Google: Privacy Sandbox makes case for collaboration

Google continues to campaign for the adoption of its new post-cookie solution – a senior director on the product has spoken to the industry about the principles that the forthcoming system will adhere to as it navigates the complex waters of post-cookie adtech.

Victor Wong, Senior Director of Product Management, Privacy Sandbox, spoke to Gizmodo in a wide-ranging interview about the development principles of the Sandbox and what it means for different stakeholders, following a blog post/mission statement published last week .

Why it matters

The demise of the cookie is planned for 2024, after that, Google – the operator of the Chrome web browser and Android mobile operating system – will introduce the Privacy Sandbox, a new way of targeting advertising on the internet. Other browsers have phased out their use already, but Chrome is by far the largest out there.

Wary of being seen as too dominant over the industry, the company is keen to avoid a unilateral move like Apple’s implementation of ATT. Recognising the iPhone maker’s intentions as noble, Google argues that it doesn’t want to prohibit tracking, as that could drive fingerprinting practices underground.

What’s the Privacy Sandbox, again?

• It’s the network of systems that Google will deploy to target and measure advertising once its browsers and devices stop supporting cookies and, mobile ad identifiers.
• The aim is to limit sharing user data in a way that protects user privacy, while building a new set of protocols that can sustain the advertising business that fuels both Google and many other apps and services.
• It does this largely by grouping user behaviours on the internet based on topics rather than individuals’ data. Despite this system-change, the company argues that it will be compatible with other advertising technologies.

What’s going on

In the interview, Wong addressed a handful of key ideas:

The balance between an open and a private internet: “we believe it’s important to keep privacy and access to information universal”, he says; “we want to ensure that there are viable alternatives for that support industry, so that there can be actual privacy for the consumers.”

“We’re not only minimizing the data used by advertisers to show the relevant ads, but also protecting users against profiling by like data brokers who may sell that individual data for other purposes.”

• For itself: Google needs a flourishing internet to sustain its advertising business: “If we did something that broke a bunch of different parts of the Internet, that would be bad for us, like really bad.”
• For publishers: “the goal is trying to make it possible to show relevant ads without showing who the user is, and ultimately to allow advertisers to know well their ads worked without knowing who saw them.” Adding: “I don’t think collecting infinite amounts of data is necessary for publishers to succeed.”
• For people: “what they really want when they think about a private Internet is being able to access great content without necessarily having to pay for privacy, or having to give up personal information like, let’s say, a persistent identifier like your email address in order to access that content.”

Final word

On the privacy sandbox’s criticism from publishers, consumer groups, privacy advocates, and adtech, Wong notes Google’s complex position in the middle of it all: “I think it’s telling us that we’re doing things right”.

Sourced from Gizmodo, Google