Intent to Deprecate and Remove: Protected Audience
Contact emails

[email protected]

Explainer

https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/blob/main/FLEDGE.md

Specification

https://wicg.github.io/turtledove/

SummaryThe Protected Audience API provides a method of interest-group
advertising without third-party cookies or user tracking across sites.

Following Chrome's announcement
<https://privacysandbox.com/news/privacy-sandbox-next-steps/> that the
current approach to third-party cookies will be maintained, we are now
planning to deprecate and remove
<https://privacysandbox.com/news/update-on-plans-for-privacy-sandbox-technologies/>
the Protected Audience API (along with certain other Privacy Sandbox APIs,
as outlined on the Privacy Sandbox feature status page
<https://privacysandbox.google.com/overview/status>).

Blink component

Blink>InterestGroups
<https://issues.chromium.org/issues?q=customfield1222907:%22Blink%3EInterestGroups%22>

Web Feature ID

None

Motivation

Chrome has announced that the current approach to third-party cookies will
be maintained. Since that announcement there has been virtually no interest
in the Protected Audience API. Use of the joinAdInterestGroup() API
<https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3855> has
decreased by almost 100x and use of the runAdAuction() API
<https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/3857> has
decreased by more than 10x. Of the auctions occurring today, virtually none
of them have winners (determined by looking at the “Success” bucket count
of the Ads.InterestGroup.Auction.Result UMA), implying that they are not
providing useful benefit to the pages initiating them.

Initial public proposal

https://privacysandbox.com/news/update-on-plans-for-privacy-sandbox-technologies/
.

Developer-facing impact

Given that virtually none of the Protected Audience auctions occurring
today have winners, we estimate the lost utility from this removal to be
negligible.

User-facing risks

The user-facing risks are small. While removing the JavaScript API could
cause pages to break, the impact should be limited to sites that don't
employ standard defensive coding or feature detection, which should be rare
since not all browsers implement the API.

If usage warrants, we will take steps to avoid any risk of page breakage,
e.g. by temporarily retaining a stub implementation of Navigator APIs
joinAdInterestGroup(), runAdAuction(), leaveAdInterestGroup(),
clearOriginJoinedAdInterestGroups(), getInterestGroupAdAuctionData(),
canLoadAdAuctionFencedFrame(), createAuctionNonce(),
updateAdInterestGroups(),  protectedAudience.queryFeatureSupport(),
deprecatedReplaceInURN(), deprecatedURNtoURL(),  and adAuctionComponents()
that mimic current behavior when a user has disabled Protected Audience.

Estimated milestones

Planning to deprecate in M144 and remove in M150.

Currently 0.22%
<https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/4188> of page
loads use the Protected Audience API. These are driven by a small number of
third-party ad tech scripts present on a large number of sites. We will
continue to monitor usage as well as provide comprehensive updates on
privacysandbox.google.com with the status of the API and deprecation plans
<https://privacysandbox.google.com/overview/status>.

We will also proactively work toward reducing usage to low levels once this
intent is approved, including disallowing any new enrollment sign-ups, and
contacting enrolled sites to inform them about the deprecation timelines.

Protected Audience features that were never launched beyond 20% Stable
(TextEncoder
support
<https://github.com/WICG/turtledove/issues/961#issuecomment-2793763963>,
Creative
scanning via BYOS/V1 trusted scoring signals
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/EXfp34Qb1oc/m/oaiY6MENBwAJ>,
Selectable Reporting IDs
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/1cWqBPHngd0/m/gSYeR_dPAAAJ>)
will be ramped down by the end of 2025.

Protected Audience services, Bidding and Auction services
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/CyXJz3xOEcc/m/1snkv2KhAwAJ>
and Trusted Key Value service
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/fH8u7ZTNZg8/m/oo0WVw7SAQAJ>,
will not onboard new clients once deprecation is approved. We will work
with onboarded clients and plan to turn down the services by the end of
year as usage is negligible today. This will have no user-facing or
web-compat impact.

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/6552486106234880

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