Should web browsers be regulated?

Last week, Google announced an “updated approach” to its earlier plans to remove support for third-party cookies in its web browser Chrome, a move that disrupted four years of preparation among its industry peers.

The earlier proposed removal of third-party cookies — the connective tissue of the $225 billion online ad industry — from Chrome mirrored Apple’s earlier decision to do likewise in its Safari web browser.

However, Google Chrome is easily the web’s most popular browser, and its ad stack is a central pillar of the ad-funded internet, so Google’s approach had to differ from Apple’s unilateral methods. 

The very mention of “intelligent tracking protection” raises the ire of online publishers. Since 2017, the erosion of support for third-party cookies has significantly reduced the ad prices they can command from within Safari despite subsequent attempts to update relevant technologies. 

Hence, Privacy Sandbox was a byproduct of Google’s (comparatively) more collegiate approach, as separate teams within the corporation attempted to balance privacy concerns with the wider, competitive landscape and its own commercial interests.   

However, the faltering rollout of Privacy Sandbox reflected the difficulties involved. Third parties were, among other concerns, wary of the legal terms required to play in the Google-controlled environment.

The measures involved with Privacy Sandbox also proposed migrating the traditional role of the ad server and supply-side platform in ad auctions into the web browser, a development that led to accusations of self-preferencing from Google.

Following the July 22 announcement, Google executives are currently discussing this pivot with regulators, including the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

For now, details on what this actually means remain light, and there is no definitive timeline in sight for Google to implement its “new experience in Chrome” that lets users make informed choices during web browsing. 

Amid the hand-wringing — characterized by paused investment plans, uprooted product roadmaps, and countless notes issued to panicked clients–voices calling for more fundamental measures, namely governmental intervention, are growing. 

According to multiple sources, parties are pointing to legislation such as the EU’s Digital Markets Act, the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Act in the U.K., or bodies such as the Federal Communications Commission as tools to implement such calls. 

When ecosystems move away from open standards… that requires some form of public regulation

Anthony Katsur, IAB Tech Lab

The core argument of such parties is that the internet is now a mature marketplace and so foundational to the global economy that it should be regulated like other industry verticals such as electricity, telecoms, or water suppliers.

Using this argument, lobby group Movement for an Open Web is calling for the “break-up” of web browsers provided by the likes of Apple with Safari and Google Chrome, which have a respective market share of 33% and 52%, arguing they bundle proprietary services within such portals to the internet.

“We must separate the core functionality of browsers–providing web access–from the other ancillary services that populate the web,” argues James Rosewell, co-founder of Movement for an Open Web. “Ownership of browsing must be strictly separated from the provision of those services to prevent the type of vertical integration that has enabled the current dominant structure.” 

The lobby group, which claims to represent the interests of both non-profit and and private enterprises, proposes the creation of a regulated set of tiers of provision, with an emphasis on ringfencing interoperability on the open web.

“The first layer of functionality would be ‘browser engines’ that adhere to a strict set of technical standards for interoperability and are separated in ownership from other parts of the stack,” added Rosewell. “These browser engines would then provide API connectors for ‘building block’ plugin services provided by competing players, for example, search, ID authentication, AI, payments, and more.” 

Casualties of ‘the Browser Wars 2.0’

Speaking with Digiday after Google’s July 22 announcement, Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, emphasized that his organization is charged with establishing a consensus on online technology standards. 

“We rarely weigh in on matters of policy. However, on this topic, I think browsers could be regulated like a public utility; the internet itself is built on a basis of interoperability,” he added, dubbing the current maneuvers between Apple and Google – whereby they trade blows trumpeting contrasting virtues of choice and privacy–as “the new browser wars.”   

The principal casualty in such wranglings has been the open standards such as Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that were established to power the internet in its earliest phase of development meaning third parties attempting to compete within such environments are at a disadvantage. 

“When ecosystems move away from open standards, and whether it’s in the name of consumer privacy or not, I think that breaks industries, I think that breaks economies… that requires some form of public regulation,” argued Katsur.

Ari Paparo, chief executive of Marketecture, claimed regulation of internet all internet browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, Microsoft’s Edge, or Firefox by Mozilla, could counterbalance how parties such as Apple use the tenets of legislation of Do Not Track Me Online Act, 2011, or GDPR, to undermine the business models of third parties, including publishers. 

“It just doesn’t make a lot of sense that this isn’t regulated,” he added. “It seems there should be a standard for the ways that any technology company that builds a browsing-like experience to have clear guidelines about what they can and cannot do… it would align with the way that electronic devices are regulated.”

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