In March we told you about FLoC , a new way of understanding third-party cookies to ensure targeted advertising without compromising user privacy: today Google announced Topics , a similar technology that is preparing to be used on Chrome.
With Topics, the browser chooses macro-topics starting from the user's history of the last week: these are kept only for three weeks before being completely removed from the system, without ever going through external servers. When you browse a compatible site, it will read the “topics” and display relevant advertisements.
As for the use in Chrome, Google is working to create controls that allow users to view the topics identified by Topics and remove those that are not of interest, or disable function completely . The set of topics has been carefully curated not to include potentially sensitive categories, such as gender identity or ethnic connotations.
Google then announced that a developer trial version on Chrome is coming soon, which will include user controls and allow websites and the advertising industry to try Topics. The final form of user checks and other technical aspects of how topics will work will be decided based on comments and test results.
