5 February 2022 | New Scientist | 15GOOGLE has been planning for
years to scrap cookies, the tiny
files stored on our computers
as we browse the internet that
allow advertisers to track us and
tailor what they show us. Last
week, it announced it is ditching
its planned replacement, called
Federated Learning of Cohorts
(FLoC), in favour of a new tool
called Topics. Here’s what the
change means for you and
your online privacy.Why do we need any kind
of tracking at all?
Tracking is less about providing
a service for users and more
about advertising and profit.
Advertisers pay to place their
products and services in front of
certain people they feel may be
potential customers. Tracking,
via large data-collecting
companies like Google or
Meta, allows them to do that.
But many people are growing
more and more uncomfortable
with the extent to which firms
track, analyse and market to
them. And governments around
the world are increasinglylegislating to rein in these
tech giants. Companies like
Google may be partly reacting
to changing customer sentiment
with these new tools, but the
truth is that they are also being
forced to act.What’s the new plan?
The new tool, Topics, does the
same thing FLoC was supposed
to – keep our identity and
movements hidden from
advertisers – but in a slightly
different way. Google’s Chrome
browser will include code that
monitors the sites we visit and
learns about our interests. It will
store this information locally
for only three weeks at a time,
and categorise us all with tags
from a list of 300 interests such
as “fitness” or “fashion”.
When visiting a website, your
browser will allow advertisers
access to three of these topics,
chosen at random, so they can
decide which adverts to show
you. Crucially, those three topics
are all that the website and the
advertiser will be allowed to
know about you – they won’t
get information about gender
or race, for instance.
But concerns remain in some
quarters. “The Topics API onlytouches the smallest, most
minor privacy issues in FLoC,
while leaving its core intact,”
wrote Peter Snyder in an article
on the website of the privacy-
focused browser Brave.What will it mean for web users
and advertisers?
Topics will only gather
information on Chrome users,
although many people who
prefer other browsers are likely
to use Google’s web search,
email, calendar or myriad other
services, so the firm can still
gather information from those.
But there are other options
for the privacy-conscious,
such as Apple’s Private Relay,
which allows you to browse
anonymously and keep data
out of advertisers’ hands.
The changes are likely to
make life harder for advertisers,
which have grown used to being
able to access a wealth of data
and closely target adverts. It is
in Google’s interests to avoid too
great an impact on advertisers,
as far as rules like the EU’s
General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) allow it to –
after all, Google makes its
money from advertising.What happens next?
Google says it will officially end
support for third-party cookies
in the middle of 2023, although
this date has been delayed
before. At that point, other
advertisers will no longer be
able to place cookies and track
Chrome users. Google says that
Chrome will allow users to see
their assigned topics, remove
any they wish to or even disable
the feature completely.
Advertisers, technology
giants and regulators will
be closely monitoring
developments. ❚BriefingOLLY^CU
RTIS/
FU
TURE
VIAGETTY^ IMAGESGoogle moves to drop cookies
Privacy concerns have pushed the web giant to change
how it tracks us online, explains Matthew SparkesZoologyAlex WilkinsGROUND squirrels stay in shape
while hibernating because their
gut microbes recycle urea, the
main compound in urine.
When animals hibernate,
they enter a state of suspended
animation, reducing their energy
use and food intake. But the lack
of food can lead to a dearth of
nitrogen, an essential building
block for establishing and
maintaining muscle.Matthew Regan at the University
of Montreal, Canada, and his
colleagues have now discovered
how thirteen-lined ground squirrels
(Ictidomys tridecemlineatus)
overcome the problem. Their gut
microbiomes harvest nitrogen
from urea, which is typically a
waste product.
Regan and his team examined
several groups of ground squirrels
at various stages of their hibernation
cycles, but gave half of the animals
microbiome-depleting antibiotics.
In the untreated squirrels, the
researchers tracked nitrogen
compounds like ammonia and
glutamine all the way from the
squirrels’ stomachs to muscles.
For the depleted squirrels,
these compounds weren’t found
in significant numbers in their
muscles (Science, doi.org/hd34).
“The microbes are important
in all this because they have this
ability to break urea down into its
component parts,” says Regan.
The urea-eating bacteria
also benefit from this process,
which could explain how the
mutually beneficial arrangement
came about. “It’s a symbiosis that
allows both of them to effectively
emerge from hibernation in good
shape,” he says. ❚Hibernating ground
squirrels recycle
urine to surviveGoogle’s logo at
the entrance to its
UK offices in London“The microbes are
important in all this
because they have this
ability to break down urea”