We now know Google will not build out alternative identifiers to track individuals as they browse the web.
While Google’s March 3 announcement may not have come as a huge surprise, it did raise a lot of questions with advertisers as to what features they would lose and what future targeting options might look like.
Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Product Liaison, was gracious enough to answer some of those burning questions for us.
It seems like there’s a lot of confusion around the Privacy Sandbox. Could you explain the privacy sandbox in layman’s terms?
Ginny Marvin (GM): The Privacy Sandbox was announced by Chrome in August 2019 (a ‘Sandbox’ is a testing environment). It is an effort to develop a set of standards in collaboration with the open web community to support a new approach to digital advertising that is privacy-centered. This approach doesn’t rely on third-party cookies.
As part of the Privacy Sandbox, there are currently a set of proposed APIs to support various monetization use cases such as interest-based advertising, ads measurement, reporting and other scenarios.
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The API you’ve likely heard about most is called FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts). It is designed to enable interest group advertising without needing individual user profiles.
Users can be added to interest groups (cohorts) based on their browsing history, but the big difference is that cohorts are built within the browser using on-device processing to keep a person’s web history private on the browser. Recent results from tests of FLoC to reach in-market and affinity Google Audiences, for example, have proven comparable to third-party cookie signals.
You can see the work that’s happening collaboratively with the industry on the various API proposals in forums like the W3C.
How will advertisers be impacted by Google’ recent announcement that it won’t be building alternate identifiers to replace third-party cookies in 2022?
GM: The impact is that Google Ads buying tools are not planning to build or use new identifiers including PII that track individuals as they browse across the web once support for 3rd party cookies is phased out.
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Instead our web offerings will be powered by the Privacy Sandbox. Where there is not a first-party relationship, Google Ads buying tools will use APIs from the Privacy Sandbox to enable relevant ads and measure effectiveness. There is still work and testing to be done, but the aim is to continue to deliver advertiser outcomes and publisher monetization while prioritizing user privacy.
For audience targeting options that will be impacted, can you share insights into how they are being impacted and what they might look like in the future?
GM: Marketers will be able to use their own technology to identify high value FLoC IDs (each FLoC cohort will have an ID associated with it), and we expect ad tech platforms (including Google Display & Video 360) will accept such ID lists as seed lists for targeting and audience expansion.
The product design for these functions is in early stages, and we’ll be working with industry partners and clients to gather feedback as designs progress in Q1 and Q2 this year.
Q: Will website remarketing still be available for advertisers in 2022?
GM: One of the more lively discussions in the W3C regarding the Privacy Sandbox is how to enable the remarketing use case without the use of third-party cookies.
Last year, Chrome first introduced the TURTLEDOVE proposal to allow an advertiser, publisher or ad tech company to leverage their own first-party data, such as consumers who visited their website, to inform ads a consumer might see.
Chrome’s new FLEDGE proposal (First “Locally-Executed Decision over Groups” Experiment) expands on TURTLEDOVE by including a way for on-device bidding algorithms to use additional information from a new trusted server designed for this sole purpose.
User data, including browsing history, remains shielded (within the device) from buyers and sellers. This first experiment is expected to ship during 2021.
Will advertisers ability to report on in-market audiences, affinity audiences or placements be impacted?
GM: Our intention is to still allow marketers to get the relevant reporting they need in order to make critical business decisions. More to come on this in the future.
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Can you explain how advertisers will be able to create interest groups and what some of those criteria might look like?
GM: The central idea for the current FLoC is that the browser creates cohorts of users to ensure they cannot be identified individually. It looks for clusters of similar recent browsing activity to group people into cohorts of similar interests.
Advertisers can also use their own machine learning algorithms and predictive analytics capabilities to make decisions on what audiences or interests or cohort IDs might represent.
FLoC is aimed at giving advertisers the same capabilities that they had with third-party cookies, but the big difference is the privacy focus on doing this based on cohorts rather than individuals.
Can you share any detail on how granular will cohorts be?
GM: FLoC cohorts are still being tested, but they are based on general web interests indicated by recent browsing behaviors.
We expect to begin testing FLoC-based cohorts with advertisers in Google Ads next quarter.
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How frequently will those cohorts be updated?
GM: Cohorts are dynamic and will update every seven days during the initial trial.
As a person’s browsing behavior changes, their browser will assign them to a different FLoC cohort that reflects those interests.
For example, at one point they might be in a FLoC cohort with thousands of other people who have also recently visited websites about gardening and travel overseas, and then at another point in time they could be in a group of people who have recently visited sites about art supplies and cooking.
Do you see Google offering a third-party audience exchange in the future? In some of the documentation it references publishers abilities to sell audiences to advertisers – would Google Ads broker this functionality?
GM: We plan to deepen our support for solutions that build on direct relationships between consumers and the brands and publishers they engage with.
How will this impact reporting in Google Analytics? (In particular, the audiences report as well as demographics such as in-market and affinity audiences.)
GM: Google Analytics will continue to allow customers to bring in their first-party data, which they can use on their own or join with Google data.
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The primary change is that Google Analytics will not enable customers to do view-through conversion (VTC) measurement on third-party network inventory
Is there anything else that advertisers should know?
GM: The aim is to develop a sustainable, long-term solution that protects user privacy by keeping data on-device and gives advertisers and publishers solutions to succeed in a privacy-first world. There are still details to address and testing to do as we work with the industry.
Cookies aren’t going away just yet, and we know there are questions we can’t answer yet because Privacy Sandbox is still in development. We will continue to share more as work progresses.
For Google Ads, the next step is to begin testing FLoC-based cohorts with advertisers next quarter.
Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.
The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.
Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.
The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.
Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.
On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.
The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.
More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.
Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:
You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!
Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.
Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.
There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.
Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.
Successful people tend to be secretive.
Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.
Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.
Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.
TORONTO – A new survey says a majority of software engineers and developers feel tight project deadlines can put safety at risk.
Seventy-five per cent of the 1,000 global workers who responded to the survey released Tuesday say pressure to deliver projects on time and on budget could be compromising critical aspects like safety.
The concern is even higher among engineers and developers in North America, with 77 per cent of those surveyed on the continent reporting the urgency of projects could be straining safety.
The study was conducted between July and September by research agency Coleman Parkes and commissioned by BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX division, which builds connected-car technology.
The results reflect a timeless tug of war engineers and developers grapple with as they balance the need to meet project deadlines with regulations and safety checks that can slow down the process.
Finding that balance is an issue that developers of even the simplest appliances face because of advancements in technology, said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of QNX.
“The software is getting more complicated and there is more software whether it’s in a vehicle, robotics, a toaster, you name it… so being able to patch vulnerabilities, to prevent bad actors from doing malicious acts is becoming more and more important,” he said.
The medical, industrial and automotive industries have standardized safety measures and anything they produce undergoes rigorous testing, but that work doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be carried out from the start and then at every step of the development process.
“What makes safety and security difficult is it’s an ongoing thing,” Wall said. “It’s not something where you’ve done it, and you are finished.”
The Waterloo, Ont.-based business found 90 per cent of its survey respondents reported that organizations are prioritizing safety.
However, when asked about why safety may not be a priority for their organization, 46 per cent of those surveyed answered cost pressures and 35 per cent said a lack of resources.
That doesn’t surprise Wall. Delays have become rampant in the development of tech, and in some cases, stand to push back the launch of vehicle lines by two years, he said.
“We have to make sure that people don’t compromise on safety and security to be able to get products out quicker,” he said.
“What we don’t want to see is people cutting corners and creating unsafe situations.”
The survey also took a peek at security breaches, which have hit major companies like London Drugs, Indigo Books & Music, Giant Tiger and Ticketmaster in recent years.
About 40 per cent of the survey’s respondents said they have encountered a security breach in their employer’s operating system. Those breaches resulted in major impacts for 27 per cent of respondents, moderate impacts for 42 per cent and minor impacts for 27 per cent.
“There are vulnerabilities all the time and this is what makes the job very difficult because when you ship the software, presumably the software has no security vulnerabilities, but things get discovered after the fact,” Wall said.
Security issues, he added, have really come to the forefront of the problems developers face, so “really without security, you have no safety.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
As online shoppers hunt for bargains offered by Amazon during its annual fall sale this week, cybersecurity researchers are warning Canadians to beware of an influx of scammers posing as the tech giant.
In the 30 days leading up to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 newly registered Amazon-related web domains, according to Check Point Software Technologies, a company that offers cybersecurity solutions.
The company said it deemed 88 per cent of those domains malicious or suspicious, suggesting they could have been set up by scammers to prey on vulnerable consumers. One in every 54 newly created Amazon-related domain included the phrase “Amazon Prime.”
“They’re almost indiscernible from the real Amazon domain,” said Robert Falzon, head of engineering at Check Point in Canada.
“With all these domains registered that look so similar, it’s tricking a lot of people. And that’s the whole intent here.”
Falzon said Check Point Research sees an uptick in attempted scams around big online shopping days throughout the year, including Prime Days.
Scams often come in the form of phishing emails, which are deceptive messages that appear to be from a reputable source in attempt to steal sensitive information.
In this case, he said scammers posing as Amazon commonly offer “outrageous” deals that appear to be associated with Prime Days, in order to trick recipients into clicking on a malicious link.
The cybersecurity firm said it has identified and blocked 100 unique Amazon Prime-themed scam emails targeting organizations and consumers over the past two weeks.
Scammers also target Prime members with unsolicited calls, claiming urgent account issues and requesting payment information.
“It’s like Christmas for them,” said Falzon.
“People expect there to be significant savings on Prime Day, so they’re not shocked that they see something of significant value. Usually, the old adage applies: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Amazon’s website lists a number of red flags that it recommends customers watch for to identify a potential impersonation scam.
Those include false urgency, requests for personal information, or indications that the sender prefers to complete the purchase outside of the Amazon website or mobile app.
Scammers may also request that customers exclusively pay with gift cards, a claim code or PIN. Any notifications about an order or delivery for an unexpected item should also raise alarm bells, the company says.
“During busy shopping moments, we tend to see a rise in impersonation scams reported by customers,” said Amazon spokeswoman Octavia Roufogalis in a statement.
“We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”
Falzon added that these scams are more successful than people might think.
As of June 30, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there had been $284 million lost to fraud so far this year, affecting 15,941 victims.
But Falzon said many incidents go unreported, as some Canadians who are targeted do not know how or where to flag a scam, or may choose not to out of embarrassment.
Check Point recommends Amazon customers take precautions while shopping on Prime Days, including by checking URLs carefully, creating strong passwords on their accounts, and avoiding personal information being shared such as their birthday or social security number.
The cybersecurity company said consumers should also look for “https” at the beginning of a website URL, which indicates a secure connection, and use credit cards rather than debit cards for online shopping, which offer better protection and less liability if stolen.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
