Google slams Apple’s ad policies while promising to end cross-app tracking

Google’s privacy sandbox proves that it too wants its cake and eats it.

what you need to know

• Google has announced its new Privacy Sandbox initiative, which will update Google’s advertising policies over the next two years.
• Google claims its sandbox will limit third-party user data and secret data collection, while still serving targeted ads.
• The statement suggests that other platforms, such as iOS, have taken an “ineffective” approach to prioritizing full privacy at the expense of advertisers.
• Google recently received regulatory approval for the program in the UK.

Google officially announced its new Android privacy sandbox on Wednesday, days after receiving approval from U.K. regulators for its new plan. It’s a “multi-year plan” that will “limit the sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising IDs.”

Essentially, Google wants to eliminate “secret data collection” and secret ad profiles for its Android customers, while still serving up targeted ads so that free apps remain profitable. According to Google, the new mobile privacy policy has the potential to disrupt the entire Play Store system, where “over 90 percent of apps” are free.

In its unequivocal reference to Apple, Google noted “how other platforms have approached ad privacy differently, bluntly limiting existing technology used by developers and advertisers” and claimed that approach “doesn’t work.”

Google suggested, citing a blog post written by a former Apple employee, claiming that Apple’s app tracking transparency doesn’t actually prevent third parties from tracking connection attempts its A privacy approach would be better.

Google has introduced various solutions to this problem, including FLoC ads that replace cookies and its theming API. But with the negative reaction to FLoC from advertisers, Google plans to use the privacy sandbox to regularly push its new ideas directly to advertisers and solicit feedback, avoiding another public failure.

Regardless of what happens to the privacy sandbox, Google’s current advertising standards will remain in place for at least two years. So any eventual changes will likely skip Android 13 and 14. But it will release a beta version of its new ad program “by the end of the year” and may soon use Chrome on Android phones in some form.