- Google is exploring alternatives to website cookies
- The company is working on a user-tracking ad platform for one of the world’s most popular web browsers, Chrome
- The platform will be similar to Digital Rights Management (DRM)
Google is known for its Privacy Sandbox for Chrome, which is an effort to reduce the amount of tracking it does. But, Google is also working on alternatives for more tracking. Apple has their suite of features, which includes Privacy Report in the Safari browser to automatically limit web tracking.
Google is now proposing the “Web Environment Integrity API,” which is a web standard similar to Digital Rights Management (DRM). It aims to identify the user at the computer to reduce the usage of bots accessing sites like social media or to stop people from cheating in online games. The API is currently prototyped within Chrome, but no wide launch has been announced yet.
The API would require that the user pass an “environment attestation” test before they can access any data on a website. This means that Chrome would be the gateway to the API, and Google could be associated with the attestation server. The company does mention that they are not trying to single out individual Chrome users, or digitally fingerprint them.
However, if privacy from ad tracking is a priority, Chrome may be a less useful tool in the future if its foundation is built on fingerprinting users. For now, Chrome remains a viable option as an alternative to Apple’s Safari.
