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Google Ads: New Privacy Sandbox Proposal Called Topics API

         

engine

11:10 am on Jan 26, 2022 (gmt 0)

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Google is introducing a new Privacy Sandbox proposal called Topics API, and it says it's based upon feedback from FLoC trials.


With Topics, your browser determines a handful of topics, like �Fitness� or �Travel & Transportation,� that represent your top interests for that week based on your browsing history. Topics are kept for only three weeks and old topics are deleted. Topics are selected entirely on your device without involving any external servers, including Google servers. When you visit a participating site, Topics picks just three topics, one topic from each of the past three weeks, to share with the site and its advertising partners. Topics enables browsers to give you meaningful transparency and control over this data, and in Chrome, we�re building user controls that let you see the topics, remove any you don�t like or disable the feature completely.



More importantly, topics are thoughtfully curated to exclude sensitive categories, such as gender or race. Because Topics is powered by the browser, it provides you with a more recognizable way to see and control how your data is shared, compared to tracking mechanisms like third-party cookies. And, by providing websites with your topics of interest, online businesses have an option that doesn�t involve covert tracking techniques, like browser fingerprinting, in order to continue serving relevant ads.


Google Ads: New Privacy Sandbox Proposal Called Topics API

FLoC tracking technology is now, in effect replaced.
Earlier story Google Says Cookie Blocking Delayed Until 2023, and FLoC Trial Paused

EditorialGuy

5:04 pm on Jan 26, 2022 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Trouble is, "interests" or "topics" are only part of the equation. A person might be a potential buyer of a product or service without a history of researching that or a similar topic. One function of advertising is to educate or build awareness. Luxury cruises are a good example: It's inefficient to advertise luxury cruises to the mass market, but to reach potential first-time cruisers who can afford a luxury cruise, the advertiser needs to target people with certain demographic characteristics who may or may not have a demonstrated interest in cruising.

blend27

10:40 pm on Jan 26, 2022 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



..but to reach potential first-time cruisers who can afford a luxury cruise..
Second time cruisers are afraid after all that covid-shmovid stuff?

engine

3:47 pm on Jan 27, 2022 (gmt 0)

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This is Google's continued attempt to save the tracking and profiling to as close to minutia as possible.
Slowly, privacy regulations are placing hurdles in the way.

A whole ad industry and maximized profits rely on this detail being as accurate as possible.



"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half."

Attributed to many


That is a very broad brush statement and not really accurate, and in some parts, when you think about traditional adverting, when placing an ad in a newspaper, a percentage of the readers won't be buying anything from the ad (for varying reasons, such as not in the market for the product, amongst others), or might not even see it.
Turn the whole thing on its head and it's clear that online remarketing is probably the closest to targeting individuals.
Very slowly, that close targeting is being lost, and the resultant rate that someone might pay for that close targeting declines.

Clearly, this is Google's next attempt at targeting.

Sgt_Kickaxe

11:17 am on Jan 28, 2022 (gmt 0)



Geez, it's an alternate method of showing you ads to seperate you from the dollars in your wallet but it reads like a dream vacation guide.
Topics are kept for only three weeks and old topics are deleted.

No means no, not "only for 3 weeks". A guide on how to completely block and disable this is needed.

ronin

3:15 pm on Jan 28, 2022 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



A guide on how to completely block and disable this is needed.


If I understand Google's initiative correctly, I think the intention is for the addition and deletion of "Topics I'm commercially interested in" to be as straightforward as deleting cookies / history in the browser.

See:

Because Topics is powered by the browser, it provides you with a more recognizable way to see and control how your data is shared


I think for most (not all) this may turn out to be a very good compromise between historical-activity-based advertising that the user cannot control and no historical-activity-based advertising at all.

Dimitri

10:49 pm on Jan 28, 2022 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 5+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Today, people want everything free, and companies want a ROI which is nearly 1 visitor = 1 sale. This is the problem to solve.

I still think all should go back to contextual ads, exclusively. No tracking, no guessing, just, someone visits a site about shoes, then display ads about shoes, and eventually cloths, fashion and related topics.

csdude55

5:10 pm on Mar 16, 2022 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



No tracking, no guessing, just, someone visits a site about shoes, then display ads about shoes, and eventually cloths, fashion and related topics.

Great in theory, but take my sites for example... we target specific regions instead of industries. My visitors range from 12-80, interests from hunting to luxury cruises (using the example above), income ranges from homeless to $500k /year.

Without targeted advertising, there would be no way at all for me to make money from it.

As for the original topic, I don't think it would be effective for me, either. I constantly search for random things I've seen online or on TV, but it doesn't mean that I want 3 weeks of targeted content about it.

Google News has the same issue, though. I read about Scott Hall dying; I was a WCW fan in the 90s and was sad to hear it. But I haven't watched wresting in 20+ years! And now every other headline is about wrestling.

I dunno, maybe I'm the weirdo here.

ronin

6:58 pm on Mar 16, 2022 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I dunno, maybe I'm the weirdo here.


You're really not. Unsophisticated marketing bots want to silo personalities because siloed personalities are easier to market to.

But it's important to remember (always) that technology exists for us to take advantage of;

We don't exist to be taken advantage of by technology.

See Technopoly by Neil Postman which I read in Japan in 1999, and remains, for me, one of the most influential non-fiction books I've ever read:

[en.wikipedia.org...]

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Technopoly - Wikipedia
 


 


 


 

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