Google is Rolling Out its New Privacy Sandbox to the Majority of Chrome Users

The Privacy Sandbox, Google’s alternative to third-party cookies is now generally available on the company’s Chrome browser. The new Privacy Sandbox APIs started rolling out to Chrome users in July, and the company announced yesterday that the new ad platform was now available for the “majority” of Chrome users.

“General availability of the Privacy Sandbox APIs means advertising providers and developers can now scale usage of these new technologies within their products and services, as these are now available for the majority of Chrome users,” explained Anthony Chavez
VP, Privacy Sandbox yesterday.

In a note buried at the end of the announcement, Google explained that it’s currently using 3% of Chrome users as a control group to do A/B testing for this change of ad technology in Chrome. If Safari and Firefox have already blocked third-party cookies, Google won’t block them in Chrome until the end of 2024.

Google has been working on this new Privacy Sandbox since 2019.  The company describes it as a “privacy-preserving” feature, and it works by tracking your browsing habits to determine a list of ad topics that websites will be able to use to show you relevant ads.

Since the Privacy Sandbox is built in Chrome, users will be able to see ad topics in settings and block the ones that they don’t want to share with websites. These Ad privacy controls are now available in Settings > Privacy and security > Ad privacy controls. Chrome will also automatically delete ad topics that are older than four weeks.

Besides Chrome getting a new built-in ad platform, Google also announced this week that the web browser will soon get a fresh coat of paint for its 15th anniversary. The updates will include new icons and color palettes, a simplified settings menu, and security improvements.