the end(ish) of Google “Privacy Sandbox”

Google Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox project for in-browser adtech is mostly over.

• Google’s Privacy Sandbox Is Officially Dead by Kendra Barnett at Adweek

• Google Pulls The Plug On Topics, PAAPI And Other Major Privacy Sandbox APIs (As The CMA Says ‘Cheerio’) by Allison Schiff at AdExchanger

• (Update 22 Oct 2025) The Sandbox’s Death Meets Agentic Fever by Alan Chapell at The Monopoly Report

The easy answer to why the project failed is, well, of course it did, they tried to pack in too many anticompetitive tricks to maintain compatibility with their existing system. Look at all the details in all the UK CMA reports about special cases to benefit Google’s publisher ad server, or YouTube, or some other Google property. It’s easy to say that Google didn’t give the Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) a fair chance. Remember the Monty Python sketch where the athlete tries to jump the English Channel, but his sponsor makes bricks, so he has to carry a sack of bricks for the attempt? It’s like that. Yes, the Privacy Sandbox team had to carry the bricks, all the stuff that Google wanted to tie to them, but they had other reasons why they wouldn’t make it.

While the self-preferencing and tying and all the other shenanigans were a problem, there are other reasons why PETs are not a good fit for advertising.

• PETs need consent

• Research shows that users are about as creeped out by PETs as by other kinds of tracking (so less likely to consent)

• PETs never had a credible anti-fraud story

• PETs don’t displace existing tracking

• PETs are loaded with antitrust issues

• PETs make privacy enforcement harder

The privacy that PETs provide is not the privacy that users are concerned about. More: why privacy-enhancing advertising technologies failed

One (so far) surviving part of Privacy Sandbox is Google’s continued participation in Meta and Mozilla’s adfraud-in-the-browser feature, now known as just Attribution. So there will still be something to turn off. (icymi: Mozilla hit by complaint over Privacy Preserving Attribution by Richard Speed.)

And no, you don’t need Privacy Sandbox to be able to turn off third-party cookies. As a Google Chrome user you can already go to chrome://settings/cookies, and select Block third-party cookies. It’s under Privacy and security in the Settings. And realistically Google Chrome could still get rid of third-party cookies, and keep cross-context personalized advertising for people who want it, in a much simpler way: realistically get rid of third-party cookies (I’ll update that with a link to an extension that would help.) More: a Terminator ending for Google Privacy Sandbox?

Bonus links

Omidyar Network funding pro-regulation groups to counter Big Tech lobbying – Pluribus News by Austin Jenkins. A deep-pocketed, California-based philanthropic network is working to counterbalance tech industry lobbying in states by issuing grants to a constellation of pro-tech regulation groups active in legislative advocacy…. We think Big Tech and Big AI are tilting the playing field away from the public interest, and it’s really important for us to shore that up as much as we can, Anamitra Deb, Omidyar Network’s senior vice president of programs and policy, told Pluribus News.

The pivot by Charlie Stross. I’m calling this the pivotal year of our times, just as 1968 was the pivotal year of the post-1945 system, for a number of reasons. It’s pretty clear now that a lot of the unrest we’re seeing—and the insecurity-induced radicalization—is due to an unprecedented civilizational energy transition that looks to be more or less irreversible at this point. (Also check the comments for extras)

NCAA Committee proposes new rule to allow student bets on pro sports by Graeme Hanna. [The committee chairman] further noted that the proposed rule change aims to allow student athletes to better align with their campus peers. (yikes, go back and read that Stross article: The USA is about 5% of the global population, a shrinking share of global GDP (down to 12.7%) and the current rampage of misrule is kneecapping science and business…)