FLoC’s demise & its successors¶

Google officially discontinued FLoC in 2023 after widespread criticism from privacy advocates and regulatory scrutiny. However, its core concept—group-based tracking—has evolved into new forms:

Topics API: Google’s replacement for FLoC, which assigns users to broad interest categories (e.g., “fitness” or “travel”) based on browsing history. While less invasive, it still enables targeted advertising without third-party cookies.

Private Advertising Technologies such as Apple’s Private Click Measurement and Meta’s Meta Advantage use on-device processing to limit data sharing but retain profiling capabilities.

Protections¶

• Disable Topics API in Chrome or switch to privacy-focused browsers.

• Use uBlock Origin and/or Privacy Badger to block tracking scripts.