy a third party cookie without first securing his primary source of income.

It seems that Google is considering user tracking as a mandatory part of using the Internet and instead of third-party cookies wants to build user tracking directly into its Chrome browser. The eye-catching name for this Google ad system is “Privacy Sandbox,”and on Thursday the company released its latest tracking solution in Chrome’s “Canary”nightly builds.

The latest Chromium blog post outlines the current timeline: “Starting today, developers can begin global testing of the Topics, FLEDGE, and Attribution Reporting APIs in the Canary version of Chrome. We will transition to a limited number of Chrome beta users, once everything is running smoothly in beta, we will make API testing available in Chrome Stable to extend testing to more Chrome users.”

By topic, Chrome tracks your browsing history locally and creates a list of interests that Chrome will then share with advertisers whenever they request ad targeting. If you want the API name breakdown to be validated in a Google statement, the FLEDGE API is responsible for both performing the ad action directly on your device, as well as selecting an advertiser and then targeting users based on behavior, such as leaving a product in a cart. The Attribution Reporting API is responsible for measuring ad clicks, impressions, and tracking purchase conversions.

In addition to launching and running the first build of the system for advertisers, Thursday’s release also gives us an idea of ​​what the user controls will look like. There is now a chrome://settings/privacySandbox page where you can enable or disable the trial. The Browser-Based Ads Personalization page lets you see which topics Chrome thinks you’re interested in, and you can remove the ones you don’t like.

Again, this is only in the experimental Chrome Canary browser that no one uses as a daily driver, so it will be a while before most people see these controls. Google has the first prototypes, and the company said, “We strongly encourage developers to share feedback publicly and with Chrome, and we’ll keep a close eye on progress along the way. We also welcome the role that industry associations can play in this process, from facilitating industry tests to collecting feedback topics.”

Google’s first move towards a Chrome user tracking system was called FLoC, but after many privacy advocates spoke out against the idea, Google abandoned it and switched to the current “Themes”solution. There isn’t much difference between the two systems, except that it’s unlikely that anyone would be able to individually target a user using the Topics API. It’s hard not to find both sentences extremely rude. Google says it’s mandatory to build user tracking and ad tracking into Chrome, and the company says it won’t block third-party cookies until it does.

Google has built its empire around its advertising and user tracking systems and generates 82 percent of its total revenue from advertising. Many Google products develop, launch, and shut down with absolutely no impact on Google’s bottom line, but that’s the foundation of the Google empire we’re talking about. It seems existentially important that Google is getting a favorable outcome, regardless of what the rest of the internet says.

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