Home The Sell Sider Google’s Topics API Picks On Smaller Publishers

Google’s Topics API Picks On Smaller Publishers

SHARE:

The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community.

Google recently began testing Topics API, the latest part of its Chrome Privacy Sandbox. It enables Chrome to determine a handful of topics, like “Fitness” or “Travel & Transportation,” that represent a user’s interests based on their browsing history. But unlike a third-party cookie, topics do not identify the user. 

On the one hand, Topics API is a significant improvement over FLoC, the former Privacy Sandbox proposal for ad targeting. But that’s a limited gain on privacy for a poor trade-off in terms of utility and competition issues. For one thing, FLoC had 33,000 topics to choose from, while the Topics API has only 350.

The Topics API proposal also carries two unacceptable risks for the open web. First, it enriches large platforms at the expense of niche or independent sites, especially sites that invest time and skill to cover categories in detail. And second, the Topics API leaks audience information from trustworthy sites to sites that take advantage of advertisers and ad tech.

Unfair data and revenue shifts 

If a user shows a strong interest in #VanLife by browsing sites with specific content about vans and related products, then a manufacturer can target them effectively on a general interest site. The blogs or niche sites created a valuable target with a very specific topic assigned to the user, which YouTube, ESPN, or any other major publisher can then capitalize on. 

Meanwhile, someone who visits YouTube and is assigned “Entertainment” as a topic returns no value to niche sites. Big sites get all the value without giving any in return. 

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Google only assigns each site one or a few potential topic. Someone who visits BuzzFeed and reads a bunch of parenting stories is classified with a “News” or “Entertainment” topic instead of “Parenting,” because BuzzFeed is primarily a news and entertainment site. Smaller sites would do better with alternatives to the Topics API that promise better control over their audience data.

A step backwards on brand safety 

Another issue with Topics API is that when you visit sites with commercially relevant topics – like recipes or product reviews – information about your interests can be leaked to disinformation and other unsafe sites in the form of topics.

Topics API shares this problem with other ad technologies that track users from site to site. But when the browser takes on more of the work of running ad auctions, that shouldn’t mean advertisers have to take a step backward on brand safety. 

Subscribe

AdExchanger Daily

Get our editors’ roundup delivered to your inbox every weekday.

Topics API will need to enable the same level of validation that today’s ad systems do. Otherwise, legitimate publishers will drive up the value of low-quality or straight-up bad actors in digital media without any ability to investigate or curtail the practice.

Getting closer to benefiting all sides

Google has posted the Topics API proposal to GitHub for public review in the W3C’s new Private Advertising Technology Community Group. Ad industry players should participate in the discussion and file any issues on the Topics API GitHub repository to address concerns. (CafeMedia has already filed several issues, as well as a suggested change that would help Topics API treat general-interest and topic-specific sites more fairly.)

Today, Topics API is just a proposal from Google that must go through months of testing and other iterations before becoming a standard. Niche or independent publishers don’t have the time or specific expertise to participate in web standards development like the big platforms do, so their priorities can often end up lost in the process. 

Let’s work together as an industry to ensure we find the best possible solution to maintaining a free, open web.

Follow CafeMedia (@CafeMedia_) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

For more articles featuring Don Marti, click here.

Must Read

Comic: Off-Platform Media

How RMNs Use MFA And Cheap Inventory To Game Attribution Rules

Retail media is built on its attribution quality, but real purchases can be gamed by programmatic metrics and create perverse incentives for RMNs to serve ads across low-quality inventory.

There’s A Lot Wrong With Google’s And Meta’s Non-Transparent ‘Refund’ Practices

Google and Meta are playing with fire. Their opaque refund practices have already exposed them to customer blowback – and could lead to class-action lawsuits by disgruntled advertisers.

Comic: The Great Online Privacy Battle

How US Intelligence Agencies Buy And Use Programmatic Data For Surveillance

Mike Yeagley, an independent contractor who has scouted and acquired commercial data and technology on behalf of intelligence agencies, is one of the earliest evangelists of using ad tech tracking information to identify and surveil government targets.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

Comic: The MFA Cafe

Adalytics Report Torches Ad Tech For Touting MFA Prevention While Scarfing MFA Supply

Practically every ad tech vendor has put out a press release in recent months full of bluster about cutting out made for advertising sites – and yet supply sources remain oversaturated with garbage inventory.

Cloud-Based Collaboration Is Ad Tech’s Post-Cookie Lifeline – But Will It Last?

Cross-cloud data collaboration technology is the best bet for a post-cookie solution. But it’s vulnerable to similar privacy concerns.

Topsort Raises $20 Million To Seize The Post-Cookie Market Opportunity This Year

Topsort raised $20 million, with plans to seize the 2024 opportunity for post-cookie ad tech.