Marching toward its goal of eliminating third-party cookies from its Chrome browser by the close of December 2024, Google has generally released its APIs for Privacy Sandbox, its privacy-oriented solution to cross-site consumer tracking cookies. The new system has begun shipping with the latest version of Chrome. The Privacy Sandbox tracks topics of interest based on browsing patterns and lets advertisers use that data to serve relevant ads. While clicking “got it” to close your first Sandbox pop-up activates the new system by default, it can be turned off by visiting the privacy settings.

Turning it off “will just stop advertisers from showing you targeted ads based on topics of interest,” TechCrunch writes, explaining that the Ad Topics tab also lets web surfers block ads they find offensive or irrelevant.

Google introduced the Privacy Sandbox concept for web and Android on a test basis in 2019, seemingly as a response to Apple’s anti-tracking measures. It has since then been monitoring it and working on improvements, the company says in a blog post that presents the Sandbox as a solution that allows users to control their ad experience by customizing what relevance and measurement APIs while also permitting advertisers to target a receptive  audience.

“Given that Chrome is such a big driver for web traffic, advertisers and developers are worried about the implications of adopting the new solution,” TechCrunch says, adding that “while advertisers have been toying with alternative methods to cookies, in markets like India, they are still spending a ton of money on the outgoing solution, according to Insider Intelligence.”

But Privacy Sandbox offers advertisers an upside in the ability to “now show ads to specific audiences and gather more information on the effectiveness of their campaigns” by integrating the APIs into their measurement tools, according to Android Police, which notes that as of this year, Google is still “developing several APIs to make sure it can still push targeted ads.”

“These help advertisers harness information to determine how to create more relevant ads” for a “particular browsing experience,” Android Police writes.