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| WordPress can automatically disable FLoC technology on various websites |
WordPress announced that it views Google's new FLoC tracking technology as a security concern and may default to blocking it on websites.
Browsers increasingly block third-party cookies that advertisers use for interest-based ads.
In response, Google introduced a new ad-tracking technology called FLoC, which uses a web browser to anonymously categorize users into interest groups or behaviors based on how they browse the internet.
After Google began testing FLoC on Chrome this month, privacy advocates agree FLoC is replacing other privacy risks with others.
The Digital Frontier Foundation said: FLoC aims to be a new way for your browser to perform performance analysis done by third-party trackers as your browsing activity has been reduced to behavioral ads and then interacting with websites and advertisers. .
She added: The technology avoids the privacy risks of third-party cookies, but it creates new files in the process and can also exacerbate many privacy issues in advertising, including discrimination and targeting.
Since then, browser developers and search engines like Brave Browser, Vivaldi Browser, and DuckDuckGo Search Engine have removed FLoC and created tools to block it.
WordPress recommends banning FLoC technology in future versions of the blogging platform, saying: We support approximately 41% of the network and the community can help combat racism and discrimination with four lines of code.
WordPress explains that while some administrators want to enable this technology, these administrators may have the technical knowledge to bypass the code above.
WordPress has also suggested that it can add a setting that administrators can use to control whether FLoC is allowed or not.
However, a WordPress concern is that those who are not familiar with this new tracking technology may choose it automatically without fully understanding its meaning. Hence, it is in those WordPress users' best interest to disable the technology automatically.