Intent to Extend Origin Trial: Conversion Measurement API (Attribution Reporting API)

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John Delaney

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Oct 21, 2021, 9:45:39 AM10/21/21
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Explainer

Design docs/spec

Summary
This is a new API for measuring conversions (e.g. purchases) and attributing them to clicked ads, without using cross-site persistent identifiers like third party cookies.

Link to “Intent to Prototype” blink-dev discussion
 
Link to “Intent to Experiment” blink-dev discussion

Third extension:

Goals for experimentation
We hope to see that the data produced by the API is comparable to existing cookie-based mechanisms.

Experimental timeline
We'd like to extend the origin trial for 3 milestones, continuing through Chrome 97 (95/96/97). The experiment has been running from Chrome 86-94.

Any risks when the experiment finishes?
This API is only additive and does not affect any existing state. Current conversion measurement solutions will work as expected with and without the API, so we don’t believe there are any risks.

The Origin Trial tokens for Chrome 94 expired on October 12th. The API has been effectively disabled since then, so there will be a gap in availability.

We have previously requested an exception to the .5% page load usage limit for Origin Trials. Page load usage is currently around .48% in October, and was at .5% on average in September.

Reason this experiment is being extended
We have two more non-google testers interested in experimenting with the API who have not yet been able to start experiments. The proposed API is fundamentally different in a number of ways from cookie-based mechanisms, which can make setting up experiments time consuming.

Given the wide range of environments where this API will be used, we expect new testers to produce different learnings and feedback on the API, even without changes to the API.

Ongoing technical constraints
None.

Will this feature be supported on all five Blink platforms supported by Origin Trials (Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, and Android)?
Yes.

Link to entry on the feature dashboard

Alex Russell

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Oct 28, 2021, 3:34:33 PM10/28/21
to blink-dev, John Delaney
hey John,

In line with the policy we adopted earlier regarding trials in this bucket of features [1], I appreciate the reporting around total page loads.

We're inclined to extend this OT, but wanted to quickly check in to see if y'all have any interim results from the trial thus far. Are you surveying developers? Is there some feedback you could perhaps aggregate to give us a sense for how it's going?

Thanks,

Alex

John Delaney

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Oct 29, 2021, 5:37:03 PM10/29/21
to blink-dev, Alex Russell, John Delaney

> We're inclined to extend this OT, but wanted to quickly check in to see if y'all have any interim results from the trial thus far. Are you surveying developers? Is there some feedback you could perhaps aggregate to give us a sense for how it's going?

Most definitely! We have received a lot of great feedback from people testing the API. In general we have been receiving two categories of feedback from the Origin Trial: accuracy of API reports, feedback on whether certain use-cases are met.

See https://github.com/WICG/conversion-measurement-api/issues/201 for some exemplary feedback.

Feedback on accuracy:

Testers have identified some differences between our API and cookie based conversions, where the browser either doesn't send a report when expected / or sends an unexpected. We are continuing to explore this space and are making progress.

See https://developer.chrome.com/docs/privacy-sandbox/attribution-reporting-data-clearing/ which deep dives into learnings regarding data clearing from the OT.

In Chrome 94 we changed the way that Chrome retries reports, and have marked improvement in the accuracy of API reports as seen by some testers.

In general, we are hearing that integrating/verifying the API comes with its own set of challenges due to how different it is from the status quo. We are actively collaborating to improve the API in this regard (https://github.com/WICG/conversion-measurement-api/issues/174)

Use-case feedback:

The other key area of feedback we are receiving is use-cases not recoverable in the API. As developers have dug into the API, they have raised changes the API will need to work as expected.

Some examples:

We still have active development to cover cases like these which come up in practice.

Please let me know if there is anything specific you would like us to speak to!

John

Yoav Weiss

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Oct 31, 2021, 9:34:51 AM10/31/21
to John Delaney, blink-dev, Alex Russell
Thanks for the feedback report. It's great!!

LGTM1 to extend the OT to M97


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Chris Harrelson

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Nov 1, 2021, 11:24:26 AM11/1/21
to Yoav Weiss, John Delaney, blink-dev, Alex Russell
Updated.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAL5BFfXpzbEt2evF67qu6Qn_OQ%2BgvAbWd-UGQfYv%3DrL97j9TOQ%40mail.gmail.com.

Chris Harrelson

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Nov 1, 2021, 11:27:40 AM11/1/21
to Yoav Weiss, John Delaney, blink-dev, Alex Russell
(Sorry, ignore that email. Clicked the wrong button.)

LGTM2

John Delaney

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Nov 3, 2021, 3:55:57 PM11/3/21
to blink-dev, Chris Harrelson, John Delaney, blink-dev, Alex Russell, Yoav Weiss
Just to clarify, this extension requires 3 LGTMs correct?

I am assuming that the statement from the last extension is still true: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/DmsUL3KHqMk/m/K6RhFq7nAAAJ

Updated.

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Chris Harrelson

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Nov 3, 2021, 4:05:39 PM11/3/21
to John Delaney, blink-dev, Alex Russell, Yoav Weiss
On Wed, Nov 3, 2021 at 12:56 PM John Delaney <john...@chromium.org> wrote:
Just to clarify, this extension requires 3 LGTMs correct?

I am assuming that the statement from the last extension is still true: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/DmsUL3KHqMk/m/K6RhFq7nAAAJ

Correct. Yes it does. The API owners are meeting tomorrow and I'll ask the other about a third LGTM.
 

Updated.

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Daniel Bratell

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Nov 4, 2021, 3:11:42 PM11/4/21
to Chris Harrelson, John Delaney, blink-dev, Alex Russell, Yoav Weiss

LGTM3 to restart with more special origin trials

/Daniel

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