Summary
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Google is ending Privacy Sandbox after low adoption, ending a long-running ad privacy project.
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Chrome features, such as themes and controls for site-offered advertising, will likely disappear or change.
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The end of the “Sandbox” continues to be tracked; Third-party cookies persist and Google may be trying a new tactic.
Google and “privacy” don't necessarily go hand in hand, but for a while it seemed like the company was trying to improve the situation. After years of delays and backtracking, the company is finally ending its big ad privacy project.
You may remember headlines about a product called Privacy Sandbox. Google launched it back in 2019, promising to find a way to show you ads without those creepy third-party cookies following you around the web. This was supposed to be a solution to maintain some privacy while keeping the Internet running and Google's business model running.
Privacy Sandbox was never fully implemented, and now Google has just confirmed that the entire initiative is being discontinued. Cause? Low adoption of most related technologies. Google had already abandoned its core promise over a year ago when it announced this. didn't delete third party cookies after all. This step simply puts the final nail in the coffin.
Privacy Sandbox tools are removed:
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Attribution Reporting API for Chrome and Android
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IP protection
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On-device personalization
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Private aggregation
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Secure Audience API for Chrome and Android
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Protected Application Signals
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Related Website Kits
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SelectURL
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SDK runtime
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Themes for Chrome and Android: Google's experiment with interest-based rather than personal data-based advertising.
You may have seen some sandbox controls. popup window in chromefor example, switches to the topics of advertisements or advertisements offered by the site. Since Google is killing off many core technologies like the Topics API, you can expect these settings to disappear or change. The experiment in “privately” tracking you is over, but don't think that tracking itself is going away.
Google is quick to say that it remains committed to improving privacy in Chrome and Android, even though it's dropping the “Privacy Sandbox” branding. However, the name itself never gave an accurate picture. How Android authority notes Electronic Frontier Foundation once called the name “deceptive” arguing that the only real difference was that all the tracking was done by one company rather than several.
A few technologies with broader support will remain, but the bulk of the project, including those parts that were intended to replace basic tracking methods, is complete. At this point, you're back in the world of third-party cookies for most of your browsing. We'll have to wait and see Google's next take on this topic.
Source: AdWeek
