#Number of concerns over Google Privacy Sandbox grow to 111
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The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority’s quarterly report comes after Google pushed its cookie deprecation to 2025.
Why we care. The CMA’s January report made it clear that Google couldn’t proceed with third-party cookie deprecation. Sure enough, Google announced a third delay in the phase-out of cookies, with hopes to complete the process in 2025. But again, this is just a delay. Third-party cookies will go away.
Why the concerns? The CMO and the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) are concerned the Privacy Sandbox could make Google even more dominant, giving them an unfair advantage that could hurt advertisers, competing ad platforms, publishers and users.
Multi-touch concerns. One addition to the report is around concerns over Google’s approach to attribution:
- “Stakeholders have expressed further concerns around Google’s approach to multi-touch attribution, arguing that ‘single touch’ attribution is likely to advantage Google.”
- “For example, a current user journey may involve seeing an ad several times on different properties (e.g. a publisher site, their social media feed, etc) before the user takes an action. Users may also act on their intent to convert by searching for the advertised product. Stakeholders are concerned that Google is likely to be the ‘last touch’ and therefore capture more of the value from conversions than other market participants.”
- “We have shared this feedback with Google and await its response.”
What is Google’s Privacy Sandbox? Google is introducing the Privacy Sandbox program as an alternative to third-party cookies to enable advertisers to deliver targeted ads in Chrome while minimizing improper cross-site and cross-app tracking.
- Dig deeper. Google’s Privacy Sandbox: What you need to know on MarTech.
Maybe 2025. Google started phasing out third-party cookies to 1% of Chrome users in January. However, Google announced yet another delay to third-party cookie deprecation on April 24:
“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June. Given both of these significant considerations, we will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4. We remain committed to engaging closely with the CMA and ICO and we hope to conclude that process this year. Assuming we can reach an agreement, we envision proceeding with third-party cookie deprecation starting early next year.”
Privacy Sandbox update
The report. You can read the CMA Q1 2024 report here (PDF).
Danny Goodwin has been Managing Editor of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo – SMX since 2022. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events.
Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.
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