Building trust in digital advertising with confidential computing

Every day, people go online to learn new things and get things done, and to stay connected, entertained and informed — all thanks to a web that is open, easily accessible and home to countless businesses of all sizes. This digital ecosystem creates value for everyone involved: people, businesses, nonprofits, publishers, job seekers, creators, and developers alike.

Data sits at the core of this thriving ecosystem and enables experiences that reflect all of the interactions happening online — from people planning their next vacation, to a business reaching customers interested in its services, to a nonprofit connecting with new donors, or a creator promoting a new fitness class.

The importance of consumer trust
Growing concerns about how data is used and protected are affecting consumer trust online, prompting businesses to rethink how they interact with their customers, each other, and how they collect and activate information that their customers chose to share with them directly.

How confidential computing is helping
Confidential computing is emerging as a pivotal technology for the advertising industry, addressing these concerns head-on and giving regulators a new opportunity to support user privacy and the businesses that use digital ads.

Confidential computing is a hardware-based privacy-enhancing technology (PET) that sets a new standard for how data can be processed securely.

Two key principles underpin this revolutionary technology:
(1) data is processed in a trusted execution environment to protect against unauthorized access by anyone - including the operator (e.g. Google), and
(2) data security and use can be audited via an independent third-party, a process called attestation.

Confidential computing offers a transformative solution for digital advertising, by enabling businesses of all sizes to transparently protect their data, building trust with prospective and existing customers, establishing safeguards and enabling a more sustainable advertising ecosystem.
By incentivizing the use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) like confidential computing into new or revised regulatory frameworks, policymakers have a crucial opportunity to accelerate the adoption of confidential computing.

This can help foster a more trustworthy online environment, encourage widespread adoption of privacy-enhancing technologies and ultimately drive data privacy and economic growth.

How Google is working with advertisers to keep people safer online
In line with our privacy principles, we’re committed to making confidential computing and other complementary technologies accessible to the ads industry. Also, we’re sharing open source examples to help others build confidential solutions. We’re continuing to work alongside others in the ads industry to further adoption of and build standards for this privacy enhancing technology.

Download the full whitepaper to learn more about confidential computing and its potential to revolutionize data privacy.