Google ad tracking won’t use your browser history

Google’s primary business model is deceptively simple. You surf the internet, Google tracks it, and Google sells that data to advertisers. This has made Google one of the most successful companies in all of human existence.

However, the company announced today that it will be updating the entire model in the near future. According to a blog post by David Temkin, director of product management, ad protection and trust at Google, the company will no longer use your browsing history for ad tracking purposes. Additionally, the company may no longer create tools to track your individual data for all products. This includes the countless services from Google and, in theory, your Android smartphone.

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In the Post, Temkin specifically says, “People shouldn’t have to accept being tracked over the internet to take advantage of relevant advertising. And advertisers don’t need to track individual consumers online to take advantage of the performance benefits of digital advertising. “

While that sounds perfectly reasonable and reasonable, it is noteworthy that someone in charge of Google should say so.

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Let’s be very clear: Google will continue to collect data from its users and use that data to sell ads. Point. However, this new policy means that no specific drill down will be performed they to aggregate this data.

Instead, Google hopes to use privacy-conscious APIs to get the job done. These APIs group users into specific categories and then monitor those categories in a macro sense. In other words, you’d put your usage data in a pool of similar users, and then Google would sell that mixed data.

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For example, suppose you are a frequent visitor to a website about cat pictures. Your data will be merged with other visitors to this website. Google could then tell advertisers, “The people who like cat pictures also like these other websites and products.” Then advertisers could send ads to this group. At no point in time would your specific data be checked or even logged.

For more information, see the Floated API (Federated Learning of Cohorts API) white paper. It explains what Google has in mind.

When will that happen?

According to the blog post, testing for FloC-based APIs will begin next month. Then, in the second quarter of 2021, Google will begin testing the data collected by these APIs with advertisers. In addition, in April this year, users will have access to new privacy statements in Chrome that relate to these new guidelines.

This is all very surprising, but not entirely unexpected. Given the increasing attention that EU Google is facing and Apple’s efforts to make iPhones the bastion of privacy, Google has not been able to perpetuate its current models forever. This is likely the start of gradual changes in the company’s ad tracking policies across the board. Hopefully this will lead to a more private web as well as more privacy when using Google branded products.