Federated Learning of Cohorts
A FLoC cohort is a short name that is shared by a large number of people
no personal cookie, yes anonymous FLoC
Replaced by Topic API
Google abandons FLoC, introduces Topics API to replace tracking cookies
Google is walking back plans to replace third-party cookies with FLoC by instead proposing the Topics API, a new system for interest-based advertising. Topics works by pinpointing five of your interests, such as "Fitness" or "Travel & Transportation," based on your web activity, as measured by participating sites, for one week.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/25/22900567/google-floc-abandon-topics-api-cookies-tracking
WICG/floc
This is an explainer for a new way that browsers could enable interest-based advertising on the web, in which the companies who today observe the browsing behavior of individuals instead observe the behavior of a cohort of similar people.
https://github.com/WICG/floc
Federated Learning of Cohorts
This specification describes a method that could enable ad-targeting based on the people's general browsing interest without exposing the exact browsing history. 5 Cohort assignment algorithm 5.3 Privacy guarantees 7 Privacy considerations 7.1 Permission Conformance Index References In today's web, people's interests are typically inferred based on observing what sites or pages they visit, which relies on tracking techniques like third-party cookies or less-transparent mechanisms like device fingerprinting.
https://wicg.github.io/floc/