As Google begins the long-awaited phase-out of third-party cookies, there’s a new “space” they’re creating to be its successor. Google Privacy Sandbox is an initiative with a dual role — protecting consumer privacy and giving companies tools to build digital businesses.
While not new, Google Privacy Sandbox is becoming more relevant as Chrome prepares to sunset cookies. As a local media seller, knowing the basics about this will also grow in importance as you explain the new realm of programmatic advertising.
What Is Google Privacy Sandbox?
Google Privacy Sandbox involves using APIs (application programming interfaces) that enable users to protect information while browsing on Chrome. It has three goals:
- Phasing out third-party cookies and limiting covert tracking
- Reducing cross-site and cross-app tracking while keeping online content and services accessible to all
- Collaborating with publishers, developers and advertisers to build new internet privacy standards
A Refresher on Third-Party Cookies
Third-party cookies have been a foundational part of third-party advertising. They are part of a script or tag and are accessible on any website. They are “third-party” because the domains collecting them don’t own the website a user visits. The original intent for these was for a better user experience so websites “remembered” users coming back to a shopping cart. When advertisers learned of third-party cookies’ capabilities, they began to use them for monetization.
Third-party cookies actually have many drawbacks in terms of efficacy and relevance. Replacing them has been a hot topic for several years, but what comes next could be much better for targeting. Get more insights on what’s next by listening to our interview with The Trade Desk’s Katy Sokolowski.
Google Privacy Sandbox APIs: The Shift to Interest-Based Targeting
As noted, browser APIs are the foundation of the Privacy Sandbox. As it’s a work in progress, we don’t know exactly how things will play out. Here’s what we do know about APIs:
- Trust-Token API: Differentiates between human and bot traffic
- Aggregated Reporting API: Provides performance-related metrics (impressions, views, reach, etc.)
- Conversion Measurement API: Helps advertisers determine if a user converted by clicking an ad
- Privacy Budget: Limits sites from collecting user data to ensure that only the most necessary data passes to it
- Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC): Groups users together based on interests with browsing history as the determiner to create flocks
- Turtle Dove: Passes flocks to the ad tech platform for targeting
In summary, users’ data will be secure within their own browsers. Interest discoverability will rely on browsing history. Based on this, users will be grouped into flocks. The API will signal only the groups of these users for targeting. The remaining APIs support activities like reporting, fraud detection and conversion tracking.
How this will work in reality is unknown, but the first phase is underway.
Tracking Protection Has Launched
Google began testing its tracking protection on January 4, 2024. They chose participants at random, and they received a notification on Chrome. For these users, browsing websites will no longer include third-party cookies. Google noted that some may receive errors on websites that aren’t working correctly without the cookies. Users would then have the option to reenable them.
The Next Generation of Programmatic Advertising
While the future is still uncertain, Google is moving ahead. Since they have the greatest browsing market share, what they do will impact every advertiser. Being ready to explain it and introduce the next generation of advertising will be critical, and we’ll keep you posted!
