Deprecate and Remove Protected Audience

concepts

1. Removal Note

   The Protected Audience API (formerly FLEDGE) joins the Privacy Sandbox deprecation. Sites using on-device ad auctions should plan a migration off the API.

2. joinAdInterestGroup / runAdAuction Probe

   Probe both navigator.joinAdInterestGroup and navigator.runAdAuction; surface what's removed and link to the contextual + retargeting alternatives ad partners moved to.

3. Auction Replay

   Side-by-side: the sealed on-device PA auction vs the contextual pre-bid replacement. Run both against the same bidders, same floor, and see how the winner shifts when interest groups go away.

4. Contextual Fallback

   Type page content into the text area and watch keyword-based contextual ad matching select the best ad from a mock catalog — no cross-site data, no interest groups, just first-party page signals.

why it shipped

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 has decreased by almost 100x and use of the runAdAuction() API 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.

references

• ChromeStatus entry
• Spec