Monthly Archives: February 2022

Googles quest to find a way forward for targeted advertising in a more privacy-centric world continues unabashed, despite its many (and vocal) detractors. After its previous proposal to replace the third-party cookies ad targeting capabilities came under fire for being potentially too invasive, Google has introduced an alternative cookie alternative called Topics that swings the pendulum in the other direction.

Topics is among Googles attempts to replace the third-party cookie as a means of identifying people online by striking a balance between preserving peoples privacy and preserving companies abilities to buy and sell targeted ads.

Third-party cookies have been the connective tissue for the online advertising ecosystem since its very inception in the 1990s, but Google has decided to disable third-party cookies in its popular Chrome browser in 2023. However, establishing consensus on how the industry can move ahead has proven tricky.

Yes, kind of, but its probably best that we provide some context here.

The simple fact is that Googles previous cookie-replacement proposal Federated Learning of Cohorts really did put the cat amongst the pigeons if we are to stick with the aviary-themed wording. Why? Simply put, the concept of FLoCs was laden with privacy concerns (ironic, no?) and didnt even pass muster under laws such as the European Unions privacy law, the GDPR.

Rather than the cookie-based approach of targeting people at the individual level based on their browsing behaviors, the FLoC approach would clump people into specific interest groups cohorts such as people in the market to buy a car or impulse shoppers, based on their browsing history. These clusters were supposed to provide cover and give people a greater degree of anonymity online. But that privacy shield was found to be permeable.

For instance, during a trial phase, researchers raised concerns that FLoC data could be combined with peoples personally identifiable information. This meant that bad actors could expose information about peoples webpage visits and interests, raising further concerns that cohort-based targeting could be used to discriminate against particular groups of people.

However, what FLoC did introduce was the concept of using machine learning to categorize users into specific interest groups based on their browsing history. Also importantly, FLoC proposed performing this categorization on a persons computer or phone, rather than sending the underlying data to Googles or another companys computers, which went some way to better preserving peoples information.

So, after the FLoC blowback, Google went back to the drawing board and came up with Topics. Like FLoC, Topics proposes targeting ads to people based on the categories of content they check out online and containing this categorization to the device. Unlike FLoC, though, Topics proposes a much more general level of categorization.

A web browser like Googles Chrome will use the Topics API short for application programming interface and effectively the means of using the Topics toolset to determine a number of topics that best reflect a persons interests based on their browsing behavior, such as autos & vehicles, basketball, news, and womens clothing. The browser will determine the topic of sites based on sites hostname ex. dogs.com would be categorized under the dogs topic but companies may be given the option of declaring which topics to associate with their sites.

Each week, a browser would select five topics per person including one random topic that is meant to throw off any companies attempting to wrest a persons identity from Topics and then choose one topic, or interest category, to assign to that person for the week. People may be given the option of adjusting the topics assigned to them and will also be able to disable this ad targeting feature.

Each topic is then kept for three weeks so when a person visits a website, the website or the ad tech firms it uses to target ads can use the Topics API to access up to three topics for that site visitor. However, the website and its ad tech firms can only access topics that are related to the given website or other websites carrying the ad tech firms code.

In other words, if a person assigned the topics dogs, theme parks and weddings visits a political news site, that site may not be able to access any topics for that person that week. But if that person is assigned the topic politics the following week and returns to the site, then the site would be able to access the politics topic at the least.

Currently, there are 350 interest groups classified by the Topics API. Compare this with the 30,000-plus user classification groups that featured in the FLoC trials. Critics said the granularity of the FLoC API made it possible to reverse-engineer data and pinpoint user data. The initial 350 topics are only a starting point, though. The list may eventually number into the thousands, though Google plans to come up with a number of sensitive topics to exclude from the list and to have an outside party be responsible for providing the list of topics to be included.

Mostly, its been speculative. Trials have not yet begun, and Google hasnt publicly said when it will start letting third-party developers experiment with the Topics API.

However, advertisers and media owners alike have voiced concerns that Topics lack of granularity will limit the specificity of ad targeting and, as a result, limit or even lower ad prices, with advertisers typically paying more money for more targeted ads.

Ad tech execs who work with publishers have also asked for greater clarity from Google over the extent to which they will be able to control the flow of their user data should they integrate the Topics API. One concern is whether a third-party website could capitalize on the data extracted from a publishers website via the API to boost the third-party sites own ad sales. And, after all, there is the potential for that third-party website to be a direct competitor.

For advertisers and publishers, the idea is still the same as it was in January 2020 when Google Chrome confirmed plans to withdraw support for third-party cookies: collect as much consented first-party user data as possible.

Publishers with a glass-half-full outlook on Chromes deprecation of third-party cookies view the move as offering the potential for them to charge advertisers more money for access to their first-party data. Meanwhile, advertisers are under pressure to adapt to a post-cookie landscape or risk missing out on reaching potential customers online. For ad tech companies, arguably those who are most exposed to the whims of the Google Chrome team, the best possible advice is to roll with the punches, be agile, and prepare to pivot if necessary.

Ultimately, every tier of the online advertising industry needs to participate with Google as it prepares to forge a path forward. Simply pointing the finger and complaining over Googles dominance of the sector is unlikely to yield dividends any time soon.

https://digiday.com/?p=440061

Excerpt from:

WTF is Googles Topics? - Digiday

When you are searching online for some of the remotest islands on the planet, it helps to get the name right. But a row has broken out over the labelling of the Chagos Islands on Google maps.

The UK maintains that it still holds sovereignty over what it terms British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) one of the smallest of red dots on the traditional cartographic globe.

But Mauritius, which has been recognised as legitimate owner of the archipelago in a series of international court judgments and United Nations votes since 2019, has formally asked Google to re-describe the islands as part of its territory.

Letters seen by the Guardian have been sent to the search engines California headquarters requesting that BIOT, which includes the strategic US military base of Diego Garcia, be wiped off the map.

Mauritius first sent a request in January 2020 to Sundar Pichai, the chief executive officer at Google. It asked the company to rectify this error immediately and included as evidence references to the advisory opinion of the international court of justice in The Hague.

The judgment said the UK unlawfully detached the Chagos Islands from Mauritius prior to granting it independence in 1968. Mauritius said that an overwhelming majority vote by the United Nations General Assembly adopted the courts opinion and demanded that the United Kingdom terminate its unlawful colonial administration.

The letter said the error could be interpreted as tacit approval of the UKs unlawful administration. The islands, it added, should be marked Chagos Archipelago (Republic of Mauritius).

Two further requests were sent by Mauritius criticising the mislabelling, but no change has yet been made online. Legal proceedings, Mauritius has warned, could be brought against Google.

Jagdish Koonjul, the Mauritian ambassador to the United Nations, said: We never received a reply. Its disappointing. One would have assumed that Google would be the ideal place to obtain information and that whatever they are [displaying] would be accurate. What they are showing is incorrect.

The Google Maps search engine, when it locates BIOT, merely explains that it is a disputed British Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia.

After being approached by the Guardian, Google said it was looking into the matter.

Apple Maps, by contrast, agreed to change its labelling. Searches for both BIOT and British Indian Ocean Territory on Apple Maps produce the response No results found.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said: The UK has no doubt as to our sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory, which we have held continuously since 1814. Mauritius has never held sovereignty over the territory and the UK does not recognise its claim.

Meanwhile, the former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime supporter of exiled Chagossians, has published a letter of support following Mauritiuss first expedition to the Chagos Islands to assert its sovereignty.

He declared: The British government must now engage with Mauritius and negotiate a settlement of these issues. I call on the government immediately to restore the right of return of the Chagossians to their homeland and work with Mauritius on a trial resettlement programme.

Alyn Smith MP, foreign affairs spokesperson for the SNP in Westminster, said: The SNP stands four-square behind international law and it is clear that the Chagos Islands are not UK territory. In 2019, the UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the UKs continuing, systematic occupation of the Chagos Islands. In the same year, the international court of justice also ruled the occupation illegal. Last month, the UNs international tribunal for the law of the sea upheld this verdict.

It is high time for the UK to end its illegal occupation of the Chagos Islands. The SNP will continue honouring its longstanding manifesto commitment to supporting international efforts for the Chagos Islands to be returned to their rightful owners and raising the issue at home.

Read more:

Mauritius asks Google to label Chagos Islands as part of its territory - The Guardian

Google

Tired of coming home to a freezing house after work? We've got a great deal on a simple solution that you won't want to miss. As a part of its massive ongoing Presidents Day sale, Best Buy is offering $80 off this bundle featuring Google's Nest smart thermostat and Nest Hub Max smart display so that you can easily control your home from just about anywhere. The sale only runs until tomorrow, Feb. 21, so be sure to get your order in before then.

The only think simple about the Nest thermostat is its design. This easy-to-install smart thermostat allows you to control your home's temperature from anywhere through the Google Home app, so you can turn on the heat from your office, and have a warm house by the time you get home. You can built custom heating schedules, and it's equipped with a built-in motion sensor so it can detect when you're not at home and save you money on your energy bill by automatically lowering the heat.

And using the Nest Hub Max smart display, you can also control the thermostat using the sound of your voice. Featuring a built-in microphone, the Nest Hub Max allows you to activate and control any Google Assistant-enabled smart device, from locks to plugs to light bulbs, with hands-free voice control. It's equipped with a 10-inch HD display with Chromecast for video streaming, and an auto-framing 6.5MP camera so you can easily use it for video calls. And the stereo speaker system with a 30W subwoofer allows for convenient music streaming with high-quality audio.

Subscribe to our daily spotlight on the best tech deals on the web from phones to gadgets and more.

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Save $80 on This Google Smart Home Bundle - CNET

For years, the business model of Internet giants that provided free services hinged on collecting user data and monetising the information in the form of advertisements. The global spotlighting of data privacy issues has, however, forced the companies to change their ways of working. At the same time, the big tech firms Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon have come under increasingly intense antitrust scrutiny for attempts to monopolise their businesses.

Decisions made recently by Apple and Google to give users greater control over the use of the data they generate online can be seen both as a boost to user privacy and as a step towards consolidating further the position of these companies.What have Apple and Google done?

Last year, Apple added the app tracking transparency (ATT) feature to iPhones and iPads, which requires apps to seek users permission to track their activity across other apps and websites. This impacted companies who were dependent on advertising as a revenue model, because the ATT feature cut their access to the data of iPhone users, which they harvested and used for targeted advertising. Meta, Facebooks parent, said the financial hit from Apples move could be in the order of $10 billion for 2022.

Earlier this month, Google announced that it would bring the Privacy Sandbox the privacy solution that it is building for the web to Android devices. The new solution would limit the sharing of user data with third parties, and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising IDs. The advertising ID is a unique, user-resettable ID for advertising provided by Google Play services.

The Privacy Sandbox on Android could go live in two years.But what is the Privacy Sandbox?

In the context of the web, Google has said that the Privacy Sandbox will phase out third-party cookies and limit covert tracking. A cookie is a small piece of data stored in the browser when a user visits a website.

Third-party cookies are stored by a service that operates across multiple sites. For example, an ad platform might store a cookie when you visit a news site. First-party cookies are stored by the website itself.

So, if the news site is storing a cookie, it will use it to offer curated news items the user is more likely to read. But if an ad platform like Facebook stores a cookie when one visits a news site, it is likely to use that information and categorise the user in certain buckets based on preferences, and will offer advertisers the ability to target the user with specific ads. This can also be used for political advertisements.

How do cookies work, in plain terms?

Imagine you are flying with a friend, and you have a check-in bag each. Imagine that before putting the bags in the aircraft belly, airline personnel go through their contents. They find a bottle of Chanel perfume and Tommy Hilfiger clothes in your bag, and put a red sticker on it. In your friends bag they find a camera tripod and books on photography, and put a blue sticker. (These stickers are cookies.)

At the destination, the driver of your cab notes the stickers, and hands you separate advertisement flyers: to you for Hermes bags, and to your friend for Canon DSLRs. Brands and local businesses have paid the cab company to hand over pamphlets to passengers, and your ride is now free.

How has Meta been hurt?

Having got the choice to opt out of app tracking, many iPhone users have done so for apps such as Facebook, stymieing the primary channel for the companys online advertising business, according to a report in The New York Times.

With the reduction in the volume of data gathered from users online activity such as e-commerce and search engine queries, and other social media activity, it has become more difficult for Facebook to target specific ads, potentially cutting the incentive for advertisers to run promotions on the platform. Online ads targeted at iPhone users typically have higher conversion rates than Android, so these users opting out of app tracking is especially damaging.

While Privacy Sandbox on Android could have a deeper impact on Meta given the larger global market share of Android devices, even the implementation of the solution on the web could hurt Meta. Unlike Google and Amazon, Facebook depends heavily on tracking the third-party activity of users to generate data. In the case of Google or Amazon on the other hand, users help generate first-hand data through their queries.

How could these developments lead to further concentration of data?

Solutions such as the Privacy Sandbox mean the phasing out of cookies, currently the go-to tech for online advertisers.

Google had proposed that cookies should be replaced with FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) which meant that instead of interest-based advertising that was enabled by cookies, users would be bunched into groups with comparable interests. But privacy advocates argued that rather than stopping the tracking of users online activity, FLoC put the tracking directly into Googles hands. Antitrust investigations were opened in the UK and the European Union.

Google gave up the FLoC project, and last month announced Topics, through which the companys Chrome browser would curate a users top interests in a week based on browsing history. A key difference between FLoC and Topics is that the latter will exclude categorisation based on sensitive categories such as race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. A developer trial will launch soon, Google said.

While Topics would give users greater choice to limit the gathering and use of their data by third-party apps, it would still continue to track these users through its bouquet of apps such as Search, Gmail, Google Maps, GPay, YouTube, etc.

Additionally, Apples move to limit tracking by apps has tipped the scales in favour of Google as far as online advertising is concerned. Notably, online advertising is Googles core business, unlike Apple.

A report in The Wall Street Journal has pointed out that after Apple introduced its privacy feature last year, the cost of acquiring customers for small businesses advertising on Metas platforms Facebook and Instagram went up and some of these small businesses moved their whole ad budget to search ads on Google.

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Explained: Why Apple and Google privacy changes have hurt Meta - The Indian Express