Jenkins responded that the CMA is most concerned about protecting user privacy and ensuring Google’s Ad Manager doesn’t have a competitive advantage but still encourages industry feedback.
Jenkins also noted that publishers and ad-tech firms should test the privacy sandbox so the CMA is fully aware of all the market’s concerns.
“The sooner we can see test results the better,” Jenkins said. “We want to see test results by the end of June.”
But most ad-tech firms have only begun testing privacy sandbox around the end of 2023, many spurred by testing grants from Google, noted Nick Llerandi, staff engineer at Kargo.
“Given that this was hastily done by ad-tech firms, does this question the quality of results?” Llerandi asked CMA representatives at the IAB Tech Lab panel.
Jenkins and Marcus Grazette, assistant director of data and technology insight at the CMA, assured that while the CMA wants to see ad-tech firms tests of the privacy sandbox, those experiments are just one ingredient to the CMA’s full evaluation, which will also include work from economists.
If the CMA does find a reason to delay Google’s cookie-deprecation timeline, many in the industry will be relieved, especially given the risks of the cookie-free future for many Internet businesses, risks highlighted by IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur during the event’s opening remarks.
“Once the damage is done,” by cookie deprecation, Katsur said, “It will be hard for many smaller media companies to crawl back from this.”
