Google updates timeline for unpopular Privacy Sandbox, which will kill third-party cookies in Chrome by 2023
- Reference: 1627318352
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/07/26/google_privacy_sandbox_roadmap/
- Source link:
The [1]new timeline has split the bundle of technologies in the Privacy Sandbox into five phases: discussion, testing, implementation in Chrome (called "Ready for adoption"), Transition State 1 during which Chrome will "monitor adoption and feedback" and then the next stage that involves winding down support for third-party cookies over a three-month period finishing " [2]late 2023 ."
Although "late 2023" might sound a long way off, the timeline has revealed that "discussion" of the contentious FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) is planned to end in Q3 2021 – just a couple of months away – and that discussion for First Party Sets, [3]rejected by the W3C Technical Architecture Group as " harmful to the web in its current form," is scheduled to end around mid-November.
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Google said that "extended discussions and testing stages often produce better, more complete solutions, and the timeline for testing and ready for adoption of use cases might change accordingly," so the dates are not set in stone. There is no suggestion that any of the proposals will be withdrawn; the company appears to believe it can alleviate concerns by tweaking rather than abandoning its proposals.
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Discussion of the various pieces is set to take place in the W3C [7]Web Incubator Community Group (WICG), though at a FLEDGE WICG Call last week, Google's Michael Kleber, tech lead for Privacy Sandbox, suggested that the W3C would not be deciding which technologies are implemented, at least in the context of FLEDGE (formerly TURTLEDOVE), which enables auctions for personalised ads in a more private manner than today.
[8]Google herds FLoC back to the lab for undisclosed post-third-party-cookie ad tech modifications
[9]Google has second thoughts about cutting cookies, so serves up CHIPs
[10]Google: About that whole getting rid of third-party cookies thing – we're gonna need another year or so
[11]UK competition bods to keep tabs on Google, ensure 'Privacy Sandbox' doesn't distort competition
FLEDGE is competing for attention with the Microsoft-devised [12]PARAKEET and MaCAW . Asked by Julien Delhommeau, staff system architect at adtech company Xandr, if the WICG would get a say in whether FLEDGE or PARAKEET/MaCAW would be adopted, Kleber [13]said : "The W3C doesn't get to be the boss of anyone, the decisions are going to be made at each of the browsers. The goal isn't to have one winner and everyone else losing – the goal of W3C is to put out a bunch of ideas, understand the positives of each, and come to a chimera that has the most necessary features. Every browser seems to want convergence, long term, so figuring out how to make convergence happen is important."
The purpose of Google's Privacy Sandbox is to reduce user tracking while still enabling the adtech industry to show customised advertising to users.
"How can websites fund content by enabling third parties to show ads and measure ad performance – but not allow individual users to be profiled?" [14]asked Google Developer Advocate Sam Dutton. The company argued that removing personalisation from web advertising would greatly reduce advertising revenue. It ran its [15]own tests , disabling third-party cookies (which track users across the web) for randomly selected users, for its own ad manager system.
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"We observed that for the top 500 global publishers, average revenue in the treatment group decreased by 52 per cent, with a median per-publisher decline of 64 per cent," Google reported.
Therefore big money is involved, and nuances around questions like centralisation of yet more influence over the web in the hands of a few large companies, not least Google.
According to Kleber, when [17]asked if personalised advertising could be removed from the web, he said "while most of the sites in the world would lose 50-70 per cent of their revenue in the alternative you're advocating for, Google is not one of them." He made this claim on the basis that "Google makes most of its money from the ads that appear on Google Search," which do not require tracking technology.
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As we noted [19]here , with the exception of Apple, the voices of Google and the adtech industry are louder in this debate, than those of the privacy advocates. ®
Get our [20]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.privacysandbox.com/timeline/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/02/google_cookie_chips/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/08/w3c_google_multple_domains/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YP8wejmrCAp64oWaTBbwVAAAABA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YP8wejmrCAp64oWaTBbwVAAAABA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YP8wejmrCAp64oWaTBbwVAAAABA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://wicg.io/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/08/google_floc_changes/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/02/google_cookie_chips/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/25/google_thirdparty_cookies/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/11/uk_cma_privacy_sandbox/
[12] https://github.com/WICG/privacy-preserving-ads
[13] https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/main/meetings/2021-07-21-FLEDGE-call-minutes.md
[14] https://web.dev/digging-into-the-privacy-sandbox/
[15] https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/disabling_third-party_cookies_publisher_revenue.pdf
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YP8wejmrCAp64oWaTBbwVAAAABA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/21/google_privacy_sandbox_ask_me_anything/
[18] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YP8wejmrCAp64oWaTBbwVAAAABA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/08/google_floc_changes/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
No thanks.
"Kleber said: "The W3C doesn't get to be the boss of anyone..."
There speaks someone who knows that whatever Google wants, Google gets.
The arrogance is breathtaking and to actually come out and say, "The goal isn't to have one winner and everyone else losing..." Of course it is, and shows that with over 60% of the browser market Google has made sure that it alone is to be the beneficiary of any changes that it manages to ram through.
Google is likely to win if things go on as they are and the internet will be a poorer and more impoverished place for it.
And to think that I have always regarded Microsoft as the unacceptable face of the IT world. Google's hubris and disdain makes MS look positively cuddly.
What a load of PIGEONPOOP
As it sounds like all these rival empire builders have gone to the birds (although, admittedly, they did that years ago), may I propose another alternative spec: PIGEONPOOP. It doesn't actually do anything, apart from shit on everyone from a great height. You are very welcome to dream up expansions for the acronym if you wish.
If only there were some sort of Firebird [sic] which could fly over and raze these fenced-in gardens of poisonous plants to the ground…
Search engine revenues
Thinking about that aspect. The average user will not adjust search engine settings. As the dominate browser, google (other verbs are available) will get the searches and subsequent revenue.
Been trailing brave search beta (99% of searches brings back good results) having been on quackquackbing for a while. Using a default chrome browser the other day, wow first relevant result is half way down the page. Useless.
In my day, you typed a query and clicked on one of the top three results. But you try telling the kids of today... and they wont believe you.
Google = serve me irrelevant and unwanted advertising.
Re: Search engine revenues
Get a PiHole.
Re: Search engine revenues
Got one oh and a backup doesn't work on mobile tinterweb on someone else's phone though
Re: Search engine revenues
Google = serve me irrelevant and unwanted advertising for something I bought two weeks ago and am not likely to need again for ten years .
FTFY
Re: Search engine revenues
I bought some ratchet straps a month ago, now the YouTube home page keeps offering me videos about the bloody things.
They brought this
on themselves. Advertising companies just went too far and now they will pay the price. (Hopefully).
I am shedding real tears. (of laughter).
Re: They brought this
The problem is that those who buy the advertising space still believe that the "targeted" (trough personal browser and search history) ads are 1) really targeted and 2) sensibly targeted and thus 3) worth more money than other forms of targeting.
The problem is that since 1 and 2 are wrong, 3 is wrong as well. The examples are abundant in threads here on ElReg, so I won't repeat them.
What's wrong with advertising stuff related to the page content? No need to track people, and the ads might actually work[*] in that context. Say... IT and generally geeky stuff here, or tools on diy and home improvement websites? So, ads related to what I am looking at right now? Preferably without sound, moving pictures, java script etc.? Then I might actually reconsider the whole adblocking stuff (almost) everywhere (though blocking JS will stay in place, and this catches most of the annoying stuff).
[*] yeah, there will be the same problems with ads for stuff you don't need or already have - but this time the system does not pretend it is doing something extra special inteligent (<-- I'll leave that typo).
Personally...
I would have been more happy if they fixed some accessibility problem with the blink engine. Back around 2015, if a browser stopped working for me, I would switch the browser, and everything would turn out fine. But ever since the complete domination of google's engine, that strategy is useless.
We observed that for the top 500 global publishers, average revenue in the treatment group decreased by 52 per cent, with a median per-publisher decline of 64 per cent
Oh boo-fucking-hoo!
Just an app
Chrome slowly turns into a app for Gmail, Drive, Docs and so on... with an option to browse websites.
Once you start looking at Chrome like this, you will eventually stop calling it a browser.
Google has shot themselves in the foot spectacularly, they just don't know it yet.
Oh Really?
I think this is just evidence of how arrogant google has become, and why they seriously need to be taken down several pegs.
Not holding my breath though