Eigenverlag/Self

Abstract:
This paper analyzes the short history of Google’s AI-driven data collation and marketing technology, FederatedLearning of Cohorts (FLoC), which was designed to replace third-party cookies, the technology at the heart of “surveillancecapitalism.” Using publicly available data such as patents, investor calls, public filings, github accounts, and presentations, thispaper explores FLoCs and its immediate replacements, The Topics API and FLEDGE, and contests claims that Google’s newmarketing technologies are both ‘privacy-centric’ and as effective as surveillance-driven targeted advertising. The paper arguesthat Google’s parent company, Alphabet is starting on a path away from being an advertising and information company to beingan “AI-first” company, and sees FLoC as one (mis)step on this path. The paper shows how an combination of interacting factors– corporate ideology, market forces, regulatory responses, and internal cultural conflict – are driving this transformation, butconcludes that surveillance will continue to be at the heart of any AI-first economy.