Last year as the pandemic radically changed the way people live, many joked that 2021 could only get worse if an alien invasion took place. Though that's unlikely to happen, the year has brought an unexpected twist: increasing reports about UFOs, a planned unclassified government report about them, and Oreo preparing a just-in-case cookie offering for aliens.
For the past few years, Google has been waging a war against web browser cookies, particularly third-party cross-site tracking ones that violate users' privacy outright. Of course, such cookies are also extensively used by advertising platforms, which means even Google has to find or create an alternative. That is exactly what its Privacy Sandbox and Federate Learning of Cohorts or FLoC are for and, unsurprisingly, they are earning no small amount of criticism for it. Google is now promising that it won't be violating its own rules but privacy advocates and rival ad tech companies still aren't buying it.
Almost all news about Apple these days revolves around privacy or the Epic Games lawsuit. Even its new Apple M1-powered iPad Pros have mostly been overshadowed by the AirTags and their privacy implications. The company's new App Tracking Transparency policy definitely ruffled a lot of feathers, including from the big advertising birds, and Apple's new video clip puts that feature into a comical but real perspective while giving users almost the same powers as the Mad Titan. Except for ad trackers, of course.
iPhone users have overwhelmingly been denying apps the ability to track data for advertising, new research suggests, with App Tracking Transparency apparently delivering a worst-case-scenario for personal data brokers. Added in iOS 14.5, which was released to iPhone in late April 2021, the new system requires app-makers to request explicit permission from users before they can share any data collected on them for targeting and advertising purposes.
Facebook has barred privacy-focused messaging app Signal from running a series of Instagram ads, which would have exposed just how much personal information the photo-sharing network - and its social media behemoth owner - has on individuals as they browse their timeline. Signal had intended to use Instagram's own third-party advert tools to reveal some of the precise targeting that advertisers can buy access to.
Although there were many developers, publishers, and advertisers that raised disgruntled voices when Apple announced its new App Tracking Transparency policy for iOS, Facebook was the one that shouted the loudest. It used rhetoric and other strategies to besmirch Apple's privacy efforts, even going as far as ironically saying it will actually benefit the social networking giant in the long run. Now it's taking those efforts to a new level by warning users that Facebook and Instagram might become paid services if iOS users don't enable app tracking.
The European Union's GDPR was a double-edged sword that protected privacy not just for the region but for the rest of the world but at the expense of some inconveniences. Website administrators had a hell of a time implementing compliance and users now get welcomed by messages asking their permission to enable cookies. These can get pretty annoying or even downright confusing which is why Vivaldi is bringing its Cookie Crumbler feature to Android to pretty much block most of those cookies and their dialogs altogether.
HBO and ads are two things that have never really been associated with one another, but that's set to change later this year. HBO and WarnerMedia parent company AT&T has indicated in the past that it will roll out an ad-supported version of HBO Max, and currently, AT&T is planning to launch that new subscription tier in June. Thanks to a new report today, we may now have an idea of how much it'll cost when it arrives.
Whatever goodwill Google earned in the past few years that it has been fighting off advertising and user tracking abuses may have gone down the train in an instant thanks to its proposed solution. The Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC is promoted to be a better strategy that protects people's privacy while still giving advertisers something they can profit from. Privacy advocates, however, are raising alarms over what they deem to be an even worse technology and Chromium-based browser makers like Brave and Vivaldi are committing to fighting off FLoC in all its forms.
Google made a bold, unexpected, and curious promise of not creating new technology to replace the third-party tracking cookies it would soon be banning from Chrome and, consequently, the Web. That said, some have labeled Google's new experiment precisely like that. While it advertises its Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC as a more privacy-respecting way for advertisers to gather data, some, like DuckDuckGo, are calling shenanigans and taking steps to block FLoC activity even while you're using Google Chrome.
Apple's upcoming strict privacy measures are proving to be quite effective even before it's fully implemented. Designed to prevent the potential violation of users' privacy by asking permission before apps and services are allowed to track their activity. It is ruffling no small amount of advertisers' feathers but some companies seem to be taking more drastic and questionable measures to circumvent that App Tracking Transparency with help from a state-backed Chinese advertising technology developer.
Google recently made the almost-shocking announcement that not only would it be phasing out support for third-party cookies in Chrome, it would also not build something to replace those cookies. That's a rather big promise considering how these cookies are used for advertising purposes, Google's biggest business. Naturally, Google does have a solution to that predicament that it is calling Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC, now available for a few Chrome users to test and verify if it really works as advertised.