Google announced its intention to deprecate support for the third party tracking cookies that are used for targeting ads at individuals in its Chrome browser all the way back in 2019 — and has been working on a stack of what it claims are less intrusive alternative ad-targeting technologies (aka, the “Privacy Sandbox”) since then.
The basic idea is to shift away from ads being targeted at individuals (which is horrible for Internet users’ privacy) to targeting methods that put Internet users in interest-based buckets and serve ads to so-called “cohorts” of users (aka, FloCs) which may be less individually intrusive — however it’s important to note that Google’s proposed alternative still has plenty of critics (the EFF, for example, has suggested it could even amplify problems like discrimination and predatory ad targeting).
And many privacy advocates would argue that pure-play contextual targeting poses the least risk to Internet users’ rights while still offering advertisers the ability to reach relevant audiences and publishers to monetize their content.
Google’s Sandbox plan has attracted the loudest blow-back from advertisers and publishers, who will be directly affected by the changes. Some of whom have raised concerns that the shift away from tracking cookies will simply increase Google’s market power — hence the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opening an antitrust investigation into the plan in January.
As part of that probe, the CMA had already secured one set of commitments from Google around how it would go about the switch, including that it would agree to halt any move to deprecate cookies if the regulator was not satisfied the transition could take place in a way that respects both competition and privacy; and agreements on self-preferencing, among others.
A market consultation on the early set of commitments drew responses from more than 40 third parties — including, TechCrunch understands, input from international regulators (some of who are also investigating Google’s Sandbox, such as the European Commission, which opened its own probe of Google’s adtech in June) .
Following that, the first set of proposed commitments has been expanded and beefed up with additional requirements (see below for a summary; and here for fuller detail from the CMA’s “Notice of intent to accept the modified commitments”).
The CMA will now consult on the expanded set — with a deadline of 5pm on December 17, 2021, to take fresh feedback.
