A new web tool lets people know if their internet activity is being intruded by the controversial new ad tracking system FLoC developed by Google.
Last March, Google announced a tool called "Federated Learning of Cohorts", which is known as "Flock" and came as an alternative to third-party cookies in the browser "Chrome" (Chrome).
****Websites use cookies to track your activity as you go from page to page, record browsing history, shopping habits, and more.****
Google said that it will gradually stop - from now until 2022 - the use of this technology, which is used to target ads on the Internet, as part of its pledge to improve user privacy.
But it indicated that it will introduce Flock technology - a less widespread cookie system and invasive user privacy - to improve users' anonymity while continuing to collect their data for targeted ads.
Critics of the new browser technology - which is being tried in 0.5% of Chrome users in countries including Australia, Canada and the United States - say it still prioritizes the company's profits over people's privacy.
One such critic is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group, known as EFF, which has created a website that lets people know if they have been tracked by Google's new tool, Flock.
Visitors to Am I Floced simply need to click on the "FLoC ID" button to see if the technology is tracking them covertly or not.
The tool is designed to increase awareness of web privacy and help create a "better internet for all," according to the EFF Foundation.
The group says - on its website - that the new tool is part of "efforts to highlight the poor and increasing practices of the technology industry in the field of targeting ads, including Google."
Flock is currently being tested in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines and the United States.
The experiment is likely to continue until July 2021, and may eventually affect up to 5% of Chrome's 2.6 billion users worldwide.
According to EFF, if you are a resident of these countries, you can opt out of Flock experiences by disabling third-party cookies.
To do this, go to Chrome's settings, then to privacy and security, then to cookies and other site data, and choose to see all cookies and site data and remove all.
Blocking third-party cookies from Google is the latest in a series of restrictions imposed by the company on data collection and use across its services.
Chrome changes will affect ad technology companies that use cookies to collect people viewing history; In order to direct more relevant ads to them.
"We don't think tracking people across the web will stand the test of time as privacy concerns continue to accelerate," Google's Jerry Dechler said last month.
But smaller competitors reject the privacy justifications that big companies like Google and Apple use to restrict tracking, because they will continue to collect valuable data and potentially get more advertising revenue.
****"The privacy issue has been invoked to justify commercial decisions that enhance power for their business and harm the wider market," said Chad Engelgau, CEO of Acxiom's Advertising Data Unit.****
France's competition authority has temporarily allowed Apple to go ahead with the new tracking limits, saying privacy protections prevail over competition concerns.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority is expected to decide soon whether to ban upcoming Chrome changes.