Maintaining the status quo
Although the Sandbox project of Google looks more directionless today, it does not fully end the initiative. The team is still planning to use promised improvements in Chrome's Incognito mode, which has been re-archived to maintain the privacy of users after countless complaints. Incognito mode blocks all third-party cookies and later this year the IP protection, which masks the IP address of a user to protect against following cross-site.
Chavez admits that this change means that Google's Privacy Sandbox APIs have a “different role” in the market. That is a friendly way to say it. Google will continue to develop these tools and will collaborate with industrial partners to find a path in the coming months. The company still hopes to see the acceptance of the Privacy Sandbox -increase, but it is unlikely that the industry will give up voluntary cookies.
Although Google focuses on how advertising privacy has improved since it started to work on the Privacy -sandbox, the changes to Google's legal exposure are probably more relevant. Since the launch of the program, Google has lost three antitrust cases, two of which are relevant here: the search case that is currently in the remedy phase and the newly decided advertising technical case. While the government is starting to claim that Chrome Google is giving too much power, it would be a bad look to force a redeployment of the advertisement industry with the help of Chrome's dominance.
In some respects this is a loss – the actions of cookies are unmistakably terrible, and the proposed alternative of Google is better for privacy, at least on paper. However, the universal acceptance of the Privacy sandbox can also give Google more power than it already has, and the assumed privacy benefits may never be fully materialized because Google continues to look for more income.
