What would you do, if you were in control of the world’s most used search engine and web browser, and also the world’s largest advertising company? Would you keep things strictly separate, even if it would mean leaving billions of Dollar on the table?
Google’s control of advertising, to a large degree at least, and the Chrome web browser is a problem. The company has made several attempts in the past to push technologies that favor it through Google Chrome.
The oddly named Privacy Sandbox is just one attempt. Google uses the name to portrait an image of improvement for users of the Chrome browser. While not totally wrong, as it is a better system in some regards than the currently used third-party cookie tracking system, it is not the Holy Grail of privacy efforts Google portraits it as.
See, privacy sandbox is still about tracking. What sets it apart from cookie-based tracking are two things: first, that users are associated with interest groups instead of individual interests. Chrome looks at the browsing history and assigns groups to the user. Browse lots of car, sports or knitting sites? Chrome picks these as your interests and advertisers may use the information to display advertisement that falls into the groups.
Second, because it puts Google at the center of control of the feature. Google controls Chromium by and large, and also Chrome. If the system is baked into the browser, Google is in control. It can make adjustments and other changes, and everyone has to play ball to avoid being shut out entirely from the system.
Manifest V3
Privacy Sandbox is not the only attempt that mixes Google’s core interests, advertising, with the development of Internet browsers.
Manifest V3 is a new ruleset for extensions. Google had to postpone the release multiple times as protests sounded loud and clear throughout the Internet.
Apart from some technical issues, missing APIs and the like, Manifest V3 is clearly aimed at making content blockers and other privacy tools less useful. It would go too far to dive deep into technicalities, only this much.
Content blockers, such as uBlock Origin, reign freely under Manifest V2 rules. When they are active, they tell the browser what to do with certain requests. The browser then acts accordingly, for instance by blocking advertisement or allowing a video to play.
Under Manifest V3, that power moves to the browser. The browser controls the blocking and extensions may only make “declarations”. The extension would tell the browser to block or allow a certain element, and the browser would act accordingly.
Google’s explanation for this is improved privacy. Extensions are no longer able to access “potentially sensitive user data”, which in turn makes extensions safer to use.
The argument is flawed, as extensions still have access to the data. They may still use the old API, but only with read access. This means, that they can still access all the data, which in turn means that nothing is won or lost in regards to privacy.
Google announced this week that it will go forward with Manifest V3. Old extensions, those based on Manifest V2, will be disabled automatically for most Chrome users by mid-2024. Enterprise users may get a 1-year extension through a special policy.
Closing Words
There is a conflict of interest at work. Google depends on the advertising business and will go through great lengths to expand it and keep its dominance in the sector. To be fair, the vast majority of changes that are made to Chromium and Google Chrome have nothing to do with Google’s advertising business.
Still, some of the changes appear to favor the business over the interests of users of the browser.
It remains to be seen if the changes will lead to a mass exodus of Chrome users to other platforms. It is too early to tell, especially since the changes affect a sizeable but still relatively small part of the entire Chrome population.
Now You: do you use Google Chrome?
