TOPICS API – A New Feature to Google’s Privacy Sandbox

After the recently completed FLoC trial and the criticism of this solution by large swathes of the advertising market, developers, and EU lawmakers, Google decided to replace it with Topics API. So how does it work, and what does this change mean for Publishers?

All FloC’s problems

The nature of the Privacy Sandbox has seen the evolution of solutions, and FloC was not the first interest-based targeting method proposed within its framework. Topics API addresses the FloC shortfall and will be a step in the right direction.

FloC has long been criticized for its:

• Discriminatory practices as FLoC uses an unsupervised algorithm to create its clusters, which may lead some clusters to have a higher representation of sensitive characteristics (gender, ethnicity, age, income, etc., personality traits).
• Enabling of fingerprinting. Cohorts often consist of a few thousand people. Combine that with additional session/browser variables, and it gives a great advantage in the identification of individual users.
• Cross-context exposure of cohort IDs with ones who already use identification enables reverse-engineering cohorts to browse history or at least estimate the probability of users visiting specific sites.
• Non-uptake by other browsers.

How does Topics API actually work and what are new elements?

Like FloC, Topics API uses the browser to keep and manage information about the user’s interests. But instead of complicated cohorts/ID graphs, it will use easy-to-understand categories, describing users’ interests, such as Fitness, Travel, Automotive, etc. The full list of topics totals 350 in order to reduce the risk of fingerprinting. The list also excludes all categories considered as sensitive.

• While browsing the web, the feature assigns several “topics” depending on what content the user is consuming in a given week.
• When the user visits a page with ad slots supporting topics, the browser makes selected topics from the last 3 weeks available to advertising partners.
• The list of topics assigned to the user will change once a week – such a long interval is to help prevent extracting additional data by those using this API.
• Advertisers will be able to use them for targeting.

An important novelty is that the user will have access to the topics assigned to them at a given time in the browser settings. They will be able to view or delete the topics of their choice or disable the functionality entirely.

Most likely the list of Topics categories will be found in Google buying systems and over time in other ad platforms as targeting options. We can also expect Prebid support for Topics in the near future just as FloC ID had. This would enable Prebid-connected SSPs to pass topics to their Advertisers and improve the addressability of the users for this channel.

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What does the launch of the Topics API feature mean for Publishers?

From the Publishers’ point of view, the change from FLoC to Topics is still virtual, as both proposals remain in the testing phase. Not many supply chain participants have had the chance to explore its possibilities. We do not know their real effectiveness apart from Google’s declarations.

We will know more when Google rolls out Topics tests, especially within the EU region. It is possible that this is not the last word in terms of the solution. Google has addressed many of FloC’s problems, but ultimately the success of the new solution will depend on how it is accepted by the market and user uptake.

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