If I offered you an alternative to regular cookies for tracking online, you might be interested, especially if you care about digital privacy. If I told you that Google, the largest provider of advertising and tracking data on the planet, did this, you might be much less interested. This may be why Google's Privacy Sandbox failed so badly.
Six years after proposing a new system as an alternative to digital cookies that would boldly replace the legacy cookie system in the dominant Chrome browser, Google has officially killed the project. This was announced by Sandbox vice president of privacy Anthony Chavez, who will presumably be looking for a new game. on the official blog of the system (noted Engadget). Google decided to abandon the technology “after assessing ecosystem feedback on its expected value and given its low adoption rate,” Chavez said.
Privacy Sandbox was controversial from the start, as Google proposed replacing cookies with a group-based user approach called Federated Cohort Learning, which purportedly supported greater user anonymity. In addition to doubts that Google could be trusted to control even more data used for tracking and advertising, critics argued that the system could indeed be combined with regular cookies to allow even more granular tracking of users. Of course, it didn't help that Google tried to use its position as the owner of Chrome – the world's most popular web browser – to promote the new system. (Not the best look if you're fighting well-founded accusations of monopolistic practices.)
Mozilla, Apple, and Microsoft objected to Firefox, Safari, and Edge browsers respectively, and independent browsers also disabled the feature for the sake of their users. But even if you don't care about privacy, trying to replace a system that is so ingrained and important to the Internet has been a challenge. Google has significantly delayed its plans for a hard transition a few years agothen after that I made it optional.
