Mozilla, Edge, Vivaldi, and Brave have all fled out. Google is all alone in its FloC, a newly announced advertising technology that will be used for replacing all the 3rd-party cookies. All the major browsers using the Chromium project which is an open-source project, are out of the proposal. It is still unclear how this thing will shape the destiny of web advertising.
What Is FloC?
Two weeks ago, it was announced that Google was working on a new technology regarding ads inside the platform of Google Chrome known as the FloC. This technology enables advertisers to target you more easily with the help of an algorithm that inspects the browser history thereby placing you inside a people group having similar kinds of browser histories. It is more private and secure than cookies. However, if the implementation goes wrong, the system might have grave privacy implications and becomes a lot more complicated.
The Chromium Project is an open-source project, and this allowed the implementation of FloC which other browsers can also include. But it remains clear that no browser other than Google will be looking to implement it, some browsers might also refuse it. The way this new technology, FloC is built, bestows some huge sets of responsibilities on the maker of a browser. FloC has the potential of leaking out very sensitive information if the implementation goes wrong.
A complicated technology that keeps the user semi-anonymous has a lot of details for hiding several devils. Brave thinks that FloC appears to be privacy-friendly but harms the privacy of the user. Vivaldi said that this API should not be implemented, but disabled. Users should not be giving away their precious privacy for the technological and financial gain of Google.
