Category Archives: Google

Two former members of the Google Maps team have navigated their way to Microsoft, joining the Redmond company as corporate vice presidents on its Maps and Local team, part of its Web Experiences (WebXT) group.

Nicholas Lee, former senior director of engineering for Google Maps, who worked at Google for nearly 17 years, was named the new leader of Microsofts Maps and Local team in an internal memo viewed by GeekWire.

Also joining Microsoft is Russell Dicker, who was previously senior director of product for Google Maps Routing + Navigation, Google Automotive Services, Transit & Multimodal, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Microsoft declined to comment in response to our inquiry about the new hires.

The WebXT group, led by Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft Web Experiences president, includes the Bing search engine, Microsoft News, Maps, the companys advertising platform and the Edge web browser.

Microsoft posted more than $3 billion in search and news advertising revenue in the December quarter, up 32% year-over year, excluding traffic acquisition costs.

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Google Maps veterans hired by Microsoft as new VPs in Maps and Local team - GeekWire

Timed to coincide with Safer Internet Day, Google today introduced a handful of new product features across various apps and services, including Google Assistant, Google Fi, Google One and more, as well as partnerships aimed at expanding access to information about staying safe online. Notably, the company says its donating $5 million to educational nonprofit Khan Academy for the development of free, online safety lessons. Google is also working with nonprofit policy and political organizations on a new initiative called the Campaign Security Project, which will focus on training political candidates and campaign workers on online safety ahead of the 2022 U.S. midterm elections.

Partner organizations on this latter effort include the Veterans Campaign, Collective Future, Womens Public Leadership Network, LGBTQ Victory Institute, Center for American Ideas, University of San Francisco, Emerge, Latino Victory and others. Outside the U.S., Google says its working with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) on similar efforts.

Across its product lineup, there are also several new additions broadly categorized as safety updates.

For starters, Google Assistants Guest Mode feature, which stops smart speakers and displays from showing personal results like calendar entries and contacts, will become globally available across nine languages in the next few months, Google says. Once in Guest Mode, youll be able to keep your personal information private until you disable it a solution intended for those times when other people will be around your smart device. In addition, Guest Mode audio recordings wont be saved to your Google Account. The expansion will cover a range of devices, including Nest Hub Max and Nest Audio.

In the nearer future, Googles MVNO telecom service, Google Fi which leverages U.S. networks like T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular will add a family tracking feature, similar to something like Find My or Life360. Users on Google Fi plans will be able to share their location with their family members in real time from the Fi mobile app, at no additional charge. The tracking can be set to turn off at a set period of time, until the setting is manually switched off, or it can be set to always on. This joins Google Fis existing set of family features, which allow adults to do things like set up data budgets for family members or block unknown contacts from being able to message their kids, for example.

Another new feature announced today was actually introduced last week, however. Google notes its rolling out its VPN service to iOS devices as part of its Google One premium subscription. Members on the Premium cloud storage plan (2 TB or higher) will now be able to take advantage of the VPN through the Google One app for iOS.

Google is also teasing a soon-to-launch Safe Browsing feature. Starting next month, users will be able to opt into Googles account-level enhanced safe browsing, which provides a broader set of protections against online threats and threats against your Google account, it says. The feature, intended for use by higher-risk users, will be available through your account settings screen or when you take a Security Checkup.

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Google rolls out safety features across Google Fi, Google Assistant, Google One and more - TechCrunch

Samsung's Sleep Symbol Animals. The animal types are assigned after sleep analysis.

Samsung's latest smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 4, runs a new OS codeveloped with Google. But, despite promises of better Google integration, it didn't support Google Assistant when it launched. That will change soon: You'll be able to ditch Bixby and use Google Assistant in the "coming months," according to news from Samsung ahead of its next Unpacked event, which is likely to focus on phones.

The Watch 4 is getting a bunch of other health-related software updates on Feb. 9. The weirdest and most intriguing is sleep coaching, which Samsung says will study your sleep patterns for a week and then assign you a "sleep animal" to match individual sleep types.

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The animals include: Unconcerned Lion, Sensitive Hedgehog, Nervous Penguin, Sun Averse Mole, Cautious Deer, Easygoing Walrus, Alligator On The Hunt and Exhausted Shark.

It's not at all clear what those animal types mean, and whether Samsung's coaching will keep assigning new sleep animals if your sleep patterns change. But Samsung says that the sleep coaching feature will involve filling out two surveys along with recorded sleep data, after which it will start a "four- to five-week coaching program that includes missions, checklists, sleep-related articles, meditation guidance and regular reports to support users as they work towards improving their sleep quality."

New strap types and watch face colors are coming to the Galaxy Watch 4.

Competitors such as Fitbit (part of Google) and the Oura ring already place a heavy emphasis on sleep quality and wellness coaching. The Apple Watch doesbasic sleep logging, but still doesn't calculate sleep scores or rate sleep quality at all.

The Watch 4 update also adds body composition analysis insights, using a third-party app, Centr, which is a subscription-based fitness service created by Chris Hemsworth. Samsung says the extra insights are free, but deeper guidance through the separate subscription app costs extra. Samsung's body analysis sensor, which uses electrical bioimpedance, attempts to track body fat levels on-wrist, but the results were confusing to interpret when the watch was first launched last year.

The new software update will also add new coloured watch faces, which will match the additional watch straps that are also coming soon. The new watch straps will also expand to other materials: a fabric strap and steel link strap will go on sale in late February.

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Galaxy Watch 4 tees up Google Assistant, offers you a sleep animal in the meantime - CNET

On the occasion of Safer Internet Day 2022, Google has pinned a shortcut to its Security Checkup feature right below the search bar on the Google homepage. Heres how you can use Security Checkup to make sure you have no security loose ends that could compromise your Google account in the future.

Step 1: Go to the Google Security Checkup page

Today you can find a quick shortcut to this page right below the Google homepage search bar. If you dont see it, you can always navigate to the same options by clicking on your profile picture on the top-right, choosing Manage your account and then navigating to the Security tab.

Google will segregate your security checkup page under various sub-sections like Your devices, Sign-in and recovery and Third-party access. Look for sections that are marked with the yellow alert icon. These are areas where Google suggests you take some security measures.

Step 2: Remove access from older devices

Remove access of your Google account from older devices that are no longer in use. These may be older smartphones and tablets.

Step 3: Add updated alternate ways of signing in

Google allows you to add alternate ways of signing in and recovering your Google account. This is important as adding an alternative email address (which doesnt have to be a Gmail one) can help you recover your Google account if you ever forget your password.

Step 4: Review recent activity

If any settings with your Google account have been changed, update or if the account has been added to a new device recently, you will see it here. If you see any unfamiliar activity, Google will let you quickly take action like signing out from an unidentified device and/or changing your password.

Step 5: Review third-party access

If you have used your Google account to log in into games and services, this section is where you will find a log of all such data. Look for services you dont use or games you dont play anymore and sign out of them.

Step 6: Have a look at saved passwords

Check out the saved passwords to various websites if you have any. You may want to update or delete some of these listings if you dont use them anymore.

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Safer Internet Day: How to take the Google Security Checkup - The Indian Express

Google has launched today a new security feature for Google Cloud tenants that is meant to detect and block cryptomining operations that may be taking place behind the owners backs.

NamedVirtual Machine Threat Detection(VMTD), Google said this new feature is an agentless system that continually scans the memory of virtual machines deployed in Google Cloud environments for tell-tale signs of increased CPU or GPU usagespecific to cryptomining operations.

To avoid false-positive detections, the feature has been left disabled by default; however, any customer can enable it for their GCP VMs. They can do this by going to the Settings page of their Security Command Center and looking under the Manage Settings section.

Google said the feature will only work with non-sensitive memory, and VMTD will not process memory from nodes marked as Confidential.

VMTD has begun rolling out today for public preview, so tenants are recommended to enable it for smaller portions of their nodes and keep a close eye on its impact on performance.

Over the next months as we move VMTD towards general availability, you can expect to see a steady release of new detective capabilities and integrations with other parts of Google Cloud, said Timothy Peacock, Product Manager for Google Cloud.

Once the feature reaches general availability and is deemed stable, VMTD will most likely become a must-use security feature.

In areportpublished last year, the Google Cloud team said that after analyzing 50 recently compromised GCP instances, 86% were infected with cryptomining payloads that hijack tenants resources such as the CPU or RAM to mine cryptocurrency for the attacker.

In many cases, these attackers enter customer accounts through one misconfigured system and then expand to entire internal networks, so administrators will most likely have to enable VMTD even for systems that are not directly available via the internet, just to be sure.

Catalin Cimpanu is a cybersecurity reporter for The Record. He previously worked at ZDNet and Bleeping Computer, where he became a well-known name in the industry for his constant scoops on new vulnerabilities, cyberattacks, and law enforcement actions against hackers.

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Google Cloud adds new cryptomining threat detection capability - The Record by Recorded Future

Last month, the Austrian data protection authority fired the starting gun by issuing the most impactful post-Schrems II enforcement decision to date.

Privacy professionals are racing to assess, to comply, to enforce, and to find a more workable long-term solution for data transfers.

The many runners in our field will recall, perhaps with some nostalgic butterflies, that a starters pistol can signify three things: 1) the start of the race; 2) a fault and disqualification for one or many; 3) that the finish line is approaching one lap left.

Privacy professionals must now help their CEOs, boards, and the senior-most government officials involved in data transfer talks understand these three possibilities and the potential impacts of each.

If we consider the Austrian decision the start of the race, we must acknowledge its been a long and grueling warm up. For more than 18 months, regulators, policymakers and companies have considered all possibilities to remedy the government access concerns identified by the Court of Justice of the European Union when it invalidated EU-U.S. Privacy Shield July 16, 2020 the impetus for this case and decision and implemented those they could. This could be the start of something much bigger.

Austrias decision is the first of a cascade of likely similar decisions to come and is the first among 101 cases of similar substance that NOYB filed across the EU. In response, the European Data Protection Board established a task force and jointly considered how to address these 101 cases. The Dutch and Danish DPAs issued statements that they are considering the Austrian decision, while rumors flew early that France would issue a decision next. This suggests that the remainder of the decisions could follow a similar logic.

This decision is also the first test of the sufficiency of safeguards to remedy foreign government access concerns in practice in the commercial sector. Between July 2020 and January 2022, DPAs issued guidance on supplementary measures, launched investigations into the adequacy of data transfer protections, and issued decisions focused on the public sector and process failures failure to conduct a transfer impact assessment for instance. They held off on deciding whether those protections met their test in practice outside the public sector and particularly sensitive areas.

Until now.

The 101 NOYB cases are also far from everything. Austrias decision comes amidst a broader ramp up in GDPR enforcement and DPAs displayed willingness to bring cases that demand changes in business practices (the Belgian DPAs recent decision against IAB Europe is a case in point). We know this decision will inspire additional complaints regarding Google Analytics and data transfers more generally. We already saw one such complaint in France. Other major investigations, such as the Irish Data Protection Commissions Facebook case may also result in near-term and impactful decisions.

Whether you are watching from the stands or standing on the track, a disqualifying shot is gutting. It certainly could it be for data flows or the communications and business models that rely on them. The question is who or what is out. That depends on whether:

We see evidence of all three already.

Privacy professionals should brief senior leaders on the increased material risks their businesses face and the need for greater due diligence to demonstrate to EU partners that they have mitigated the risks to data transfers in practice. They should conduct transfer impact assessments and implement and document the supplemental measures recommended by the EDPB where possible. They should also make senior leaders aware that risk will remain until a diplomatic solution is reached a new trans-Atlantic accord and longer-term, more global solutions.

To fully understand how Austrias decision shifts the risk calculus, privacy teams should consider its findings. For an in-depth analysis of the decision, see Gabriela Zanfir-Fortunas recent blog post. For the key takeaways, see below.

In short, the decision implements a broad view of what constitutes a transfer of personal data, a legal-only view of the risk that must be remedied and a narrow view of what qualifies as adequate safeguards to remedy identified deficiencies in foreign government access protections.

Since many business operations require access to data in the clear, the operative question is, who or what could be subject to FISA 702? While the U.S. government has attempted to help businesses address that question, what matters now is how EU authorities answer it. On Jan. 25, the conference of German data protection commissioners published an expert opinion by Stephen Vladeck on the scope of FISA 702 applicability. The questions Vladeck fielded and the answers he offered shed light on the broad swath of companies that face near-term risks of regulatory scrutiny, fines, and lost business if EU businesses fear either and shift to domestic service providers.

German authorities asked about the applicability of FISA 702 to businesses as diverse as banks, airlines, hotels and shipping companies, and Vladeck replied that in some contexts, yes, it could be applicable to each. German authorities also asked about data held by companies in Europe with some U.S. connection, in line with the reasoning in the interim German Wiesbaden decision. Here the answer is more nuanced, but, the line of questioning demonstrates that regulatory scrutiny and business risk is far-reaching.

U.S. and EU negotiators building a replacement for Privacy Shield have been jockeying for more than a year, but, it certainly seems they just heard the one-lap-to-go shot. They now seem to be sprinting toward the finish line.

For businesses and regulators, a diplomatic solution can not come fast enough. The EDPBs recommendations on supplementary measures made clear that businesses could not address the CJEUs and DPAs concerns with U.S. surveillance laws alone. The Austrian decision showed just how limited their practical options have become and how likely that businesses on both sides of the Atlantic will pay the price without a political solution.

The remaining question is how soon they will cross the line and how different the field might look by the time they do.

*All quotes are taken from the machine translation of the Austrian decision, posted on NOYBs website.

Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash

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The Austrian Google Analytics decision: The race is on - IAPP

Residents in Queensland's Gulf region are growing impatient with seeing ill-informed travellers becoming stranded while following directions on Google Maps.

Several tourists near the community of Burketown have been rescued this wet season from flooded and impassable roads after following routes recommendedby the popular website and app.

National Highway 1, which skirts the Gulf of Carpentaria, is perhaps the most infamous suggested route between Cairns and Darwin at this time of year, as opposed to a more southerly route via Mount Isa.

Ernie Camp, the Mayor of Burke Shire Council, said locals were fed up with rescuing motorists every year because of the strain it put on community resources.

"It's a big resource drain, especially at this time of year, when our locals and first responders are already busy dealing with the wet season and preparing for cyclone season," he said.

"On top of that, resources are stretched thin because of COVID-19."

Burketown is one of several Gulf communities that are often cut off by floodwater during the region's annual wet season.

"Something needs to be done before we lose a life," Mr Camp said.

"There needs to be some assessment done on the routes suggested in the app and maybe advice given on how seasonal our roads are out here."

After being alerted to the issue, Google said it was working on fixing the route recommendations to better align with the wet season.

"We use multiple sources to accurately model the real world, including third-party data, user contributions, along with Street View and satellite imagery," a spokesperson said.

"When there are inaccuracies, we work to fix them as quickly as possible."

Burketown station owner Kylie Camp said a lack of signage made it easy for unaware motorists to wind up in sticky situations.

"If you don't have good situational awareness or knowledge of the region, and if you don't have that driving experience in floods, it can be a matter of life and death," she said.

"I'd encourage people to ring ahead and be better informed before travelling through these remote areas."

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Google Maps to fix directions after years of trapped travellers around Burketown - ABC News

Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. For most of us, not a day goes by without interacting with one of their products or services. In 2022, whether we want to or not, Big Tech is a part of our lives.

With that dominance growing, it is up to the government to remain vigilant against these corporations abusing their power.

A good example of that watchdog role are the recent lawsuits by four state attorneys general, including Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, against Google for violating user privacy.

The bipartisan group which also includes the District of Columbia, Indiana and Texas alleges that Google employs deceptive practices, making it nearly impossible for users to avoid sharing their location data.

The tech giant uses that information to target ads, denying consumers the ability to choose, and to track sensitive location data to make a profit, Ferguson said in a statement.

Google kept tracking individuals location data even after consumers told the corporation to stop, he said. This is not only dishonest its unlawful.

The company promised users that if they turned off location history, any place they visited would no longer be stored, but according to the lawsuit, even when consumers opted out of location tracking through that setting, Google recorded their whereabouts via other means.

That discrepancy was first noted in 2018 by The Associated Press, which found that while Google is generally open about asking permission to use location information, some Google apps automatically stored time-stamped location data without asking.

The AP discovered that location was used by weather updates on Android phones or stored by simply opening the Google Maps app. Even some searches unrelated to location, such as chocolate chip cookies, would pinpoint the users precise latitude and longitude.

Thats a complete disregard for privacy and a violation of the Washington State Consumer Protection Act all so that Google can sell you some Chips Ahoy.

This is not the first lawsuit against Google that Washington state is a part of, nor has Google been the sole target. Big Tech is now facing a host of legal challenges from bipartisan coalitions of state attorneys general, as well as increased scrutiny by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Its about time.

For too long, little to no regulation was the default setting for the internets development and growth. This allowed for innovation to flourish through the rise and fall of tech players big and small, but todays undisputed dominance of a few companies and their monopolistic power to stifle competition show that is no longer the case.

Litigation is an important part of keeping these companies worst impulses in check, but strong action by regulators, as well as legislation from Congress, is also needed. Big Tech can and does play a positive role in our lives, but we must be able to dictate the terms for the good of all.

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Another View: Google shouldn't know where you are if you don't want it to - Press Herald

One year after Google shuttered the internal game development studio for its struggling cloud gaming service Google Stadia, a report from Business Insider gives a clear idea of whats next for the tech giants gaming efforts. Its reportedly moving away from making a cloud gaming platform where subscribers buy and play games. Instead, Google will use the technology in partnerships with major third-party companies under the moniker Google Stream.

As someone who has actively played Stadia since its November 2019 launch, the slow downfall of the platform has been painful. Still, Google executives never had their heart in Stadias potential as a commercial platform. Google Stream is what Stadia shouldve been from the start if Google wasnt going to commit to gaming fully and, hopefully, it will play a part in cloud gamings bright future.

In retrospect, this endpoint for Google Stadia was inevitable. According to Business Insider, Google is pitching Google Stream to businesses as a backend cloud gaming technology that doesnt necessarily need to be tied to the Stadia storefront. It already partnered with the exercise company Peleton and AT&T last year on different projects. Instead of putting effort into getting more exclusives or AAA games on Stadia, its getting more companies to white-label Google Stream. (Thats where a product or service produced by one company is rebranded by other companies to make it appear as if they had made it.)

It apparently pitched Google Stream to Bungie, which released Destiny 2 as a flagship Stadia title and was interested in making a streaming platform of its own. While the status of that deal is now in question due to Sonys acquisition of Bungie, Google is also reportedly in negotiations with Capcom, which is interested in running game demos straight from its website using Google Stream.

Some Google employees even want to see how Google Stream works with nongaming tasks that require a lot of power, like 3D modeling. While these deals all might seem weird to those whove played Destiny 2 or Resident Evil Village on Stadia, they play to the strengths of cloud gaming and Googles technology.

Out of every notable cloud gaming service Ive tried, Stadia has the most consistently smooth and good-looking experience. As long as I had a stable internet connection, Stadia worked anywhere and anytime I chose. Google Stream would offer a solid infrastructure for companies that want a cloud-based experience, but cant invest in the technology itself.

Quick demos are also an excellent use for cloud gaming technology. When I needed to boot up a game to check something out or write a guide for it, I appreciated being able to load Stadia or Xbox Cloud Gaming and quickly get what I needed without waiting for a game to install. This benefit also applies to demos, and Ive always been shocked that Google never leaned into that strength more. Maybe its Stadia Connect presentations would have been a lot more impactful if I had been able to try the games immediately via cloud-based demos afterward.

Stadias biggest problem was always its game library because that was something that Google would never go all-in on. Yet, it tried to create a development studio and court big third-parties to bring its games to a whole new platform. Game development takes time, so Google settled for launch window exclusives that didnt take advantage of cloud technology and third-party games that were a year or two old by the time Stadia was out. Google then tried to double down on that approach as Xbox Game Pass Ultimates fantastic librarydwarfed Stadias catalog.

Google took too long to assess the cloud gaming landscape and is now doing what it should have in 2019. I am disappointed that the unique Stadia experiences promised in Googles GDC 2019 talk will never come to fruition, but Google was never equipped to do that. This partnership-based approach will mean more people will see the great parts of Google Stadia without dealing with the bad.

With Stadia, Google tried to replace console gaming with the cloud. Instead, Google ultimately confirmed that cloud gaming is at its best when it supports a players gaming experience, not when its the primary experience.

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Google Stream is what Stadia should have been from the start - Digital Trends

Google-parent Alphabet today, February 1, posted revenues of$75.3 billion for the closing quarter of 2021, an annual upswing of32%, as well as revenue of $257.6 billion for the calendar year (up from $182.6 billion in 2020). And if the numbers alone are to be believed, the wind is firmly in its sails.

Although, as seasoned observers will attest, choppy waters are ahead as over the next 12 months, the online media giant must address key challenges in preparation for the scheduled depreciation of third-party cookies in 2023.

Key to weathering the storm ahead will be working out how to balance heightened public demand for better privacy assurances while pacifying the media industrys fears that its increasingly rigid privacy policies are an attempt to hamstring competition.

Of course, underpinning all this is the existential threat of intervention from competition authorities, a confrontation that could (potentially) see Googlesmedia empire, the core driver of Alphabets market cap of nearly $2 trillion torn sinew from sinew.

After a hiatus in public communications over its Privacy Sandbox experiments, an oft-maligned series of trials testing the viability of addressable advertising methods without third-party cookies, Google recently unveiled Topics. This method of ad targeting replaces its earlier planned method, dubbed Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoCs, an AI-based proposal that preferred grouping users of the Chrome web browser into groups as opposed to individual user-tracking.

FLoCs proved controversial with concerns over the potential for reverse-engineering, or fingerprinting, enabling unscrupulous actors in the ecosystem to track users against their will, plus categorize them as part of sensitive audience categories such as ethnicity, political affiliation, sexual preference, etc.

I think that some will think about opting out if that is an option.

Lulu Phongmany, online advertising consultant

Concerns mounted to the extent that FLoC trials never took off in the EU (limited tests were conducted elsewhere) where the 2018 introduction of GDPR has led many to interpret the region as the most stringent data protection market across the globe.

Topics differ from FLoCs by proposing a system of ad targeting that identifies five topics that represent a persons interests based on their browsing history over a weeklong period on publisher sites that have opted-in to the method. Trials are soon to take place beginning with 350 targeting categories, this number will increase over time.

During a recent press conference discussing Topics, Ben Galbraith, senior director of product management on Google Chrome, was at pains to point out that while Privacy Sandbox was led by Google it was an open effort that is open to all parties. We will not self-preference our own advertising business in the development of Privacy Sandbox, he added.

Galbraith further raised earlier public commitments Google made to the U.K.s Competition Markets Authority to better assure it, and the wider sector, of Privacy Sandboxs transparency. These are the (pending) appointment of an independent monitoring trustee to ensure its compliance, a more transparent process to take market feedback, plus commitment not to use Googles first-party personal data to track users.

Since last weeks announcement, reactions have been mixed with some welcoming its comparative simplicity for third-party ad tech companies to participate in, compared to FLoCs, while others have lauded its promise of enhanced user transparency.

Although a near-universal concern over the proposal is the perception that decisions are still made in Googles Chrome web browser.

Multiple publisher-side sources separately told Digiday that players in this constituency are attempting to limit their exposure to Google-led solutions even if the online advertising giant has been proactively extending an olive branch in recent months.

Erik Requidan CEO of Media Tradecraft, a firm that works directly with publishers to maximize their revenues via ad tech, told Digiday that many publishers were anxiously awaiting a simple answer for a big change but that simply waiting on Googles announcements will hinder their options.

Publishers of all sizes can create a game plan, work internally/externally, execute a sound plan using several solution sets, he added. Those who have been through a big change over the years will know how to handle big change once again.

The Topics are maybe too broad for a lot of what advertisers will want.

Last year, Digiday reported how Googles Chrome team, the unit within Google that is effectively driving its privacy charge towards 2023, was meeting with large-scale publishers to better understand their concerns over Privacy Sandbox.

Lulu Phongmany, a consultant that helps publishers devise and execute their strategies using ad tech, has attended such gatherings and noted how many publishers will be examining alternative options to Googles suggestions. This is a common sentiment among publishers after FLoC was so poorly received with Phongmany claiming that some are beginning to realize they have the upper hand.

She added, I think people have been burned by Google and it sounds to me like publishers are starting to realize that especially with Privacy Sandbox and the whole drama around FLoCs I think that some will think about opting out if that is [realistically] an option.

Meanwhile, some media buyers were nonplussed by last weeks announcement its fine was a repeated term in feedback from this constituency with many advertisers left pondering the impact of Google referencing user privacy over the accuracy of ad targeting, especially when it comes to inventory pricing.

Wayne Blodwell, CEO of consultancy outfit TPA Digital, said Topics would provide brands with a degree of reasonably broad targeting as long as the category they want to target is present. Although, the latest Topics proposals will lead performance-advertisers disappointed as buyers in this category are most concerned about retargeting, he added.

If youre a fashion brand and you want to target someone thats interested in shoes then thats great, said Blodwell. But the Topics are maybe too broad for a lot of what advertisers will want but its definitely better than nothing. It may appease some but it will definitely depend on what those targeting options are.

Meanwhile, Mark Wagman, managing director at MediaLink, told Digiday that many in the industry were doubtful that Google would realize its earlier ambitions with Privacy Sandbox,arguably the reason why it postponed cookie deprecation from 2022 to next year.

He also noted the difficulties that Google faces in attempting to placate multiple parties in the media ecosystem compared to Apples more unilateral approach to data restrictions, comparing that iPhone manufacturers binary approach whereas the online ad giant has to hedge. A lot of people thought it [Privacy Sandbox] was never going to happen because of the operational headache of actually trying to operationalize this across everybody, added Wagman.

Since the unveiling of its planned Topics rollout, Google has further disclosed plans for separate Privacy Sandbox experiments with a second planned origin trial for its planned Attribution Reporting tools scheduled for the first half of 2022.

In a January 27 blog post, Maud Nalpas, developer advocate for Chrome and web, noted how the proposal is undergoing a number of changes to address community feedback, most notably a switch in how advertising performance is registered.

Under the new proposals, the Chrome web browser will change how it registers when a user clicks on an ad from client-side to server-side with Google eager to highlight how the proposal is geared towards enabling companies to accurately measure advertising performance without identifying individual users across sites.

Furthermore, the company has released an update for its earlier proposed FLEDGE initiative, a means of migrating the conduct of ad auctions within its Chrome web browser as opposed to on a third-party ad server, with trials expected to kick off later in the opening quarter of 2022 after feedback.

In an emailed statement, ukasz Wodarczyk, vp of programmatic ecosystem growth and innovation at RTB House, welcomed the update. In particular, he lauded the inclusion of proposals for multi-ssp auctions is a positive move, allowing header bidding support and the ability to invite the Prebid community to take [sic] the initiative.

However, there remain several key questions according to Wodarczyk, who noted how third-party ad tech companies want further clarification as to what share of traffic will be included in FLEDGE trials? Additionally, further questions remain as to what decision the Chrome browser will take if there are too many interest groups for evaluation?

It will definitely be a challenge to ensure a level playing field in this matter, between all entities regardless of their size, according to Wodarczyk. Especially since the arbitration will be performed by the entity owning browser, ad server, DSP and SSP under the same roof, he added.

A common call from all tiers of the industry when probing their thoughts on Googles Privacy Sandbox initiative are requests for a level playing field in Googles new world order. This is a key question the online advertising giant must answer satisfactorily given that regulators in the U.S. are aping their international counterparts with Google increasingly in their crosshairs.

Last month Google filed a motion to dismiss the antitrust case targeting its ad tech stack, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton a case that some predict could potentially lead to the break-up of its empire.

And with the prospect of further charges of anticompetitive practice piling up in both the U.S. and EU, where publishers leveled anticompetitive charges against Privacy Sandbox in particular, it is vital that Google gets the optics right.

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Key challenges Google must face in what is arguably the most pivotal year in its history - Digiday