It appears that Google’s Privacy Sandbox program is finally gaining traction.
The project, which was initially unveiled in August 2019, aimed to replace third-party browser cookies with a set of APIs that would limit the amount of information a browser gathers about a user’s activities. But despite little communication from the corporation, consumers have been waiting for the tool’s installation for almost four years.
However, we learned a bit more about the release of the Privacy Sandbox in a blog post from July 13 detailing what to anticipate from the launch of Chrome 115.
Adriana Jara, a developer relations engineer, stated that the Privacy Sandbox will be introduced in Chrome 115, which went live on July 18, by gradually eliminating the use of “third-party cookies and other mechanisms have been used to track user browsing behavior across sites to infer topics of interest.” They will instead make use of Topics API.
Chrome can share data with marketers and other third parties through the Topics API while still protecting user privacy. “Topics are a signal to help ad tech platforms select relevant ads,” writes Jara. In contrast to third-party cookies, this information is given without divulging any additional details about the user or their browsing history.
In other words, if a user visits a website on cats, the browser can remember “cats” as a topic of interest rather than the website that was actually viewed. Then, rather than being tied to any particular website, advertisers will send advertising about “cats” instead. The final outcome? Less precise user information will be available to the advertisers.
This does not imply that the Privacy Sandbox is finished now that Chrome 115 is available, according to Alphatrending. Before the Privacy Sandbox rollout, there are still a few tasks to complete, such as offering a testing option for advertisers to test their ideas in the Privacy Sandbox without using cookies and completely disabling third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users.
But even so, this is a significant step. Alpha Trending reports that Google plans to totally replace third-party cookies with APIs by the end of 2024.
