Earlier this year, Google announced a new way for advertisers to reach consumers without using cookies to track them individually across sites and applications. Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) groups an individual with people who have similar interests. The idea is that advertisers will target the herd, as opposed to specific individuals, and users would be able maintain more of their privacy. Currently, advertisers can track individuals by dropping cookies, which are small files, onto those individuals’ devices when they visit a website, and then track them as they continue to browse the internet.
