Google: company studies alternatives to the web advertising model (SOPA Images / Getty Images)
THE Google will stop looking at what people access on the internet. The company said in a post on its official blog on Wednesday, 3, that it plans to stop collecting navigation information starting next year.
The decision points to accelerated changes in the market for the sale of digital advertising. Google currently collects user information to create digital profiles and target advertising that is more aligned with users’ interests.
The practice has been subject to intense scrutiny by regulators and privacy advocates, who point to the amount of information and data that companies such as Google and Facebook, giants in the digital advertising market, collect.
“If digital advertising doesn’t evolve to address the growing concerns that people have about privacy and how their personal identities are being used, we risk the future of the free and open internet,” said David Temkin, product director at Google and author of the text published on the company’s blog.
Google’s decision does not apply to the company’s advertising system, or unique identifiers used on smartphones. It is a change only for websites on the web. Despite this, the abandonment of this technology has the potential to transform the industry. About 40% of advertising money flows on the open internet – the share that is not on platforms like Facebook, YouTube or Google Search – according to data from data company Jounce.
Last year, Google had already announced changes to the Chrome browser’s ad policy, blocking third-party cookies. Now, the new stance indicates that the company does not intend to develop alternatives for collecting information.
The company said it was positioning itself to launch new tools, which would bring people together, instead of targeting specific profiles.
“Advances in aggregation, anonymization, processing on the device and other technologies that preserve privacy offer a clean way to replace individual identifiers. In reality, our latest texts with FLoC [Federated Learning of Cohorts] show a way to effectively take third-party cookies out of the advertising equation and hide individuals in large crowds of people with common interests, “wrote Temkin.
Privacy changes at Apple
Changes in privacy policy are also taking place in the Apple. The company will allow users to choose whether they want to have an identification number – called an IDFA – released to applications that are downloaded on iPhones.
This identification is especially important for apps that do not charge a financial amount from users and use them for targeted ads on the internet. Knowing who the user is, it is possible to draw a profile for him and provide advertising with a greater impact and at a higher cost.
With Apple’s change in attitude, users will receive a warning, asking whether or not they want to share this identification with applications – and the expectation in the market is that there will be less sharing. Despite giving the option to end the collection of information, this should not cause advertising to disappear from Apple devices, it should only have less segmentation and become more generic for users.
