Google Privacy Sandbox

“Privacy is paramount to us; in everything we do” – Justin Schuh (Director, Chrome Engineering)

Advertising is fundamental to support many web businesses, but it is often observed that the technology implemented by advertisers to make advertisement more relevant to customers is being used beyond its original design intent – some data practices do not match up with the user expectations for privacy. While trying to increase and expand its business with cloud and hardware; Google is primarily supported by advertising . Tracking of users for ads is in direct conflict with privacy. To build open standards that contribute to a more private web, Google has announced a “Privacy Sandbox” initiative.    

Google wants to secure users’ information when they click on any ad. Advertising is contributing for publishers . Google’s goal is that browser should limit the publisher to pick only relevant content or show relevant ads to the user and this should be done with sharing minimum browsing history.  Sand boxing is the feature that is included to enhance the security.

Users can clear cookies but they cannot clear their fingerprints. Fingerprinting allows developers to learn the information that differentiates the users. Additionally, by matching the unique identifier created by using this fingerprint information, they can easily track the user across different websites. Google Privacy sandbox key point is to stop Fingerprinting, it takes steps in order to prevent Fingerprinting.

One of the proposal is “Trust API” in which users have to fill the CAPTCHA once and then trust tokens are used to identify the user as a human. These tokens are anonymous and are not interlinked therefore, Google or anyone else is unable to identify the user.

Google also proposed “privacy budget” for fingerprinting. Similarly, Google offered other proposals as privacy sandbox but they did not give positive results.

The Conversion Measurement, FLoC, and PIGIN each aim to replace one of the current ways that third-party cookies are used for targeted advertisements. Google is relentlessly brainstorming way of continuing to serve targeted advertisements in a globe of post-third-party cookies. If cookies follow the path of the pop-up advertisement, Google will continue to target business as usual.