We all know vaguely our data has value and that privacy is not free, but after the backlash Google received for their FLoC proposal it appears the company is aiming to make the trade-off between privacy and the services your data pay for a bit more explicit.
The company has been working on a new Privacy Review page in Chrome Settings, and in the latest Chrome Canary release that section has been filled in with a page called “Review settings for search and browsing optimization.”
The page explains that if you share the site you are currently browsing with Google with the intent to allow Google to process it to “understand the browsing behaviour“, Google will reward you with:
- Faster browsing: For example, proactively load specific further content based on the current page
- Improved browsing: For example, suggestions in the Omnibox before you start typing
- Improved Chrome using page metrics
Of course, Google is not completely honest on the page, since the company wants to understand YOUR browsing behaviour, not the nebulous 3rd person Google appears to be referring to.
We assume at some point this page will be used to gain the consent of users for targeted advertising.
Google’s FLoC proposal would have used your Chrome browsing history to categorise you into a small group of similar people and then pass this data to websites so they can deliver relevant ads.
Of course, Google is not wrong in that much of the internet is funded by advertising, and being able to explicitly opt both into and out of the deal is a welcome improvement over assuming consent simply by using the browser.
What do our readers think? Let us know below.
via techdows