Insufficient time remaining to make modifications

[jwrosewell]

So far, the most impactful change associated with the UA-CH proposal relates to the removal of model information from the User-Agent string on mobile. 51Degrees, a B2B device detection vendor and the company I represent, upgraded our solutions to provide support for UA-CH in June 2020, well ahead of the rest of the market. 51Degrees have been explaining the impending changes for over two years via monthly newsletters and blog posts.

The majority of 51Degrees users are now aware of the change. Many are advising us that there is insufficient time remaining to make the necessary modifications before early February 2023 when the model information is to be removed by Google.

This issue is particularly impactful for our B2B vendors who do not directly control their customers website. The following quotes from a long-time user summarise the feedback we’re receiving from B2B businesses.

In our case our customers/partners launch our content’s URL in an iframe (for the most part), and that whole front-end implementation for the initial load isn’t owned by us, it’s owned by our customers within the client side integration for our content on their websites. Our actual issue is the timeline, and the fact we’ve got literally hundreds of customers who work the same way, so there’s no way we’ll make it in February to be complete honest.

Our users expect us to handle these aspects of technology as their supplier.

What evidence does Google have that the industry is ready for the 2023 changes to reduce the User-Agent? Will Google extend the timeframe for further changes to enable evidence of readiness to be obtained?

User-Agent Reduction is covered by the commitments and is listed in Annex 1 of the commitments Google entered into with the CMA in February 2022.

As the Google representative whose personal GitHub account is being used to receive feedback to Google in relation to User-Agent reduction can you please ensure a substantive answer is provided in the January 2023 quarterly report provided to the CMA and the industry under the commitments which I believe you have now been trained in?

[miketaylr]

Thank you for this feedback.

[jwrosewell]

On 10th and 11th January 2023, I accessed the top 10,000 websites accessed from the UK[1] using a domestic internet connection and the Chrome web browser. I recorded the following information from the response.

1. The presence of programmatic advertising.

2. Enablement of User Agent Client Hints (UA-CH) via the presence of the Accept-CH HTTP header.

Of the 10,000 websites accessed 4,392 utilise advertising of some form. Of these 46 have enabled UA-CH.

~1% of the top 4,392 advertising funded websites accessed from the UK are ready for User Agent Reduction as at 10th/11th January 2023.

From 1st February Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) that compete with Google will no longer receive the information they need to identify the model of device and inform their fraud detection algorithms from the top 99% of the websites that incorporate advertising of some kind and are accessed from the UK.

The spend from advertisers that would have previously been directed towards these websites and DSPs will likely be directed elsewhere including to Google’s competing advertising services. Thus the User Agent Reduction change will directly benefit Google financially to the detriment of competitors until these websites have implemented the necessary replacement technology - User Agent Client Hints. More work is needed to inform websites that incorporate advertising about the User Agent Reduction change prior to making further User Agent Reduction changes.

[1] A list provided by SEMRush on 10th January was used to establish the top 10k websites visited from the UK. https://www.semrush.com/analytics/ranks/rank/?db=uk