Analysis: Amazon's properties, including Amazon.com, WholeFoods.com, and Zappos.com, are blocking Google's new FLoC tracking system from gathering data
Amazon is blocking Google's controversial cookieless tracking and targeting method. — Most of Amazon's properties including Amazon.com … Tweets: @juokaz and @glenngabe Tweets: @juokaz : Amazon is blocking Google's FLoC (its new way to track and target users without cookies). It added the “permissions-policy” http header which blocks FLoC. I'm sure many others will follow. https://digiday.com/... https://twitter.com/... Glenn Gabe / @glenngabe : The chess match continues -> Amazon is blocking Google's FLoC — and that could seriously weaken the fledgling tracking system “Amazon added code to its digital properties to block FLoC from tracking visitors using Google's Chrome browser.” https://digiday.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's FLoC was pitched as the privacy-safe successor to third-party cookies, but the rollout has been contested from the start: the EFF flagged new privacy risks baked into cohort-based targeting, Brave disabled it across its browser in April, and Google paused FLoC testing in Europe over GDPR compatibility concerns. Amazon now adds the permissions-policy header across Amazon.com, WholeFoods.com, and Zappos.com, opting its properties out of the system entirely.
The move matters because Amazon operates some of the highest-intent commerce traffic on the web — the exact audiences FLoC cohorts were meant to make targetable without cookies. It also feeds a running publisher grievance: Google's cookie phase-out was already fueling antitrust arguments that the transition rigs the ad market in Google's favor.
First-order effects
- Advertisers lose FLoC-based access to Amazon's shopping audiences, shrinking the system's coverage at launch; Amazon keeps its first-party targeting data in-house instead of contributing it to Google's cohorts.
Second-order effects
- The permissions-policy header is a one-line copyable defense, so other large publishers can follow Amazon's lead — the same dynamic Brave set in motion on the browser side with its FLoC disablement.
Third-order effects
- If major sites keep opting out, Google's cookieless replacements depend on the goodwill of the very platforms they were meant to reduce reliance on; the pattern held, with Google eventually shuttering FLoC in favor of the Topics API. Site-level control over browser-imposed tracking is emerging as a structural lever for big publishers.
The trend: The web's largest properties are asserting site-level veto power over browser-level tracking standards, forcing Google to design — and redesign — its cookieless ad stack around who opts in.