Google’s Privacy Protection Mode is coming to Android

The iPhone maker’s iOS restrictions have ripped apart the mobile marketing tactic with familiar names including Facebook and Snapchat among its victims, and now similar changes are coming to Android.

The operating system that Google controls accounts for nearly 70% of all mobile phones in the world, with Google confirming that beta testing of its privacy box will begin on Android early next year this week. The following are the main processes that media practitioners need to know.

Maids

How will Google differ from Apple in changing access to the MAID?

This is the main question on everyone’s lips given how Apple’s depletion of its own user identifier, known as the “ID for Advertisers” or IDFA, has hindered mobile advertising on iOS devices.

IDFAs mean that nearly every party in advertising technology can profit from advertising to — and tracking — iPhone users. But since 2020, Apple has been blocking that with the concept of specifically asking users for their consent before they can monetize.

While Google follows suit with the end of its MAID service, known as Google AdID, its decline is (expectedly) more gradual. Sources tell Digiday that Google has already instigated meetings with ad tech companies regarding how they can develop audience targeting on Android devices, a stark contrast to Apple’s one-sided approach.

Mike Brooks, COO of advertising technology group The Verve Group, noted the contrast between Apple’s and Google’s approaches, praising the latter’s collaborative process. “They realize they need adoption for this to work,” he added.

The good news for the mobile advertising industry is that Google has committed to preserving the Google AdID for “the next two years at leastWith the company’s recommendation that primaries for the media trading sector continue with its ad serving and measurement partners before beta testing begins next year.

APIs testing

The registration process For those looking to test new solutions, or APIs, the usual list of names from Google Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox would include such as ThreadsAnd the FLEDGE And the Attribution reporting.

One of the unique aspects of Android will be the SDK (Software Development Kit) Runtime – Google has it Already started soliciting volunteers For a closed beta experiment – a way to further limit how consent is shared between media owners and partners, such as measurement providers.

Currently, Google’s policy effectively allows third-party SDK developers, such as in-app benchmarking companies, to share the same permissions with Android app publishers.

Such a policy allows third-party service developers to better integrate their SDKs with the code in their customers’ Android app. From here, the host developer sends the packaged app for distribution via the App Store. Although under the latest offers, each publisher partner submits its own SDK and then Google combs it through and approves or rejects it accordingly.

“Starting early next year, we plan to roll out the initial Privacy Sandbox Beta to mobile devices running Android 13, so that developers can take the next steps in testing these new solutions.” Wrote Ryan Fitzgibbon, Director of Product at Google, earlier this week.

For Ben Phillips, CEO and founder of consulting firm BLP101, the fact that Google was fined $392 million for tracking users’ locations without their consent underscores how serious Google (and the rest of the industry) is about taking the changes to come.

“We are entering a whole new era of privacy policy enforcement. Many of the legal guidelines have been around for a while, so there should be no surprises for DPO and CMO alike,” he said, noting how any results from the Sandbox trials would require Signed by a government authoritys.

“However, there has been little in the way ‘risk’ has been attributed to operating outside the confines of regulation, thus far.”

Google’s Privacy Sandbox is coming to Android