Like Google, we support solutions that give users clear consent, and do not bypass consumer choice. We believe in a future where the web can provide people with privacy, transparency and control while also supporting responsible business models to create a vibrant, open and diverse ecosystem. In the grand tradition of Congressional tech hearings, I asked Microsoft a yes or no question: does it intend to implement FLoC in Edge? And in the same grand tradition, Microsoft answered: It is a big test for Google’s proposed FLoC technology: if Microsoft isn’t going to support it, that would pretty much mean Chrome really will be going it alone with this technology. And the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is very much against FLoC, has even made a website to let you know if you’re one of the few Chrome users who have been included in Google’s early tests.īut maybe the most important Chromium-based browser not made by Google is Microsoft Edge. On desktop, it’s already made a browser extension for other browsers to block it. Generally speaking, we do, however, think it’s too early to say in which direction the market will move or what the major browsers will do.ĭuckDuckGo isn’t thought of as a browser, but it does make browsers for iOS and Android.
While we and other browsers are discussing new and better privacy-preserving advertising alternatives to cookies including FloC, we have no current plans to enable features like this in the Opera browsers in their current form. The significance now is the end of third party cookies, which will reduce the amount of cross-website tracking on the web. We’ve reached out to Opera for comment as well, and here’s that company’s statement:Īs you probably know, Opera has a long history of introducing privacy features that benefit our users: it was the first major browser to introduce built-in ad blocking, browser VPN and other privacy-centric features. It does not protect privacy and it certainly is not beneficial to users, to unwittingly give away their privacy for the financial gain of Google.” No browser vendor except Chrome is joining the FLoCĪnyway, here’s Brave: “The worst aspect of FLoC is that it materially harms user privacy, under the guise of being privacy-friendly.” And here’s Vivaldi: “We will not support the FLoC API and plan to disable it, no matter how it is implemented. It’s a complicated technology that does appear to keep you semi-anonymous, but there are enough details to hide dozens of devils. If implemented badly, FLoC could leak out sensitive information. One note I’ll drop here is that I am relieved that nobody else is implementing FLoC right away, because the way FLoC is constructed puts a very big responsibility on a browser maker. I am not aware of any Chromium-based browser outside of Google’s own that will implement it and very aware of many that will refuse. Google Chrome is built on an open source project, and so FLoC was implemented as part of that project that other browsers could include. It’s more private than cookies, but it’s also complicated and has some potential privacy implications of its own if it’s not implemented right. It uses an algorithm to look at your browser history and place you in a group of people with similar browsing histories so that advertisers can target you. Every major browser that uses the open source Chromium project has declined to use it, and it’s unclear what that will mean for the future of advertising on the web.Ī couple of weeks ago, Google announced it was beginning to test a new ad technology inside Google Chrome called the Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC. Google is going it alone with its proposed advertising technology to replace third-party cookies.
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