Chrome’s “Topics” advertising system is here, whether you want it or not

Chrome’s “Topics” advertising system is here, whether you want it or not

2 years ago
Anonymous $R5WK5a8uaN

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/googles-topics-advertising-system-starts-rolling-out-to-chrome-canary/

Google is on a quest to kill the third-party web cookie, which is often used by advertisers to track users for targeted ads. Unlike other browser companies like Apple and Mozilla, which block third-party cookies outright, Google is one of the world's largest advertising companies. It doesn't want to kill the third-party cookie without first protecting its primary revenue source. Google seems to view user tracking as a mandatory part of Internet usage, and instead of third-party cookies, it wants to build a user-tracking system directly into its Chrome browser. Google's eye-roll-inducing name for this advertising system is the "Privacy Sandbox," and on Thursday, the company released its latest tracking solution in Chrome's nightly "Canary" builds.

The latest Chromium Blog post laid out the current timeline, "Starting today, developers can begin testing globally the Topics, FLEDGE, and Attribution Reporting APIs in the Canary version of Chrome. We’ll progress to a limited number of Chrome Beta users as soon as possible. Once things are working smoothly in Beta, we’ll make API testing available in the stable version of Chrome to expand testing to more Chrome users."