Early last year, we covered Google’s plan of introducing a new way in which targeted ads would still be served to users, without the intrusive tracking that the current model has.
For the uninitiated, the current model relies on the “Advertising ID” which is the profile of an Android user from which developers can leverage to target in-app ads based on the behaviours of the user. The new implementation called the Privacy Sandbox will replace the Advertising ID with privacy-preserving APIs which according to Google will limit the data being shared with third parties and also remove cross-app identifiers while still supporting personalized ads.
“The Privacy Sandbox beta provides new APIs that are designed with privacy at the core, and don’t use identifiers that can track your activity across apps and websites… Apps that choose to participate in the beta can use these APIs to show you relevant ads and measure their effectiveness,” explains Anthony Chavez, Google’s vice president of Privacy Sandbox.
The first beta for Privacy Sandbox already went live on February 15th to a limited number of Android 13 devices. This limited rollout is to enable developers to test the new implementation in the real world. Google says that access to the beta will be expanded over time. If selected, you will receive an alert on your smartphone that you are eligible for the program.
Google has similar plans for Chrome, where they plan to phase out third-party cookies by 2024. However, the company says that despite the two projects sharing similar goals, they are using different technologies and will also be developed independently of each other.
Once selected for the beta, users will have the freedom of selecting which categories they want the ads to target and which not to. For instance, if you are receiving ads related to betting and gambling which you want to stop. You can navigate to the Privacy Sandbox settings and untick the betting and gambling category or a category that best describes the type of ads you are getting.
