One of the most used web browsers in the world, Google Chrome will be becoming more secure in the next couple of years. This involves making the browser capable of preventing websites and cookies from tracking your personal details. Google just unveiled its plans to implement ‘Privacy Sandbox’, a new initiative by the firm that aims to make third-party cookies obsolete over time, by later this year. And the search giant plans to implement it fully by 2022.
Talking about Privacy Sandbox and its growth in the future in a blog post, Google Chrome’s director of engineering, Justin Schuh said “Once these approaches have addressed the needs of users, publishers, and advertisers, and we have developed the tools to mitigate workarounds, we plan to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome. Our intention is to do this within two years.” He added that “We plan to start the first origin trials by the end of this year, starting with conversion measurement and following with personalization.”
It is worth adding that this tech will enter the testing phase starting with Chrome’s web version. There is no word when (or if) Google will bring Privacy Sandbox to Chrome for mobile.
Introduced in August last year, Privacy Sandbox is an open-source standard that deals with the website’s cookies and how they track you. As explained by the search giant last year, blocking cookies that store your information to show relevant ads online, at a large scale undermine’s your privacy as it encourages ‘opaque’ techniques such as fingerprint, which can reveal the device you use and some other details as well. On the other hand, blocking cookies without giving another way to deliver relevant ads can reduce the publisher’s funding, which is also not good for the web.
So, Privacy Sandbox is a solution by Google that plays well for both the ad industry and publishers. Privacy Sandbox has an upper limit on the data that different websites can gather. It also has ‘trust token’ for websites that can separate genuine users from bots and spammers. This will prevent them from tracking you personally. There are other tools as well to group people on the basis of their interests without compromising on the privacy and your internet address.
