Google's "Related Website Sets" is a permanent addition to Chrome, being actively used for advertising use cases

Big thank you to Catherine Perloff over at ADWEEK for covering the Privacy Sandbox concept “Related Website Sets” – there are lots of interesting comments and perspectives so I encourage folks to check it out @ https://www.adweek.com/media/publishers-question-related-website-sets-googles-privacy-sandbox-solution-for-cross-site-tracking/#

I have several concerns with a few conclusions:?

1. Zero browsers have deprecated 100% of 3rd party cookies without some type of leeway / workaround, because at-scale, many websites rely on specific 3rd party services for core website functionality. And if you don’t understand how each of the browsers have come up with novel solutions, then you aren’t prepared for the permanent solution that Google created for Chrome’s 3rd party cookie depreciation via “Related Website Sets” – this is NOT going away in Chrome – and imo this “I own these domains” schema will eventually get integrated in some way into other enterprise supply chains.
2. RWS is absolutely a long-term functionality for owned media networks and many entities will try to use this for co-owned media networks which probably aren't aligned to the standards. But owned media networks are already using this for ads frequency capping and IP address tracking domains.
3. Google’s statement to Adweek that “Google maintains that RWS is not an advertising solution” is 10000000000% false and absolutely wild that Google is claiming this in such an important industry publication. There are multiple RWS submissions already approved by Google and live in Chrome that are explicitly for advertising use cases – frequency capping.

Currently Approved & Live in Chrome RWS Advertising Domains and How They are Described:

??????"https://wieistmeineip[.]de": "Internet speed Measurement Website of Computerbild",

????????"https://www.asadcdn[.]com": "CDN for Ad Files - Frequency Capping"

????????"https://ocdn[.]eu": "Service dedicated to processing events that occur on websites, assists in managing and optimizing multimedia content, including images, videos, or other resources, for websites that rely on event-related functionality.",

Also this one originally was (source @ https://github.com/GoogleChrome/related-website-sets/pull/209/commits/43ee8f1a796f901d65dc7a3a0e791446fb18941d) :??

????????"https://wpext[.]pl": "Technical website - in-frame adserving and CDN"

But then it was rewritten to:?

??????????"https://wpext[.]pl": "Content delivery domain for sensitive content websites"

RWS domain submissions are being approved for advertising use cases — and everyone in the ad tech industry needs to know this is being approved. Maybe you thought it wouldn’t, but it is.?

The current standards clearly allow a publisher to choose how and why the domains are submitted to RWS. Google is not filtering or providing any comments publicly about the domains that are submitted, and it’s crucial that publisher groups who want to legally use all the tools available to them during the next 24 months of metadata deprecations (and RWS is permanent feature in Chrome) need to dig deep into this framework.?

Finally, I feel strongly that Google can not and should not arbitrarily cap the number of domains that a network can use within RWS to five – this is exactly like the “Funding Choices” ad vendor caps that Google tried to set before GDPR which were rightfully pushed back by several important industry groups, and now publishers can decide the number of ad tech partners they want without any interference from Google.?

I hope more folks understand RWS is a valid and crucial tool for revenue stabilization across an owned and operated network of sites, while still absolutely being a potential privacy concern. But if you agree that a 5 domain cap is an outrageous attempt to stifle internet creativity and competition while dramatically impacting known major publisher networks, please reach out to a Google representative or post a comment publicly about why you think the five domain cap in RWS needs to be lifted.