The UK's CMA accepts Google's plan to phase out and replace third-party cookies with the Privacy Sandbox and will closely monitor the product's development
Google can proceed with replacing third-party cookies through the Privacy Sandbox, but its product development will be subject to close CMA monitoring.
The CMA gains an ongoing oversight role over Google's implementation rather than relying solely on its earlier investigation of the proposal.
Second-order effects
Google must align Privacy Sandbox development with both competition and privacy-regulator engagement, making regulatory input part of the product's rollout process.
Companies whose advertising businesses were central to the CMA's initial concern gain a regulator-led channel for scrutiny of how the replacement develops.
Third-order effects
The case points toward competition oversight that follows major platform technical changes through implementation, not just their initial announcement.
If this monitoring approach holds, technical privacy changes with market-access implications may increasingly be governed through continuing commitments between platforms and regulators.
The trend: Privacy-driven platform changes are becoming a competition-policy issue managed through ongoing regulatory oversight of product development.
“Dear @Google, Please keep up the law breaking until we are happy about competition issues” instructs the @CMAgovUK https://www.gov.uk/... #adtech #gdpr https://twitter.com/...
I wonder how tied these commitments are to proposals w/ the Privacy Sandbox moniker. Say for instance the new PATCG says some version of @Meta & @mozilla's Interoperable Private Attribution is the right focus & @Google says it will adopt for attribution. Do commitments apply? htt…
🍪 We've accepted commitments from #Google about their removal of third-party cookies from #GoogleChrome. We'll now supervise Google to ensure the 🔒 #PrivacySandbox is developed in a way that benefits users and protects #competition. Read more: https://ow.ly/... https://twitter.co…
Since we offered to make commitments on the Privacy Sandbox last year, we have continued to work with @CMAgovUK and engage with @ICOnews to address feedback. The CMA has now accepted these commitments: https://blog.google/...
Success for @Google. It wrapped up a big UK #antitrust probe into their privacy/cookie measures. They'll be hoping this sets the standard and puts the brakes on a few similar investigations. https://blog.google/... Also @CMAgovUK will be happy to have been out in front on this.
“Involvement of the CMA and the ICO in the development and testing of the Privacy Sandbox proposals, to ensure they achieve effective outcomes for consumers to protect both competition and privacy” https://twitter.com/...