Skepticism Surrounding the Privacy Sandbox

  • The new report by the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) expresses serious concerns regarding Google's initiative to disable third-party cookies. The list of issues consists of 79 points.
  • The Office of the Information Commissioner (ICO) has actively joined the discussion for the first time. Their main arguments concern data protection in the Privacy Sandbox.
  • Google has again postponed the disabling of third-party cookies, possibly not for the last time.

The April report from the CMA contains a list of 79 issues (up from 39 in January), which #Google needs to resolve. Most of them are deeper versions of old concerns that Privacy Sandbox will further solidify Google's dominant position in the advertising world.

ICO's Involvement

For the first time, the ICO's opinion on personal data protection within the Privacy Sandbox has become part of the discussion. Both regulators have raised red flags, pointing to gaps that could breach privacy, compromise user anonymity, cause delays in website operation, and more.

"These are fundamental issues that will not be resolved overnight," says James Rosewell, founder of the Movement for an Open Web (MOW) — a coalition of anonymous companies and industry players. "The fact that the list of issues grows as the date for phasing out third-party cookies approaches suggests that Google has tied itself in knots that it simply cannot untangle."

New Deadlines and Possible Delays

Given all this, it's not surprising that Google has decided to once again postpone the deadline for disabling third-party cookies. It is increasingly clear that future delays may follow, given the broad spectrum of issues raised by the regulator, from managerial to questions about the benefits of Privacy Sandbox for YouTube.

Certainly, three months were not enough to resolve all 39 issues from the January report, but the fact that all old problems migrated to the new report and were not resolved indicates that Google may not be capable of solving them at all.

For instance, Google is considering providing buyers with information about views and clicks, the report states. This is a step in the right direction as it could help buyers optimize their programmatic auctions in the Chrome browser. However, it does not address a more serious problem associated with these auctions: that Privacy Sandbox will ultimately maintain Google's status as a top seller, who knows everything about the market, and thus, has influence over large advertising budgets.

CMA's Comment

"We continue to discuss these issues with Google. It is a priority for us right now."

Market Reaction

Despite minor progress, critics and skeptics are not expecting miracles. They acknowledge the complexity of Google's task but doubt the company's sincerity in its efforts to make Privacy Sandbox work.

"CMA rightly put the brakes on and pushed Google to resume communication with the market. The devil is in the details when you look at Privacy Sandbox — much of what is claimed just doesn't work," said Drew Stein, CEO of the advertising technology business Audigent.

To Publishers

It might seem that we all have nothing to do with a British regulator having questions for an American company. However, the case unfolding in the UK has far-reaching implications for the entire industry. In particular, for publishers, the longer third-party cookies remain "relevant," the longer their audience will stay tagged and understandable to the buyer (and therefore, more valuable). At the same time, the delay will give solution developers time to invent something else.

Forecast

Google will continue to make changes to Privacy Sandbox, but concerns from regulators and stakeholders will not disappear. This will cause further delays. Perhaps the problems Google will face are so fundamental that a radical overhaul of approaches will be required.

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