There is no denying that Google is an industry leader. It continues to innovate and does things differently. In fact, it has launched Privacy Sandbox in order to bring change to the advertising industry and is finding a unique way to track users online.

FLOC (Federated Learning of Cohorts)

Google has introduced FLOC to lead the world towards a privacy-first future when it comes to web advertising. It had posted about it back in January of 2021. The fact is that Google is the leading advertising company in the world. It builds a profiles for each user through tracking using third-party tracking cookies. With this unique identifier, it targets users with relevant ads that they are most likely to be interested in and would be most likely to click.

However, what tracking cookies does is that it identifies users as unique tokens. Although the identity of users is not disclosed, they are treated as different entities for advertising. The emergence of FLOC would change this critical part of online advertising.

Federated Learning of Cohorts would analyze the online behavior of users locally by running on the browser side rather than using tracking cookies. By leveraging browser history, it would be possible for Google to monitor browsing activity and place users that have similar habits and tastes in cohorts. Then, it would report these cohorts to other websites so that they can take advantage of the system. Therefore, Google would track browsing activity locally and let the websites you visit know which type of advertising you are most likely to be interested in. However, other organizations believe that such an approach comes with its fair share of privacy problems. This is why no other browser has announced any plan to implement FLOC.

How You Can Enable or Disable Privacy Sandbox?

Now, you should keep in mind that Privacy Sandbox would be turned on by default in Google Chrome. However, it does not mean that it is necessary that it is enabled. However, Google may turn it on anytime it wants. In fact, Google had activated FLOC for 0.5% of its users in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. You should be able to opt out of it by changing the settings.

All you would have to do is open Google Chrome and select Settings > Privacy and Security > Privacy Sandbox. Simply toggle the option to enable or disable it. If you disable the feature, you can rest assured knowing that you would not join the trial. But, when you update Google Chrome, there is a possibility that the feature would be enabled.

Conclusion

After you have gone over the post, you will come to know everything there is to know about Privacy Sandbox. It is important that you stay in the know about it and check it so that it is not enabled. That’s about it. You should be able to browse the internet without any stress.