Google starts testing its ‘iPhone-like’ safety feature – Times of India

Google announced last year a multi-year initiative to build the Privacy Sandbox on Android. The aim of this initiative is to provide more private advertising solutions by limiting sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers. The company has now announced that it is releasing the first beta for testing.
The first beta for Privacy Sandbox on Android will start rolling out to a limited number of Android 13 devices. The beta will be made available to more users “over time,” and more devices will be selected to participate in testing. These devices will receive an Android notification informing users of their eligibility.
“The Privacy Sandbox beta provides new APIs that are designed with privacy at the core, and don’t use identifiers that can track your activity across apps and websites. Apps that choose to participate in the beta can use these APIs to show you relevant ads and measure their effectiveness,” said Anthony Chavez, Google’s vice president of Privacy Sandbox.
What is Privacy Sandbox
Google’s Privacy Sandbox for Android is pretty much like Apple’s App Tracking Transparency that it released with the iOS 14.5 update. The feature essentially puts iPhone users in command in deciding what company can track them and their data across different apps and websites. These companies are required to seek permission before doing so.
Before the update, developers could use tools to track user data from within an app and based on that information, advertisers could identify users’ profiles to better target them with advertisements. If users deny the permission, developers and advertisers won’t be able to track user data.

Google’s Privacy Sandbox, which was previously made available for testing on Google Chrome, will offer private advertising solutions on Android.
“Our goal with the Privacy Sandbox on Android is to develop effective and privacy enhancing advertising solutions, where users know their information is protected, and developers and businesses have the tools to succeed on mobile. While we design, build and test these new solutions, we plan to support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes,” the company said.
It also said it will ensure that the company doesn’t give preferential treatment to Google’s ads products or sites.