Several years ago, Google boldly set out to replace third-party cookies in its Chrome browser (the browser that enjoys the largest user base by far), intending to offer up the Privacy Sandbox as its replacement. Now, Google has announced an update on the Privacy Sandbox that it will now be an optional measure instead of replacing third-party cookies altogether, in a pretty significant U-turn to its earlier strategy.
According to Google, the Privacy Sandbox is an effort to enhance users’ privacy while balancing the concerns of publishers and advertisers. Google’s hope was that it would win over all directly concerned parties, seemingly instituting a new privacy standard and doing away with its reliance on third-party cookies. Especially considering the fact that, as of the writing of this article, Google Chrome holds nearly two-thirds of the browser market share (according to StatCounter), it was aiming to significantly reshape a key part of how advertising works online.
Many outlets are reporting this as a dramatic reversal that could indicate that Google has lost confidence in its strategy, but as Google itself admits (to some degree), this move was largely the result of possible pressure from regulators, publishers, “participants in the advertising industry” (which, let's be honest, means paying advertisers), and other stakeholders.
The new optional status of the Privacy Sandbox
So, as things now stand, the Privacy Sandbox and third-party cookies will both be options that will coexist for users. Third-party cookies are a big deal when it comes to advertising online as they’re baked into the very mechanisms of the web, facilitating tracking the movement and behavior of users as they browse various sites. This enables advertisers to make their advertising more targeted and much more effective.
Google claims to not sell your cookie data (directly), but it seems to get as close as it can to doing that in a roundabout way. PCWorld points out that its practices such as Google’s with third-party cookies are what has raised much criticism, with websites being filled with hundreds of tracking points to collect data.
While the data itself might not get sold, companies like Google build collective profiles and identify hyper-specific advertising targets that do then get sold to advertisers. This practice is sometimes spoken about in a very negative light due to it possibly being an overreach and a disrespect to individual user privacy, which has earned companies like Google something of a reputation.
With third-party cookies, Google creates individual profiles of users, analyses data to do with aspects like demographics and interests, and then enables advertisers to target in that way. It also auctions off ad space that it indicates is lucrative based on its data (as reported in this closer look at Google’s practices from the Electronic Frontier Foundation). To counteract this, Google proposed the Privacy Sandbox to improve users’ privacy online in Chrome and in Android apps.
The Privacy Sandbox proposal was to replace its practices with individual cookies with semi-anonymous, wide blocks of users drawn from various demographic factors. PCWorld points out that current cookie tracking pretty much pinpoints a specific individual and tracks them, whereas Google’s new approach would possibly be milder with larger cumulative cookie blocks.
Privacy Sandbox - dead in the water or lurking in the deep?
Google is currently preparing to offer users both the option to continue allowing third-party cookies and the option to try the Privacy Sandbox. As of right now, users will also be able to switch from one to the other at any time, and the fact that Google hasn’t totally scrapped it tells me that the search engine giant hasn't been entirely discouraged from its mission. The choice isn’t available to users yet, nor do we know when it will be, and Google has said that the Privacy Sandbox is still being revised with input from regulators, so it’s subject to change.
We also don’t know how this will look on advertisers’ side and if conventional third-party cookies would be distinguished from Privacy Sandbox information. We’ll have to see if the Privacy Sandbox option is ever added to Chrome, but it looks like it has ways to go in convincing market competition and information regulators, advertisers, their fellow tech company peers, and privacy advocates (among many others) before that’s the case.
If Google wins all (or at least most) of these parties over, third-party cookies might see competition again one day - but until then, they're set to remain the status quo.
