On Wednesday, Google announced the development of a multi-year initiative to develop the Privacy Sandbox on Android.
The Privacy Sandbox website states that its initiative is to create technologies that will protect users’ online privacy but it will not restrict companies and developers from building thriving digital businesses.
It will replace the current advertising ID which helps companies to track and share users’ data through using string characters that track a users’ device.
“The Privacy Sandbox on Android builds on our existing efforts on the web, providing a clear path forward to improve user privacy without putting access to free content and services at risk. “Anthony Chavez, Android Product Management, VP stated on a published blog post.
The Google privacy change imitates the drastic measure Apple took to protect its users’ online privacy.
Apple effected the tracking transparency feature which allows iPhone users to block applications from tracking and using their data for marketing and advertising purposes.
This Apple privacy financially affected companies such as Facebook, which in its earning report stated that the META-owned company had lost one million daily users in its third quarter. META also stated that the company may lose Ksh.1.1 trillion ($10 billion) by the end of the year.
Google wants to create a solution which will cater to the protection of users’ privacy but does not want to lock out businesses from sending ads to potential consumers, “We realize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers. We believe that — without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path — such approaches can be ineffective and lead to worse outcomes for user privacy and developer businesses.” the blog stated.
Google also said that companies will get time to implement changes for the next two years and during that time, it will continue to use its current identifiers.
