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What is FLEDGE?
FLEDGE (first locally-executed decision over groups experiment) is an approach by Google to provide a privacy-compliant way of delivering behaviourally targeted digital advertising (without the use of 3rd party cookies).
How does FLEDGE work?
FLEDGE is designed to use interest groups to enable sites to display ads to relevant users.
When a user visits a website that advertises products, an interest group owner can ask the user’s browser to call a JavaScript function that gives the user membership to the interest group. When that user later visits a web page that sells ad space, the website can use FLEDGE to select the right ad to display for the user, based on the interest groups the user “subscribes” to.
When will Google start testing FLEDGE?
Google had originally scheduled to begin testing their FLEDGE approach through AdSense on August 28th, but this has been pushed back to September 24th.
It’s worth nothing that if you’re not interested in FLEDGE accessing your sites, you can turn it off here.
Why We Care
Increasing privacy regulation has led most major operating systems and browsers to deprecate 3rd party cookies. Chrome is one of the only remaining systems that still uses 3rd party cookies. Google announced in August, that cookies will remain in Chrome until at least mid 2024, buying them more time to test if FLEDGE will be a successful replacement for advertisers.
In 2022, digital advertising is built on the ability to behaviourally target specific audiences. A replacement for 3rd party cookies is a critical piece that Google will need to maintain their current personalized ad ecosystem. All advertisers should be focused on building first-party data options to future-proof advertising efforts.
Interested in generating more first-party data for your digital advertising efforts?
