With FLoC, users are placed in “cohorts” based on their browsing history. Those cookies are used by marketers to target ads at users across the Web. Better Privacy?įLoC is Google’s alternative to third-party cookies, which will soon become extinct in Internet browsers. “It groups you based on your interests and demographics, derived from your browsing history, to enable creepy advertising and other content targeting without third-party cookies,” it continued.Īfter a short trial period,” it noted, “Google decided not to make this new tracking method a user choice and instead started automatically including millions in the scheme.”ĭuckDuckGo, which makes a search engine that competes with Google, added that it has updated its Chrome extension designed to block Internet trackers to also block FLoC interactions on the Web. “If you’re a Google Chrome user, you might be surprised to learn that you could have been entered automatically into Google’s new tracking method called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC),” DuckDuckGo explained in a post on its website. The scheme called FLoC - Federated Learning of Cohorts - is being tested in Chrome, in some cases without the knowledge of the browser’s users. DuckDuckGo has announced an add-on to the Chrome browser that blocks Google’s new scheme to provide marketers with information for targeting advertising at Internet users.

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