Google has rolled out the first developer preview for the Android 13 privacy sandbox. You can get an “early look” into the SDK Runtime and Topics API to fortify users’ privacy online.
“The Privacy Sandbox on Android Developer Preview program will run over the course of 2022, with a beta release planned by the end of the year,” the search giant said in an overview.
A “multi-year effort,” Privacy Sandbox focuses on building technologies that secure privacy and keep online content and services free without putting obscure methods of digital advertising.
Curbing sharing of user data with third parties and operating sans cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID, a unique, user-resettable string of letters and digits that can become the crumbs which trace the users as they switch apps.
Initially, Google declared its plans to introduce Privacy Sandbox to Android in February along the lines of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework.
Integral to the proposed initiative are two key solutions —
- SDK Runtime, which runs third-party code in mobile apps such as software development kits (SDKs), including those for ads and analytics, in a dedicated sandbox, and
- Topics API, which gleans “coarse-grained” interest signals on-device based on a user’s app usage that is then shared with advertisers to serve tailored ads without cross-site and cross-app tracking
In the light of criticisms against Google’s model that gives it an unfair advantage, Google states that the privacy-oriented systems will be created as part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) to ensure transparency in the design and implementation of these solutions.
“Android will collaborate with the entire industry and app ecosystem on the journey to a more privacy-first mobile platform, and one which supports a rich diversity of value-exchange that benefits users, developers, and advertisers,” the company said.
Reference
https://thehackernews.com/2022/05/google-releases-first-developer-preview.html
