Google plots further Privacy Sandbox trials but concerns still linger

By Ronan Shields

Google is preparing further Privacy Sandbox trials in its bid to shepherd the media industry toward a new staple for online ad delivery as its Chrome browser prepares to retire support for third-party cookies.

The developments follow a stuttering start and come just weeks after it unveiled the Topics API, a proposed means of continuing online ad targeting that it hopes will find more success than the now-defunct FLoC proposal after 2023.

Origin trials are coming…

Vinay Goel, product director, Privacy Sandbox, Chrome, announced that origin trials — Google’s means of testing experimental technologies with outside entities — in the canary version of the web browser earlier this week.

As part of the beta program, Google will allow third-party developers to test code for the Topics API with further updates expected in due course. Participants can also test Google’s proposals for managing ad auctions within the Chrome browser for ad retargeting known as FLEDGE. Developers will also be able to trial the Attribution Reporting API.

However, before we go into further detail, it’s worth taking stock of feedback Digiday received over the latest Privacy Sandbox proposals in recent weeks. In short, multiple sources expressed concerns that FLEDGE still leaves Google with too much control over the ad auction, and that Topics still doesn’t offer users enough privacy.

Although, despite such concerns, Google maintains that everything is still on course.

Vulnerabilities of the Topics API?

Prior to the unveiling of the Topics API in late January, Google held a series of roundtables sounding publishers’ opinions on its proposals to target Chrome users via cohorts, as opposed to the status quo of one-to-one identification, after concerns were raised over FLoC’s vulnerabilities to fingerprinting.

Through Topics, Google proposes targeting ads to people based on the categories of content they check out online but unlike FLoC, it proposes a much more general level of categorization. Per the proposals, Chrome will select five topics per person, including randomized categories (this is to prevent third parties from gaming the system) to assign to that person for the week. That’s Google’s pitch, anyway.

Topics still relies on this idea of cross-domain targeting and I don’t think that’s something we should be doing anymore

Anonymous publisher source

Critics maintain Google’s external dialog over Privacy Sandbox is mere lip service given the regulatory scrutiny it faces in both the European Economic Area and the U.S. Albeit, the online advertising giant would, of course, beg to differ.

Documentation from participants in the Private Advertising Technology Community Group — a body within the Worldwide Web Consortium that determines online technical standards (Google participates in this group) — details discussions over the Topics API.

At this level, discussions get incredibly technical but separate participants …read more

Source:: Digiday