The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) now has 111 potential concerns about Google’s Privacy Sandbox, according to its report for the first quarter of April 2024. That’s up from 72 in the CMA’s Q4 2023 report, released in January.
Why we care The CMA’s January report made it clear that Google could not continue disabling third-party cookies. Indeed, Google announced a third delay in phasing out cookies, hoping to complete the process by 2025. But again, that’s just a delay. Third-party cookies will disappear.
Why the worries? The UK’s CMO and Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) are concerned that 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. An addition to the report addresses concerns about Google’s approach to attribution:
“Stakeholders have expressed further concerns about Google’s approach to multi-touch attribution, arguing that one-touch attribution is likely to favor Google.” “For example, a current user journey might involve seeing an ad multiple times across different properties (eg, a publisher’s 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 value from conversions than other market participants.” “We have shared this comment with Google and await their response.”
What is the Google Privacy Sandbox? Google is introducing the Privacy Sandbox program as an alternative to third-party cookies to allow advertisers to serve ads targeted to Chrome while minimizing inappropriate tracking between sites and apps.
Maybe in 2025. Google began phasing out third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users in January. However, Google announced another delay to the deactivation of third-party cookies on April 24:
“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from industry, regulators and developers, and we will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It is also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all the evidence , including the results of industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.Given these two significant considerations, we will not complete the deactivation of third-party cookies during the second half of the quarter quarter. We remain committed to working closely with the CMA and the ICO and hope to conclude this process this year. Assuming we can reach an agreement, we expect to proceed with the deactivation of third-party cookies early next year.” .
the report You can read the CMA Q1 2024 report here (PDF).
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