• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 6, 2024

Microsoft Advertising will adopt Google Privacy Sandbox for its privacy standards, despite acknowledging the limitations such as those identified by the IAB Tech Lab and changes required by UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The two rivals may now be working more closely for the benefit of the advertising industry.

In a statement released Tuesday, Microsoft said it has given “preliminary support” to Google Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox APIs across Microsoft Advertising products, and will work to integrate these new standards.

It also will try to minimize disruption to advertising and continue to contribute to the "innovation of privacy enhancing technologies to fully support the requirements of digital advertising."

Microsoft introduced its own version of Google Privacy Sandbox in 2021 called Parakeet, and by 2022 all code entries, mentions and comments of the technology in the forum Github had halted.

Microsoft Advertising now provides preliminary support for Chrome's sandbox, and will also support Ad Selection API when it is in production in Edge.

Microsoft laid out several changes in which it will introduce privacy. For example, Microsoft Edge’s recently announced Ad Selection API, which represents an evolution from its previous contributions to privacy in advertising.

It has been designed to allow advertisers to select and deliver relevant ads to users without relying on third-party cookies.

The Ad Selection API uses privacy-first principles, such as K-anonymity, differential privacy, and processing data in opaque environments, to ensure that personal information remains secure and user privacy is respected.

Microsoft's long-standing commitment to privacy and in the evolving ecosystem will leverage its extensive advertising expertise and privacy-first principles to build solutions that change how targeted advertising works.

Is Microsoft working more closely with Google to implement many of its products or processes. Microsoft and Google separately also have advertising products called Performance Max, but it's not certain if the companies have shared knowledge related to these ad platforms.