Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) the Substitute to Cookies Will Be Available for Public Testing in Q2 2021

Google said new test results show promising signs that the technology it’s hoping will replace cookie-based ad targeting is working. Google has been testing a new API (a software interface) called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) that acts as an effective replacement signal for third-party cookies. The API exists as a browser extension within Google Chrome.

The company said Monday that tests of FLoC to reach audiences show that advertisers can expect to see at least 95% of the conversions per dollar spent on ads when compared to cookie-based advertising.

FLoC uses machine learning algorithms to analyze user data and then create a group of thousands of people based off of the sites that an individual visits. The data gathered locally from the browser is never shared. Instead, the data from the much wider cohort of thousands of people is shared, and that is then used to target ads.

More from @swodinsky's piece:

…using FLoC “is literally nearly as effective as third-party cookies.” The only difference is that Google goes from controlling a giant chunk of the ad-targeting ecosystem to controlling virtually all of it.https://t.co/fkLyPiQ9ey

— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) January 25, 2021