Here comes the Android Privacy Sandbox

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Good morning, Marketers, the other shoe just dropped.

One remark I recall hearing at the recent IAB leadership conference was that it was “only a matter of time” before Google restricted cross-app tracking on Android just as Apple has already created an opt-in environment for it on the iPhone.

So the news should have come as no surprise — and the idea that it’s to be part of a multi-year consultation process sounds typically Google. Who does it hurt? Obviously any platform that increases the value of its audience by being able to observe its behavior outside its own app. We know who that is. 

Little harm to Google, surely, as it has access to consumer data from across its gigantic digital ecosystem. So is this all for the consumer or a way of disadvantaging a major competitor in the stakes to own the web? One thing’s for sure: Google won’t own up to the latter.

Kim Davis

Editorial Director

Shorts 

Quote of the day. “If you are putting your marketing operations team in a position where they can’t be anything outside of order takers and donut makers, you are losing value — just like if you hired a race car driver and gave them a Honda Civic to drive, or didn’t give them a crew.” Sara McNamara, marketing operations leader, Slack

About The Author

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space.

He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020.

Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.