It can also be seen as a wise move by Google, to avoid falling into Facebook’s situation.
Google’s business model is pretty straightforward. You browse the web, Google follows you, and then Google sells that data to advertisers. This is the secret to making Google the most successful Internet company in history.
But surprisingly, Google announced that it will no longer track users’ browsing history for advertising purposes. According to a personal blog post by David Temkin, director of products and advertising at Google, the company will stop using user browsing history for ad targeting.
In addition, Google will also stop creating tools to track users’ personal data, across all of the company’s products. It includes countless Google internet services, as well as popular apps on the Android platform.
In his article, Mr. David Temkin pointed out that: “Users should not agree to be followed on the Internet to receive relevant advertisements. Advertisers also don’t need to track every user on the internet to benefit from digital advertising performance.
While this is fine, it doesn’t seem plausible to be told by one of the biggest internet companies in the world. So if you give up on its top performing business model, how is Google going to make any money?
Make no mistake, Google won’t follow you. In fact, Google will continue to mine user data and use that data to sell ads. However, the new policy means Google won’t dig into user data.
Instead, Google will use privacy security APIs to do this. These APIs automatically group users into special categories and manage those categories on a macroscopic scale. In other words, Google will not directly track and collect individual data, but will only manage to a higher degree and sell group data to advertisers.
Google will begin testing these APIs next month and test selling to group category advertisers in the second quarter. Users will also be able to access a new privacy control option in Chrome, in April of this year.
Google’s decision is surprisingly enough, but inevitable. Because Google is under tight control from the EU, along with new privacy policies from Apple that are giving Facebook a headache.
Google will not be able to stay with its user data collection forever. It can also be seen as a wise move by Google, to avoid falling into Facebook’s situation.
