Security News > 2021 > May > Google's 'Ask me anything' on Privacy Sandbox was more about questions than answers

Google conducted an "Ask me anything" panel on its controversial Privacy Sandbox proposals at its online I/O event.

Google has come up with a bunch of proposals collectively called Privacy Sandbox which aim to reshape the ways in which personal data is shared between websites.

Another FLoC sceptic appears to be Apple, whose WebKit Privacy and Security engineer John Wilander said on GitHub that FLoC cohorts could create cross-site tracking IDs over time, and more recently that FloC could be used in user-harming ways such as higher prices for those more likely to pay, and "Targeted malvertising".

"We are an implementation-focused team, if you've got questions on the 'how' of Privacy Sandbox we can cover those," he said.

Kleber said Privacy Sandbox is all about "Partitioned identity," adding: "We're trying to transition to a web in which the site you are visiting might have its own personal notion of some information about you like what you've done while visiting that site in the past but there's not a way to take one site's notion of what it knows about you and another site's notion of what that site knows about you and join them together."

Another non-answer, but one that illustrates how Google veers from sometimes implying that its Privacy Sandbox plans are well advanced, which is why it is hyping the topic at I/O, but at other times deflecting criticism by saying that is early days and subject to change.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/05/21/google_privacy_sandbox_ask_me_anything/