Google officially started testing Privacy Sandbox through Android devices today, hoping to allow advertisers to place personalized ads without compromising too much personal information. Especially after the cookie technology is about to be withdrawn, the industry needs to continue to prepare high-precision personalized advertising content under the condition of more respect for personal information.
One of the new solutions from the Privacy Sandbox is the Topic API. After analyzing the user usage data, it is classified according to each “interest topic”, and then compared with the data of the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Google, and finally through the API. Provide the most suitable advertising content. Google emphasizes that the relevant interest topic data “will only be stored for 3 months, and older content will be deleted”. At the same time, the relevant data and processing will be completed on the local device, and will not involve external or Google servers.
In addition to Android, Google is also planning to switch Chrome browsers to Privacy Sandbox. Their schedule shows that there have been discussions and feedback from developers for about a year. Google revealed that it has received comments from hundreds of companies.
In response to the decommissioning of the Cookies program, in addition to Google, Apple also has an alternative program to hand over App Tracking Transparency (App Tracking Transparency). However, Google described ATT as not a targeted solution, because they believed that it failed to make up for the reduced revenue of app developers and advertisers due to the decommissioning of cookies.
Internet content can be “free to use”, and most of it is obtained by users in exchange for “personal privacy”. Therefore, Google, as a large advertiser, also needs to hand over a tool that can balance the acquisition of personal information and the needs of advertisers.
Google said that they will gradually push the Privacy Sandbox public beta version. First, they will start the trial for “a small percentage of Android 13 devices”. The selected owners will see a notification prompt, and if they accept it, they will jump to the new Privacy Sandbox panel Review and select topics of interest, and of course there will also be an option to opt out of the test.