Topics API feature

[captainbrosset]

I need help to describe this as I don't know the API much at all, so I'm not sure what the entry points are.
This is a non-standard API that's part of Google's privacy sandbox initiative.

For more info, see

• https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/private-advertising/topics
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Topics_API
• https://patcg-individual-drafts.github.io/topics/

[lolaodelola]

I wrote about this a couple of years ago so happy to take a stab but is this a web feature yet? Both Mozilla and Firefox have negative standards positions on it, it's not on the standards track, it's not implemented outside, there's an enrollment process to use it and it's generally considered not good for the web (at this moment in time) - should we be adding this as a web feature here? Is there developer interest in Topics API?

This feels more like a proposed web feature rather than an actual web feature at the moment.

[ddbeck]

should we be adding this as a web feature here?

To answer @lolaodelola's question, web-features is primarily descriptive. When an API ships in a browser, we ought to record the presence of that feature, whether nor not it's good or useful or popular. In an ideal world, single-implementation features that don't get uptake will be deprecated or withdrawn, which we can also describe when it happens.

[ddbeck]

I've left a suggestion for the description, but I think merging this would be a positive development either way.

The specs list needs a merge conflict resolved as well, before merging. Thank you!

[ddbeck]

Suggested change

	description: The `browsingtopics` attribute for `<iframe>` elements and the `browsingTopics` option for the `fetch()` method enable interest-based advertising based on topics collected by the browser as the user navigates, without exposing the user's exact browsing history. Also known as the Topics API.
	description: The Topics API reports a user's likely subject-matter interests (as determined by the browser, known as topics) to iframes. This allows for interest-based advertising that does not rely on user's exact browsing history, third-party cookies, or fingerprinting.

I'm suggesting this change to the description to hopefully be a little more direct about what the API does (versus "enabling" downstream activity). Ordinarily, I'd say that we should name the entry points, but this API seems to have several (the attribute, the fetch option, and the document method, at very least).