It’s been a long time coming and we’ve got a long way to go with Privacy Sandbox
Google makes the bulk of its money by selling and placing ads that are relevant to the users of its platforms whether it’s Search, Chrome, or Android. The company has been under pressure to protect the privacy of its users while conducting its business. The process hasn’t been easy — its initial replacement for tracking cookies was crushed under public scrutiny — and target dates have been moved back multiple times. Today marks a positive milestone, though, as Google is launching its Privacy Sandbox beta for Android.
Privacy Sandbox, the tech giant’s next-gen toolkit for handling users’ browsing data for ad personalization, came to Chrome as a beta in late March last year. It was also put on Android as a developer preview — those who wanted to try out the new APIs and SDKs had to use an emulator. These include an enriched Advertising IDs scheme plus the all-new Topics API which is meant to replace cookies, the new FLEDGE API that’s meant to handle ad placements, and the SDK Runtime to let app code run separate from ad code, among others.
The beta will allow app developers who have signed up for it back in November to try the new sandbox tools on their apps with real hardware running Android 13. A small percentage of signees will get the opportunity first via notification on their devices, but the pool will grow with time. The Privacy Sandbox developer preview for Android, now on its seventh iteration, will continue on with fast-tracked updates compared to the beta.
Google hopes it can have its Privacy Sandbox for both Android and Chrome battle-tested and ready for a public launch by 2024.
