To say that FLoC, a technology built by Google to replace third-party cookies, has been controversial is almost an understatement. Many tech companies have spoken out against or deliberately avoided the tech, but it seems that Twitter may be on board with FLoC.
Jane Wong reports that Twitter is currently working on data collection for FLoC through its website. Source code as pictured below appears to explicitly confirm the detail. We’ve also independently observed mentions of FLoC within Twitter’s source code.
This news comes just a couple of weeks after it was revealed that Amazon was explicitly blocking FLoC both through official and unofficial methods.
Of course, this comes as Google is still in the early days of bringing FLoC to its users. The technology, so far, has not been confirmed for just about every mainstream browser and publicly rejected by some privacy-conscious options. Google also recently delayed its deadline to roll the technology out to the masses by nearly a full year. As it stands today, FLoC is only rolling out to some users of the Google Chrome browser.
More on FLoC:
- Google now plans to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome by 2023
- Amazon is already blocking Google’s FLoC initiative on some of its websites
- Google says it won’t build backdoors in FLoC, Privacy Sandbox
- Microsoft Edge, Apple’s Safari, and Firefox have no plans to adopt Google’s FLoC initiative
Author: Ben Schoon
Source: 9TO5Google
