We have been regularly working to provide consistent updates on the timings, plans and implications of future third-party cookie deprecation within Google’s Chrome browser – as Chrome remains the most widely used web browser in Australia. The proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs are a suite of technologies designed to replace third-party cookies and enable digital advertising whilst protecting consumer privacy.
Six months ago, Chrome released the Tracking Protection feature to 1% of users globally (click here to read more about this) which proposes to limit cross-site tracking by restricting website access to third-party cookies.
Today, in a significant update to the proposed changes Privacy Sandbox has announced that consumers will be given the opportunity to make an informed choice as to whether or not they wish to disable third-party cookies as a part of their browsing experience in Chrome. To quote Anthony Chavez – VP, Privacy Sandbox:
“Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time.”
Key Considerations & Global Feedback
Obviously a number of key questions remain as to the actual execution of this as an experience such as is this a consumer opt-in or an opt-out, and what is the potential impact on volumes of ad campaigns that will require the use of Google’s various Privacy Sandbox APIs for competent management and measurement. We fully expect to hear more news on these various details in the coming weeks.
In terms of precedence for similar approaches we can look at Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature (ATT). In April 2021, from Apple’s iOS version 14.5 onwards, for all iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV devices – app developers were obliged to gain consumer opted-in permissions to track their activity across other apps and websites via their device’s advertising identifier (IDFA), for targeted advertising and to measure campaign effectiveness. In Australia the opt-in rates fluctuated from around 25% initially in 2021, up to an average nearer to 40% currently in 2024. These rates do vary between different types of apps and also can depend upon the effectiveness of the pre-prompt notifications and consumer awareness of how this choice will affect their experiences. Click here to review an article we wrote at the time on this topic.
Ultimately, the ongoing engagement between Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will remain critical. The CMA is the principal competition regulator in the United Kingdom and as a reminder – the timings for all the privacy proposals for Chrome are subject to discussions between the CMA and Google, based upon the legally binding commitments made by Google in February 2022. The latest update from them regarding this announcement is below, including a request for feedback by August 12th 2024:
Additionally, as we await an update from local government here on the ongoing Privacy Review, it’s interesting to review the feedback in Europe from Alliance Digitale in France:
Meanwhile, also in Europe, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office released the below statement. The ICO is an independent authority established to provide practical information about data protection and information rights to both consumers and organisations – and they work very closely with the aforementioned CMA.
Our Recommendations to Industry
A significant volume of future ad campaigns will still require the use of Google’s various Privacy Sandbox APIs for competent management and measurement – so we continue to recommend that both buyers and sellers continue to fully engage with, and fully test, the full range of evolving solutions for both web-based and in-app environments provided by the likes of Google, Microsoft and Apple.
We will continue to support local industry through these ongoing changes via our working groups, councils and at our various dedicated industry events across Australia throughout the calendar year.
Other Recent Announcements Related to Privacy Sandbox
Alongside the announcement regarding 3PC informed choice, a formal confirmation that the IP Protection proposal in incognito mode in Chrome was also mentioned as a key project for release next year. This proposed solution will route third-party traffic from specific domains via proxies, so as to make a consumers’ IP address invisible to those domains. To read more about the IP Protection proposal click here
Additionally, and at around the same time, some results were released from Google testing ads in Privacy Sandbox vs. third-party cookies.
The buyside results can be found here – and the sellside results are here, which also included the below:
IAB Tech Lab’s Final Privacy Sandbox Fit Analysis
It is also well worth reviewing the final version of IAB Tech Lab’s Privacy Sandbox Fit Analysis published by the Privacy Sandbox Taskforce in June 2024. As a reminder this group was created in order to:
- To give the ad tech industry a frame of reference against how things work today.
- Create a call to action for the industry to start testing.
- Provide the Google Chrome Sandbox team with feedback on key product and operational challenges with the Protected Audience API (PAAPI).
A link to this analysis is below, and we are hopeful that this group will be engaged by Google to review and help define what industry requirements could be for any proposed ‘elevated user choice‘ approach.
Watch this space…
