Next year, Google will get rid of third-party cookies, the tracking tool marketers and data hogs have used to follow you around the web since 1994. To replace the cookie, Google has an offering for the world. It’s called “Privacy Sandbox,” a set of proposed changes to Chrome and Android which—according to the company—will establish a targeted advertising system that’s much better for your privacy. This could fundamentally transform how any company makes money on the internet, and just about everyone, whether they love privacy or love targeted ads, has complaints. In an exclusive interview with Gizmodo, Google broke down its pitch. It’s an unprecedented peek at the inner workings of a tech giant’s master plan.
“We are making one of the largest changes to how the Internet works at a time when people, more than ever, are relying on the free services and content that the web offers,” said Victor Wong, Google’s senior director of product management for Privacy Sandbox. “I thought it was critical that we share how we’re approaching this.”
People on every side of the issue paint Wong and his team as a band of internet bogeymen. Some players that buy, sell, and deliver ads are terrified that Privacy Sandbox will cut off data that’s critical to their businesses. Paradoxically, consumer advocates say Privacy Sandbox just lets Google and others spy on you in a different way. Meanwhile, regulators across the globe are hunting for evidence that this is all a self-dealing play that will solidify a digital advertising monopoly.
In other words, Google needs to woo organizations whose interests are diametrically opposed if Privacy Sandbox is going to work. After years of technical updates and scrapped proposals, Google is switching to a charm offensive to convince the world to get on board. Wong published a blogpost Thursday that lays out the argument: the internet needs to be free, and we need targeted ads to keep it that way, but at the same time, we need a collaborative solution that brings the data free-for-all to a close.
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Right now, third-party cookies make it easy for just about anyone to track you as you hop around different parts of the web. These cookies are blocked in Apple’s Safari and other browsers like Firefox, but not in Google Chrome, the browser of choice for the vast majority of the world. When Chrome blocks those cookies, they’re effectively dead.
Apple made a change with similar impacts that lets iPhones users block some mobile data collection with a setting called App Tracking Transparency. But Apple didn’t offer much to replace that data, which caused massive disruption in the ad business. Google, which makes its money on ads, can’t nuke data collection without an alternative—especially when the Department of Justice is already accusing the company of an advertising monopoly in a looming lawsuit.
Privacy Sandbox is that alternative. It’s complicated, but the easiest way to explain it is that it turns Chrome and Android into tracking tools. Browsers and phones running on Google infrastructure will collect data about what you do, and advertising companies can use that information without learning your identity. The underlying data never leaves your device, and no one, not even Google, ever gets to see it, according to Wong. Google swears this change won’t hurt its competition either, because the technology is compatible with outside advertising systems and because it’s free to use.
One way to look at it is Google is attempting rewrite the rules of the internet with Privacy Sandbox. It certainly demonstrates Google’s supremacy. People get upset when you start wielding that kind of power, and convincing the world that everything will be fine is a delicate act with a $500 billion industry hanging in the balance. Gizmodo’s interview with Privacy Sandbox leader Victor Wong is a first-time look at the philosophy behind a move that’s going to change the digital world.
[This interview has been edited for clarity and consistency.]
Thomas Germain: So Victor, I want to start out by asking you, how it feels to be the guy who’s running something that’s going to transform the digital economy? That’s got to be pretty weird.
Victor Wong: Well, I feel a lot of responsibility for sure. There’s a lot riding on how we implement this. I think many of us have been really lucky to be put in this position to leverage all that information and that knowledge we’ve built over time and try to build something that works for everyone in the ecosystem. It’s not just for the platforms, not just for the users, not just for the businesses out there. I mean, it’s for everyone. So we put together this statement basically breaks down our approach to four key principles.
The first is we believe it’s important to keep privacy and access to information universal. The second being that we want to ensure that there are viable alternatives for that support industry, so that there can be actual privacy for the consumers. The third is that we really felt strongly that there has to be technical protections to ensure privacy, not just some sort of code of conduct or transparency. And then, lastly, we thought it was really important that we do all this in openness and collaboration with the whole industry. So if we meet those goals, you know, I think we’ll have built a durable, private Internet. I’m hoping that this letter is kind of a call to arms.
TG: So, I’m willing to believe that you or other individual people might be working on this because you care about people’s privacy? But corporations can’t do things like that. They have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to only do things that benefit their bottom line. Can you explain how this is good for Google’s business?
VW: As a business grounded in Search, the health of the internet ecosystem from websites to apps is critical to our success. We need to provide solutions that allow publishers, advertisers, and developers to thrive, because when the web succeeds, Google succeeds. We think people want to be able to browse freely rather than browse paywalls. And people’s privacy really should be universal goods, and not some sort of luxury brand, despite what others are trying to do. For Google, it’s really important that we keep that accessibility because we’re far worse off if we fail.
So the mission of the Privacy Sandbox team writ large is to keep people’s activity private across a free and open Internet, and that supports the broader company mission, which is to make sure that information is still accessible for everyone and useful. It’s not really helpful to have one or the other, but not both.
TG: This whole thing hinges on the argument that we’re better off if content is free, but that isn’t necessarily true. People are happy to pay for some content, and there are other business models. Netflix subscriptions are pretty popular, for example, and the publishing industry was doing a lot better back in the days when all we had was contextual advertising, where you show ads based on what’s on a page, instead of who’s looking at it. You can counter that by saying targeted advertising built the Internet, so need to preserve it. But why should people believe there’s no alternative? Isn’t there a way that this could work without collecting all this information?
VW: You know, I think, first of all, it makes sense for some publications to choose subscription as a model. But what I believe is that it’s great to have as many choices as possible for consumers. So to me, what makes the web great is the diversity of voices that I can easily and freely access. So I love that I can read publications like Gizmodo without hitting a paywall and knowing that they’re able to support themselves and produce great content, right? And you’re also seeing places like Netflix adding an ad supported tier. And that’s because a lot of people can’t actually afford it. Many of us, myself included, enjoy a lot of subscription services, but it’s easy to forget that not everyone has access.
TG: This speaks to a line line that stuck out to me in your blog post, which is that part of the goal is to “enable publishers and developers to keep online content free,” which seems like part of a broader argument to get publishers on board with Privacy Sandbox when there’s been some pushback. But how is it supposed to help publishers to keep their customers’ information from them?
VW: When I really step back and think about what we’re trying to accomplish, the goal is trying to make it possible to show relevant ads without showing who the user is, and ultimately to allow advertisers to know well their ads worked without knowing who saw them. If the outcome is that users are getting relevant experiences and advertisers know that their ads are working, then publishers are benefiting, consumers are benefiting, and ad tech is benefiting. We’re aiming for a win-win for the whole ecosystem. I don’t think collecting infinite amounts of data is necessary for publishers to succeed. Certainly, you know, it doesn’t hurt them either. But, you know, we’re trying to find a way to be more efficient.
TG: Google is a company that makes all of its money by tracking people and then Source: Gizmodo