Google Chrome's IP Masking Proposal: What It Means for Online Advertisers

One of the most important factors of online advertising is to make sure the message reaches the right audience to increase engagement and/or sales. Blindly spending on ads online without any specific targets will only cost without any positive impact to the company spending on ads. This is the reason why online advertisers work with a plethora of tools to make sure they reach the right audience as accurately as possible.

Fortunately, online advertising is becoming straightforward for many platforms when it comes to specified targets. Browsers, social media websites and more provide tools to advertisers so their message would reach people on specific location, age, sex and more.

But a recent proposal by the developers of Google Chrome has made some online advertisers concerned about their ability to target audiences in the long run. Their github post proposes IP protection for users especially those who use the browser in incognito mode. Basically, the post indicated that Chrome in the future will mask their users IP address to protect them from any IP based attacks and threats.

A Closer Look at Google Chrome’s IP Protection

Platforms that offer online advertising opportunities are currently on the crosshairs of security concerns. Any individual, with the right tool could be traced to their exact location as long as they use any of the websites that display ads without any protection. An individual could be targeted with specific information by default because they are monitored to the minute detail - a big security risk concern for any individual.

To handle this concern, Google Chrome is proposing a “two-hop proxy system” that ultimately masks users’ exact location to the website’s their visiting. At first glance, this sounds like a nightmare scenario for online advertising but Google Chrome is proposing a middle ground solution - instead of revealing a visitor’s exact location, Google Chrome will implement IP masking but will actually give out “approximate and course location information”.

Here’s the sample information the devs behind Google Chrome provided:

In the example above, users are bunched together to a single location - with just enough data for

specific targeting. It’s fully aware of the city as well as the country.

Addressing Early Concerns

The proposal undoubtedly raised concerns with online advertisers because it will ultimately curtail their ability to target users for more efficient advertising. This concern was actually addressed through X by Google Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin:

“Further, advertisers continue to have control over which general areas they target, including countries, cities, or privacy-safe radius targeting around their businesses. In Google Ads, IP address can help indicate which customers seem to be using a device that connects to the internet in your targeted region, but it’s not the only signal used. As always, geo-targeted campaigns must adhere to strict thresholds where minimum area and minimum user counts are met to protect people's privacy.”

Ms. Marvin also mentioned that this proposal is not yet implemented. This type of update still faces a number of challenges as it aims to ensure safety of consumers while ensuring advertisers are happy about their services.