Privacy Sandbox: what to expect in 2023

Privacy Sandbox - which was created by Google for the industry to develop alternative solutions for targeting and measuring once third-party cookies are phased out on Chrome - has outlined plans for expanded testing in 2023. The first half of the year will focus mainly on individual testers optimising their implementations and generating early, directional utility learnings. 

The second half of 2023, once the APIs are launched to all Chrome users, will be dedicated to scaled, combined testing to meaningfully measure results for publishers and advertisers. The CMA has recently proposed a framework for such testing that includes evaluating the real-world impact of phasing out third-party cookies. 

Writing in a blog post, Joey Trotz, Director of Product for Privacy Sandbox Ecosystems, says: “We look forward to working with the CMA and the industry to arrive at a coordinated testing program for the second half of 2023, as we believe it's a vital step in transitioning to privacy-first approaches to advertising on the web.”

Trotz has also recently published a piece that provides an overview of how to maximise ad relevance after third-party cookies are deprecated on Chrome. 

As the testing of solutions evolves from the current functional testing stage to utility testing in 2023, the Privacy Sandbox team will build on technical documentation with more industry-focused guidance on how the Privacy Sandbox technologies can support advertising use cases.

The Privacy Sandbox team has created public GitHub pages where testers can identify themselves and link to information about their testing plans and learnings. Here are the tester lists for Topics, FLEDGE, Attribution Reporting.  Please note, these pages do not reflect all ecosystem testing activity since sharing is strongly encouraged but voluntary. Instructions are included on the pages.

You can find more test results from other partners here:

•  RTB House on FLEDGE
•  Xandr on Topics
• Criteo on Topics