The Google advertising identifier (aka GAID) will soon be a thing of the past. The company followed Apple’s path and introduced a new system that is designed to increase user security and limit the collection of personal data on Android.This decision was announced by the vice president of Google for product management, security and privacy of Android Anthony Chavez (Anthony Chavez) in the official blog of the company.
“Today we are announcing a multi—year initiative to introduce Privacy Sandbox on Android in order to introduce new, more confidential advertising solutions,” he said. “In particular, they will restrict the transfer of user data to third parties and work without identifiers for various applications, including GAID.”
Privacy Sandbox is an initiative of Google, which was originally introduced in 2019. It was aimed at the web and was designed to improve cross-site interaction without the use of third-party cookies. According to Google’s plans, this was supposed to eliminate tracking of users’ movements between sites and increase their privacy.
Now a similar initiative will be implemented on Android. At the same time, the company stressed that the previous system and GAID will work for at least two more years.
In this context, Google’s decision is very different from Apple’s initiative, which abandoned IDFA and introduced new privacy rules much faster. Android advertisers, on the contrary, should have more time to prepare for the upcoming changes.
In addition, Google noted that it will finalize the Privacy Sandbox together with the developers. Now the company has submitted a number of proposals within the framework of the new initiative, which you can read and send your feedback. By the end of 2022, Google will also launch a beta version of the Runtime SDK for Android 13. It will allow you to integrate applications with third-party advertising SDKs more securely.
In addition, Google intends to work closely not only with industry representatives to improve the system, but also with government regulators.
It is not yet known how Privacy Sandbox on Android will affect the industry. For comparison, the introduction of the ATT framework as part of Apple’s new privacy policy has had a strong impact on the mobile advertising market. For example, Meta missed $10 billion in advertising revenue over the last two quarters because of this. The company expects to lose the same amount during 2022.
On February 16, marketing expert Eric Seufert noticed that the announcement of a new privacy system from Google had a negative impact on Snap, Unity, AppLovin and Pinterest promotions. According to him, after the experience with ATT, investors perceive such messages as a signal to sell shares.
My only explanation for the market movement following Google’s announcement today: investors are thinking, “we didnt understand ATT & dismissed it, we were wrong, so now we view any announcement about advertising identifiers as a severe bear signal.” But that’s bad logic (1/X) pic.twitter.com/lP2ge6GpV8
— Eric Seufert (@eric_seufert) February 16, 2022
Google will abandon GAID only in two years, while the company plans to introduce a new system only after a decent and effective alternative has been developed.