Google’s FLoC flopped because it failed to provide privacy
In a recent research paper titled “Privacy Limitations Of Interest-based Advertising On The Web: A Post-mortem Empirical Analysis Of Google’s FLoC,” MIT Media Lab doctoral students Alex Berke and Dan Calacci argue that FLoC failed to provide privacy, and put personal information at risk.
FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts. It consists of computer code designed to deliver interest-based ads without the privacy problems of current cookie-based ad technology.
Their analysis indicated that FLoC’s critics were spot-on, and they speculate that FLoC’s privacy problems were what led Google to trade FLoC for the Topics API.
Source: Google’s FLoC flopped because it failed to provide privacy • The Register
