Marketers were clearly relieved when, in June 2021, Google officially announced that it was delaying its cookie decommissioning project. I think that it should mobilize those who were not very interested in the subject before. But let’s start with the basics – what is this mystical “privacy sandbox” and what does it change in collecting and processing cookies? I invite you to read!

What is Privacy Sandbox from Google?

Google’s Privacy Sandbox proposal was presented in response to the withdrawal of cookies for third parties. Below I publish the speech of Google employees who presented solutions proposed during the Chrome Dev Summit 2019 conference.

The Privacy Sandbox aims to be a “comprehensive” solution, maintaining website traffic quality without third-party cookies. This change promises positive outcomes – reduced ad fraud, better bot traffic control, and content shown only to consenting users.

Notably, these initiatives also counter Apple, which first declared privacy a fundamental user right. Apple backed its words with action – recent iOS updates let users block tracking on nearly any website.

FLoC, FLEDGE and other privacy allies

During the conference, Google pinpointed critical areas requiring a stronger privacy strategy. These are areas such as advertising and its measurability, attribution reports, first-party cookie protection and fraud detection. I will briefly characterize selected initiatives.

• FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) – according to official information, FLoC is a new initiative that combines all browsers in a common mission of displaying what actually interests the user; other companies have shown no interest in this initiative, in the face of which FLoC will be based on data from Google for Google. Below, there is a very interesting graphic that shows the user profiling path according to his interests.
• FLEDGE (First Locally-Executed Decision over Groups Experiment) – responds to the needs of remarketing and identifying users who were on our website or performed a specific action; the mechanism on which FLEDGE is based is relatively simple – ad targeting is based on the pages viewed by the user and the data remaining in the browser history of this particular user, therefore it is not based on cookies; all data is associated with the Google Chrome browser, not third party cookies.
• Trust Token – a well-defined strategy called a “trust token” is supposed to enable the recognition and elimination of fraudulent clicks and fraud related to privacy; Simply put – these are re-captcha mechanisms known and disliked by users; well, the creators probably never assumed that machines will learn many times faster than humans, and the simple question “are you a robot” is going to prove to the user that he is this robot after all.
• Privacy Budget – an extremely interesting initiative, which is to define the limit of information that one browser can collect about a single user; unfortunately, the reasons for introducing this change are probably due to the fact that some mechanisms have so far included in data processing, fingerprints with which we logged in to devices using the touchID technology.
• WebID – another and the last of the initiatives selected by me as part of the Privacy Sandbox by Google, it assumes that when logging in, each page is required to provide the user with a login method instead of forcing, for example, logging in using an e-mail address or social networking site; a great plan, may its implementation go as well as assumptions.

New age of privacy

Google’s Privacy Sandbox project has modern, user-focused assumptions. These were partly driven by Apple’s privacy policy changes. Each initiative from Google’s privacy conference shows great potential. They address key online privacy issues, like user data protection. Users can now decline cookie consent. The project also uses cohort analysis instead of tracking individual behavior.

However, implementing such large initiatives requires cooperation from all parties. It also demands openness to change and adapting our actions. Above all, we must prioritize user protection. Finally, I leave very important dates, covering the stages of implementing the Privacy Sandbox from Google. And I will accept all your thoughts and comments with open arms. Read on soon!