The 2024 Privacy Trends We’ll Be Keeping An Eye On In 2025

The biggest privacy story in 2024 is actually about something it is not happen.

according to juice from some who know, a bit complacent said-i-so nods from others, Google announced during the summer that it has abandoned its long-standing plan to eliminate third-party cookies in Chrome.

Instead of getting rid of them, Google will now introduce what Anthony Chavez, Vice President of Privacy Sandbox, mentioned in the July blog post as a “new experience”. New experience? How exciting.

The mechanism will allow people to “make an informed choice that applies to their web browsing history,” Chavez wrote.

Development of the Chrome Privacy Sandbox API, meanwhile, is progressing apace.

But if the steep decline in the number of cookie-related suggestions in my inbox since July is any indication, the urgency among ad tech vendors, publishers and advertisers to test Sandbox has all but disappeared.

“Marketers who rely on programmatic ad buying have found a bit of a reprieve,” said Mike Froggatt, analyst and senior director at Gartner.

But the postponement is only a postponement of execution. Signal loss is real.

However, Privacy Sandbox is no longer dominating the headlines. I’m even thinking of turning off my Google alert for “Privacy Sandbox” – and maybe creating one for “Andrew Ferguson”. He is the current Republican commissioner of the FTC and President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to replace Lina Khan as president.

But cookies aside—and don’t forget to leave a few real ones for Santa—there were plenty of other big privacy events in 2024, which we predict will continue to be important stories in 2025. Here are some of the highlights.

PET projects

Over the past few years, privacy-enhancing technologies have gradually moved from theoretical to practical.

All major ad platforms have invested in PETs; the The IAB Tech Lab has a working group dedicated to petsand all APIs in the Chrome Privacy Sandbox are built on different PETs.

I’m sure readers of this newsletter are familiar with the concept, but it’s worth defining the terms.

PET is a solution that can perform complex data processing functions without disclosing information at the individual, household or personal user level to unauthorized parties. Simply put, it’s technology designed to enhance privacy from the start, not be retrofitted with protections.

One example is differential privacywhich adds carefully calibrated and random “noise” to the data set to hide individual data points. The second is secure multiparty computing, which is a cryptographic technique that allows multiple parties to analyze data together while keeping entries private. This is what most clean data rooms are built on.

PET will become increasingly popular in the coming year and years to come, especially as regulators continue to scrutinize and pressure the digital advertising industry.

But it’s also important to remember this: pets are not a cure-all.

The Federal Trade Commission recently made this clear.

Not very clean rooms

ua blog post published in NovemberThe FTC cautioned that, despite the potential benefits, data cleanrooms do not automatically preserve privacy.

In fact, “scrutiny of DCRs” – I refuse to accept the acronym, but this is quote, let’s move on – “brings an evergreen lesson: even if privacy-enhancing technologies cannot protect privacy by themselves, and even if they address some privacy risks, they can contribute to others.”

For example, if the data cleaning room is not configured correctly, it could create conditions for unauthorized data sharing and increase the risk of leaks and breaches.

Meanwhile, all too often, “the data that enters the cleanroom is dirty,” as in “non-consensual, inaccurate, unreliable and possibly even illegal,” says Jamie Barnard, CEO of privacy software startup Compliant.

“If there is too much trust, too little verification and careless control, there is a serious risk of cross-contamination and leakage,” says Barnard. “What’s more, if all of this happens inside a black box, the parties may be unaware of the damage until it’s too late.”

The FTC, however, is not unaware and does not take the company’s privacy claims at face value.

As agency staff said in a blog post: “Liability for violating the FTC Act is not magically mitigated by smart technology.”

They are fighting words – but will the fight continue?

Exchange of places

With a Republican majority under Trump, the FTC is poised to change its enforcement focus and priorities.

The commission will continue to actively deal with consumer protection and privacy because that is its mandate. But expect a reduction in the amount of rulemaking, more favoring the business community, and a move away from pejorative terminologysuch as “commercial surveillance” and “surveillance advertising”.

Still, it’s hard to say exactly what we’ll see in terms of privacy enforcement in the next four years.

In his current role as commissioner, Andrew Ferguson, Trump’s nominee for chairman, has voted to at least partially support every privacy-related action since he joined in April, including the release FTC Staff Report Examining Data Practices of Social Media and Video Streaming Services and the FTC settlements with Gravy Analytics and Mobilewalla.

But in his offer to Trump to serve as chairman – the the memo was leaked and obtained by Punchbowl News – Ferguson wrote that under his charge the agency would “stop abusing [its] enforcement authorities as a substitute for comprehensive privacy legislation.”

So I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. 🤷‍♀️

🙏 Thanks for reading! The most consistent feedback I’ve gotten this year is that people love cat videos. I rarely get comments on the articles themselves, just reactions to the cat stuff. And I agree with that. Hopefully that means people read (or at least scroll) all the way to the bottom. 😹

This is the last edition for 2024, so let me wish you all a very Happy New Year and I hope you something fun planned. As always, feel free to contact me at [email protected].