Google has just recently pushed its final update for User Agent (UA) privacy on Chrome.
Since mid-September fingerprinting will be completely nullified. Google will unify the desktop OS string as a common value for desktop browsers.
That means no more text/metadata showing a user’s device, version of browser used, operating system, and others. All data will be a generic value and Publishers will not be able to access this data to help optimize ad campaigns.
There is however a workaround for Publisher & Webmasters. Through Client Hints provided by Google’s privacy sandbox, website owners can request information about the user that lands on their site. They will get this information only after the browser has approved explicit sharing.
If you’re running API ad campaigns, it’s my recommendation to complete the following:
– When passing the variable ‘user_agent‘ in your API post string. Ensure that a value of ‘no_useragent’ is passed so that it will reduce the rejection rate of the submitted user.
Now that Google has phased out UA if you leave a live variable in this field, it will get rejected.
Derrick Branco 