Google’s Pixel 6 Pro smartphone.
Stephen Shankland/CNET
A Privacy Sandbox is coming to the Android ecosystem, Google said Wednesday. It’s designed to offer better privacy protection that limits sharing user data with third parties for advertising purposes.
Google has yet to fully design, build and test the Privacy Sandbox on Android and will continue supporting its existing advertising platform for at least the next two years, but Android developers are able to review the initial design proposals now and provide feedback. A beta developer preview is planned by the end of 2022.
Read more: What Digital Security Experts Wish You Knew About Data Privacy
“At Snap, we’ve made privacy a priority and placed it at the center of how we design our products,” Snap Inc. said in a statement about the news. “We are excited to collaborate with Google to develop new privacy-preserving standards for Android.”
Google said it’s committed to not giving preferential treatment to its own ad products or sites, and is inviting comment from regulators.
Google is additionally looking into technology that could help reduce covert data collection.
