Advertisements can be seen all over the place. They’re everywhere: on the streets, in TV shows and movies, and in our pockets on our cellphones. Google understands how guarded some people are when it comes to their personal information, and the company has been working to improve user privacy. However, Google has now announced the Android Privacy Sandbox, a long-term project to give users more private advertising options.
The Android Privacy Sandbox is based on a similar concept that Google introduced for the web with “Topics” as a replacement for third-party cookie tracking. The goal, as Google put it, is to protect user privacy by default while also supporting the mobile ecosystem, which depends on successful advertising to keep free and ad-funded apps afloat. It’s a new SDK that’s isolated from the rest of the app’s code, but it won’t replace Ad ID just yet.
The Android Privacy Sandbox is defined by a promise to only offer relevant material and advertisements, to measure digital advertisements, and to limit covert tracking. For relevant content, the organization plans to use Topics and FLEDGE (First Locally-Executed Decision over Groups Experiment). FLEDGE shows ads based on “custom audiences” set by app developers and previous app engagements, and all the data is kept on your own device.
According to Google, Ad ID will be around for at least two years, and developers will be given plenty of warning before it is completely phased out. Google also informed us that a developer preview concentrating solely on the Android Privacy Sandbox would be available. Developers will have access to an SDK with privacy sandbox APIs as well as system images with the essential modules for these previews. These are the Modular System Components, which you may remember as Project Mainline when they are ready for launch. The SDK Runtime and Privacy-Preserving APIs are two of them.
According to Google, the initial design suggestions, design feedback, and iterations will occur in Q1 of 2022. Later this year, developer previews will be available, followed by a beta at the end of the year. Finally, scaled testing will begin in 2023. These previews and betas will be released in their own right, outside of the Android 13 release cycle. Once rolled out, the settings app will also have user-facing controls.
It’s unclear what value developers will derive from using this SDK in the short term, at least until Ad ID is phased away. If you’re a developer interested in reading the design proposal, you may do so by visiting the Android Privacy Sandbox website.
