First bits of Google's Privacy Sandbox land in Chromium, designed to eliminate third-

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Google announced the Privacy Sandbox initiative back in August 2019 to "fundamentally enhance privacy on the web" by developing a set of open standards.

The initiative's goals are to "make the web more private and secure for users" and also to support publishers at the same time.

Privacy Sandbox aims to improve privacy on the Internet by limiting and eventually blocking techniques that are used to track users across the Internet, and by introducing new functionality for publishers and advertisers.

Google plans to remove third-party cookies as part of Privacy Sandbox, to address potential workarounds like fingerprinting, cache inspection, or network level tracking techniques, and to replace cross-site functionality  hat publishers may use to continue earning revenue on the Internet.

In plain words: eliminate may tracking techniques on the Internet and replacing part of the technology used (not for tracking) so that publishers may still use it.

Google Chrome Privacy Sandbox

The first bits of the Privacy Sandbox landed in Chromium and Google Chrome Canary. Please note that Privacy Sandbox is not yet functional and that it will take time before that is going to happen.

Users interested in Privacy Sandbox can enable the Settings already in Chrome Canary and Chromium.

Here is how that is done:

1. Load chrome://flags in the Google Chrome address bar.
   
2. Search for privacy sandbox using the search field at the top.
   
3. Set Privacy Sandbox Settings to Enabled.
   
4. Restart Google Chrome.
   

The flag adds the Privacy Sandbox option to Chrome's Settings. You find a new link under Settings > Privacy and security.

Chrome opens the internal link chrome://settings/privacySandbox when you activate the Privacy Sandbox option under Settings. The page that opens is a placeholder for now, most options and descriptions are missing.The details link opens the project's goals page on the Chromium website.

It will take several years for Privacy Sandbox to become fully operational.

Closing Words

Privacy Sandbox will eliminate the use of third-party cookies on the Internet and render some tracking techniques unusable as well; that is a good thing on first glance, but one has to ask if this will lead to Google benefiting from it disproportionally more than other advertisers and publishers.

Chromium's market share gives publishers, advertisers and other browser makers little choice when it comes to accepting the proposed changes, or at least implementing them for the vast majority of users who use a Chromium-based browser.

Now You: what is your take on Privacy Sandbox?
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