Google Touts Cohort Targeting, Hopes Advertisers Will FLoC To It 03/09/2021 – MediaPost Communications

This weeks IABs conference got off on a consumer-centric start Monday morning as a top Google executive and a U.S. Senator made cases for giving consumers even more control over theirpersonal data.

Citing Pew Research Center data that 81% of Americans dont believe the benefits of having their data tracked outweigh the risks, Google Vice President-GeneralManager for Ads Jerry Dischler reaffirmed the companys decision to abandon personal data tracking for advertising, but also unveiled a new initiative to leverage aggregated anonymized data tohelp the ad industry identify cohorts whose behaviors -- and performance -- could be lumped together in a way that helps advertisers measure and improve their advertising results.

He said the initiative, dubbed FLoC -- an acronym for federated learning of cohorts -- is already working with big advertisers and agencies, including Mondelez, Nestle,Unilever, Omnicon, PMG, S4 Capital and others, to begin identifying patterns that improve advertising performance in a 100% privacy-compliant way that also ensures a free and openinternet.

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He described FLoC as a community where advertisers and agencies can test and iterate together to hep develop privacy-compliant ways of ensuring thatadvertising continues to perform as cookies go away.

Were deeplycommitted to getting this right, he concluded.

Importantly, he said the law wouldensure that corporate executives are "held personally responsible when they lie about our information."

He cited a number of recent consumer data transgressions in which companies apologized,but then did nothing about it.

Separately, Wyden said he was working to "close a loophole" allowing federal agencies to utilize personal tracking data gathered by mobile app platforms tosurveil American citizens without a court order, effectively, violating their Fourth Amendment rights.

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Google Touts Cohort Targeting, Hopes Advertisers Will FLoC To It 03/09/2021 - MediaPost Communications