Google starts testing successor tracking for ads in Android

Google has started testing Privacy Sandbox, the set of technologies that will eventually replace tracking in Android. In the test, a small portion of Android 13 users are given 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, among other things, their interests, which classifies them in a certain cohort, for example a cohort with ‘users with interests in films’.

Users can see in the Privacy Sandbox front end what interests the system guesses they have and adjust them if necessary. This should give users more control over which advertisements they see. Tracking between apps must eventually disappear, Google says. That often bites with privacy legislation. On iOS, tracking between apps is already an opt-in system and many users do not consent to this.

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

Google Privacy Sandbox on Android