Last year, Apple added App Tracking Transparency to iOS, and the shift in data flow from mobile users was enough to upset even Facebook. Now Google, which relies on targeted advertising for its business model, is preparing its own multi-year approach to mobile ad tracking and privacy.
As of today, app developers can get their first look at the new system as the first developer preview of Privacy Sandbox on Android rolls out, following the path of similar tests in Google’s Chrome browser on the desktop.
This new plan is supposed to replace Android’s existing advertising ID, which is a user-reset ID for each device with a Privacy Sandbox with “new, more private advertising solutions.” Like Apple’s approach, it claims to limit the data shared with third parties and cut out IDs across apps, but we still do not know exactly what technology can be implemented. This developer example works on top of Android 13 Developer Beta with images for Pixel phones from Pixel 4 to current Pixel 6 models.
Google’s pitch has been that it can find a way to protect users’ privacy better than existing solutions, while still providing information for targeted advertising that runs on websites like this and inside many free apps. Critics, including competitors, privacy advocates and regulators, have suggested that their approaches would harm privacy and possibly give Google an unfair advantage that harms competition. An antitrust lawsuit against Google by 15 state AGs targeted the Privacy Sandbox last year.
Developers testing it will get an early look at the Privacy Sandbox and Google’s cookie-replacing Topics API – and find out how they could work in practice.