It’s Official: Google’s Privacy Sandbox is Dead

Six months after it revealed that it would not replace third-party cookies with Privacy Sandbox, Google finally pulled the plug on this controversial technology.

“Since announcing that Chrome will maintain our current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, we’ve sought input from the ecosystem to help inform the path forward for the Privacy Sandbox APIs and technologies,” Google vice president Anthony Chavez writes. “The feedback we’ve received has deepened our understanding of what can drive the most value for businesses, developers and users. Today we’re sharing an update on our focus areas moving forward, and changes to the current APIs.”

Put simply, there is no way forward for Privacy Sandbox. Google is retiring most of the technologies that were once part of Privacy Sandbox, including the Attribution Reporting API in Chrome and Android, IP Protection, On-Device Personalization, Private Aggregation (including Shared Storage), Protected Audience in Chrome and Android, Protected App Signals, Related Website Sets (including requestStorageAccessFor and Related Website Partition), SelectURL, SDK Runtime, and Topics in Chrome and Android.

Going forward, Google says it will collaborate with other browser makers and stakeholders in the web standards process on the Attribution standard. It will continue to support the CHIPS cookie privacy and FedCM identity flows, which it says have seen “broad adoption.” And Google will “maintain” Private State Tokens while exploring new ways to reduce fraud and abuse.

But with this gutting, Privacy Sandbox, originally promoted as a way to help advertisers track user activity while somehow also protecting those same users’ privacy, is dead. Six long years after Google first announced this horrifying new tracking technology, triggering multiple rounds of regulatory attention and delays, the dream—the nightmare—is over.

“We’re grateful to everyone who contributed to the design and development of the Privacy Sandbox technologies,” Chavez adds. “As the web ecosystem continues to evolve, Chrome will continue to collaborate with stakeholders across industry forums, trade groups, the W3C and GitHub to develop and advance platform technologies that help support a healthy and thriving web.”