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IAB Tech Lab Says The Chrome Privacy Sandbox Is A Time Bomb That Will Break Real-Time Bidding
Source: AdExchanger
February 6th, 2024
Summary: In an analysis released Tuesday, the IAB found that only a small number of the 44 digital advertising use cases it studied would still work with Google's Privacy Sandbox APIs. Some of the prominent shortcomings cited in the report include frequency capping, running VAST tags, building custom audiences that can be used across domains, building lookalike audiences, exclusion targeting, multi-touch attribution, and more. Google, which wasn't invited to participate in the analysis, responded (predictably), calling the report full of "fundamental errors, inaccuracies, and instances of incomplete information." Google will release a full response soon. The IAB is taking comments on the analysis over the next 45 days.
Meanwhile, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) released its own report on the Privacy Sandbox last week and says Google can't pull the plug on cookies until the company resolves its concerns. The CMA is also worried that the Sandbox doesn't support all digital advertising use cases, which could drive spend to walled gardens (including its own). The CMA wants Google to ensure that the Sandbox proposals don't strengthen the market position of Google Ad Manager and its other ad products and services. The CMA is also concerned that the Topics API (for targeting) will hurt small ad tech firms.
As the drama swirls around the Privacy Sandbox, many marketers seem content to keep their heads buried in the sand. Yes, some marketers are testing third-party cookie alternatives, but ad tech and agency sources say the status quo appears to be to wait and see if this thing is really going to happen.
Opinion: Here we go again. On one hand, it’s great that the IAB Tech Lab and CMA are scrutinizing the Privacy Sandbox closely. Someone needs to step up and hold Google accountable to roll this thing out in the right way—and in a way that doesn’t increase Google’s advantages (although we’re not quite sure that’s possible). On the other hand, if the scrutiny and doubt push cookie deprecation out further, then the purgatory continues, and we’re all worse off for it …
The Tech Lab report, which was written in collaboration with major ad tech companies (except Google), focuses on how the Privacy Sandbox APIs won’t enable advertising use cases that the industry has become accustomed to. Of course the Tech Lab and ad tech companies are pissed off about this kind of disruption! They don’t want to deal with a sea change in how the ad industry builds products and goes to market, not to mention how the shift will impact the effectiveness of ad tech. The changes will make life hard and expensive, and for some companies, they will be untenable. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? The idea is that digital advertising is broken from a consumer privacy standpoint, so a sea change is needed. Even if that means that your run-of-the-mill SSP that was harvesting data across domains and using it for cross-site tracking won’t be able to run a business anymore. Ya know? Hey, Google! We feel you! (for once)
We hope this is all just healthy, well-intentioned jostling with the end goal of coming to a solid middle ground and moving forward into a cookieless future holding hands. At first glance, that’s what it seems like. Onward ho!
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