UPDATE: February 6, 2024: A Google spokesperson provided the next comment to Marketing Dive following this story’s publication: “We all the time welcome input from the industry, nevertheless, IAB Tech Lab’s report includes dozens of fundamental errors, inaccuracies and instances of incomplete information. While we’re upset that IAB Tech Lab released the report on this state, we’re encouraged by the various IAB members who’re actively constructing solutions using the Privacy Sandbox APIs. And we look ahead to partnering with the IAB Tech Lab in transitioning the industry toward more private solutions.”
- Two industry watchdogs are raising concerns about Google’s shift away from third-party cookies in Chrome toward a Privacy Sandbox initiative built on alternative ad-targeting methods.
- In separate reports, the IAB Tech Lab and U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) viewed the move as potentially disadvantaging other players within the digital promoting ecosystem and leading to fresh problems in areas resembling ad fraud and brand safety.
- The IAB Tech Lab, which has opened its findings for public comment, concluded that the industry is just not yet ready for the change while arguing that the tweaks to Chrome don’t yet form a “viable business foundation.” The CMA emphasized that Google “cannot proceed with third-party cookie deprecation” until its anticompetitive concerns around Privacy Sandbox are resolved.
Google delayed the death of the cookie several times after announcing its intentions to kill off the mainstay ad-targeting tactic back in 2020. Now that the search giant’s first stage of its plan to deprecate cookies is in effect, industry watchdogs are sounding alarm bells in regards to the viability of a transition to Privacy Sandbox in its current state. Cookies began winding down for a small percentage of Chrome users in January, with the goal of expanding deprecation more broadly within the second half of 2024. Privacy Sandbox is built around two alternative ad-targeting solutions, a Topics API based on user interests and a Protected Audience API, formerly referred to as FLEDGE.
The IAB Tech Lab, a nonprofit consortium for developing best practices for digital promoting, highlighted several key issues it identified with Privacy Sandbox, including how the implementation of an ad exchange and ad server in Chrome could disrupt the present programmatic ecosystem and the loss of knowledge points needed to make sure brand safety. The upshot is that the group believes ad-tech firms on the availability and demand side may tackle significant costs retooling their systems to account for these changes while brands, agencies and publishers will contend with headaches on the operational, financial and legal ends.
The IAB Tech Lab’s evaluation was drawn from consulting with 65 firms across a variety of practices over six months and focused predominantly on the implications of the Protected Audience APIs while still touching on other subjects just like the Topics API. This is the primary report from the organization’s dedicated Privacy Sandbox Taskforce.
“Embracing Google’s Privacy Sandbox is a seismic shift within the promoting landscape, departing from the industry’s trajectory over the past 25 years,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, in a press release attached to the report, which is open for public comment through March 22.
“Our findings highlight that the industry isn’t ready yet and discover multiple challenges to implementation on account of limitations in accomplishing key promoting objectives,” continued Katsur. “Chrome is targeted on providing discrete components that support facets of use cases, but which ultimately can’t be assembled into an entire that gives a viable business foundation.”
The CMA, an antitrust regulator, similarly foresees Privacy Sandbox giving Google a possible leg up while creating obstacles for smaller digital promoting players. For instance, Google could also be less reliant on the Topics API on account of its access to troves of first-party data. The CMA also raised the problem of what entity could be answerable for the Topics API taxonomy, noting that “transitioning ownership to an external, industry-run group” may resolve the issue of Google stacking the deck in its own favor.
Google and the CMA are currently in a standstill period as they hash out the specifics of the best way to move forward with the Privacy Sandbox over the subsequent few months. The CMA said it will publish its next report update on the matter in April.
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