Google announced today that they will begin rolling out Privacy Sandbox to a limited number of Android 13 devices in early 2023.

The Privacy Sandbox is a set of technologies that Google introduced in February of this year to limit user tracking, but also provide advertisers with valid ways to measure performance. Since then, Google has refined the system and prepared its components for pre-delivery by discussing various design proposals with app developers and marketers.

According to today’s press release, “We plan to launch the first beta of Privacy Sandbox Beta on Android 13 mobile devices early next year to allow developers to take the next steps in testing these new solutions.” “We will start with a small percentage of devices and increase over time.” “Note that Developer Previews will continue to be released and we’ll be first here to roll out the latest features for early feedback before they go live on production devices.”

App developers are encouraged to sign up to access the system’s APIs and work on their integration from the start, while helping Google with the next phase of testing. Testing of the Privacy Sandbox SDK Runtime will be more limited, so it will remain in closed beta. Those interested in participating and willing to devote significant resources to testing can apply here.

Privacy Sandbox for Android

The Privacy Sandbox for Android replaces cross-program identifiers and private tracking with API systems such as Attribution Reporting, Topics, and FLEDGE. The Topics API works as a classifier model that identifies user interests based on app usage and informs advertisers accordingly. User interests are calculated weekly based on the information on the device, and the top 5 topics are selected from thousands of topics.

FLEDGE is another Privacy Sandbox subsystem with ad selection and custom audience APIs. Ad selection allows advertisers to show the right ad by informing them about which ads are performing well on a given device, while the latter gives publishers the ability to target audiences based on their interests.

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All these APIs together replace the advertising identifiers that have been used in Android for years and can also be used to track users. The SDK Runtime isolates third-party ad code so apps no longer include it in their code. They cannot access user engagement indicators or other marketing data.

DuckDuckGo criticizes Privacy Sandbox as an ambitious system that basically just adds new names to indirect user tracking. In addition, Brave noted that the privacy system provides modest improvements to privacy through user preference, and also imposes centralization on Google. Despite these voices, Google is moving forward with its plan to roll out the new system across all of its products, including Chrome and Android. But the tech giant promises to continue to consider concerns and feedback to address issues through targeted response.