So Google Chrome browser will block all third party cookies and will use Federated Learning of Coherts locally on the device to learn a person’s interest groups. Those groups are then sent to advertisers, with no personally identifiable information. It is over 95% as effective as using personally identifiable information. And somehow it strengthens Google’s stranglehold. In a bombshell today, Google said they are going to stop using other identifiers.
“We will not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products. Advances in aggregation, anonymization, on-device processing and other privacy-preserving technologies offer a clear path to replacing individual identifiers.”
Note Apple is also been doing something involving on-device “private” tracking for their app ads. Also note Safari and Firefox already block third party cookies.
Except for the “bombshell”, none of this is new. The ad industry has been discussing all this for the last couple of years, and has been expecting a future free of third party cookies, a future of walked data gardens and on-device private tracking. As usual Silicon Valley is running circles around the humane, federated and open tech communities, who are still trying to create a humane MySpace.