Google’s ad-privacy changes fall short, UK regulator says in internal documents

livemint.com:

Google’s yearslong effort to make online advertising less invasive has hit another snag. The U.K. privacy regulator says Google’s proposed replacements for cookies need to do more to protect consumer privacy, according to internal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Google’s proposed technology, dubbed Privacy Sandbox, leaves gaps that can be exploited to undermine privacy and identify users who should be kept anonymous, the Information Commissioner’s Office wrote in a draft report. Based on what the ICO called systemic industry noncompliance, it is likely companies will use the tech to continue tracking users across different sites, the ICO said. The ICO is both trying to get Google to make changes and sharing its concerns with the Competition and Markets Authority, the U.K.’s competition regulator, which is overseeing Google’s global efforts to get rid of cookies in its dominant Chrome browser.

The draft isn’t final, and the ICO is expected to release its report around the end of April. The CMA has promised it will consider the privacy regulator’s recommendations as it evaluates Google’s plans. The pushback is a significant last-minute obstacle as Google, a division of parent company Alphabet, tries to secure the U.K.’s blessing to go ahead with its plans within the next few months.

Google said it will apply its agreement with the CMA globally. Google is rolling out changes to how companies use cookies, technology that logs web users’ activity across websites so advertisers can target them with relevant ads in its Chrome browser, and plans to complete this by year’s end. The CMA won’t let Google block cookies until it deems the replacement technologies to be acceptable.