Privacy Sandbox’s roadmap change now reaches reporting dimensions

Google’s April 2025 update left the Privacy Sandbox API roadmap for further review. Current Ad Manager help now says Protected Audience and Topics were retired and lists related reporting dimensions for deprecation. Earlier roadmap statement; Current reporting record.

Preserve the difference between retirement and cleanup

The provider’s technology statement and its reporting timetable are separate pieces of evidence. The inspected table uses H2 2026 and leaves publisher notifications as TBD. This check therefore does not invent a precise removal day or claim that every account has already lost the dimensions.

Our recommendation is to inventory saved reports, scheduled exports and transformations using the named fields. Identify whether each is needed for historical analysis, active operations or neither. Preserve historical context before changing a pipeline; a missing field should not silently become a zero.

Do not generalise beyond the named systems

A statement about these APIs is not proof that every privacy-preserving measurement method has ended. Nor does a retained documentation page demonstrate that a feature remains active. Status and technical reference pages can serve different purposes.

The timeline closes the narrower loop from an unresolved roadmap to a documented retirement statement and a subsequent reporting task. A useful next update would specify the actual removal notice and the affected report versions. Until then, the action is dependency discovery with named owners, while exact account availability remains an open field.

Inspect the evidence

Download the announcement-to-outcome evidence timeline. The extraction separates documented facts from our analysis and unknowns.

Further reading in the existing archive: Privacy Sandbox Retirement: What Buyers Actually Lose; Android attribution reporting after Sandbox. These links provide background; this check does not independently verify their full contents.

Frequently asked questions

What happened next, and what should UA change after: Privacy Sandbox’s roadmap change now reaches reporting dimensions?

Confirm the Privacy Sandbox reporting-after-roadmap follow-up already on this URL. Google's April 2025 update left the Privacy Sandbox API roadmap for further review; current Ad Manager help now says Protected Audience and Topics were retired and lists related reporting dimensions for deprecation. Preserve the difference between technology retirement and reporting cleanup: the provider's technology statement and its reporting timetable are separate pieces of evidence. The inspected table uses H2 2026 and leaves publisher notifications as TBD, so this check does not invent a precise removal day or claim that every account has already lost the dimensions. Inventory saved reports, scheduled exports and transformations using the named fields; identify whether each is needed for historical analysis, active operations or neither; preserve historical context before changing a pipeline so a missing field does not silently become a zero. A statement about these APIs is not proof that every privacy-preserving measurement method has ended, and a retained documentation page does not demonstrate that a feature remains active. Inspect timeline: earlier record 22 April 2025 — Google said it would gather feedback and update the role and roadmap of Privacy Sandbox APIs; later evidence 19 September 2026 — the inspected Ad Manager page states Protected Audience and Topics were retired and lists related reporting dimensions for H2 2026 deprecation; outcome supported is technology retirement stated by Google with the exact reporting-removal date not confirmed; still unconfirmed are publisher account state and a precise removal date (notifications TBD). Next check: recheck the release notes and inventory saved reports that reference the named dimensions.