Google begins testing successor tracking for ads in Android

Google has started testing Privacy Sandbox, the set of technologies that should eventually replace tracking in Android. In the test, a small portion of Android 13 users will have the opportunity to try out the software.

Various apps will also try out Privacy Sandbox, says Google. Instead of individual tracking, the system divides users into cohorts based on user data. Users are assigned values, based on their interests, among other things, which classify them in a certain cohort, for example a cohort with ‘users with interests in movies’.

Users can see in the frontend of Privacy Sandbox what interests the system guesses they have and adjust them if necessary. As a result, users should have more control over which ads they see. Tracking between apps should eventually disappear, says Google. It often bites with privacy legislation. On iOS, tracking between apps is already an opt-in system and many users do not consent to it.

The standards of the Privacy Sandbox initiative have been applied in Chrome since 2019. It should eventually come in all Android phones, but it is still a limited test. Google sees tracking-free ads as necessary for the future.

Google Privacy Sandbox on Android