Google to Use IP Addresses for Ad Personalization in Europe

Summary

Google plans to use IP addresses for ad measurement and personalization in the EEA, UK and Switzerland from on or shortly after Aug. 3, 2026, raising consent and fingerprinting concerns under privacy rules.

Key points

Google already receives IP addresses through customer tags, SDKs, HTTP calls and uploads; it plans to use them to identify devices for ad measurement and personalization.
The rollout is scheduled to begin on or shortly after August 3, 2026, in the EEA, UK and Switzerland.
Google will register for IAB Europe TCF Feature 3, which covers identifying devices from automatically transmitted information; the article says this does not itself provide consent.
The article notes that IP addresses are personal data under GDPR and UK rules, and that using them to identify devices can enable fingerprinting.
Google says some personalization features will arrive later and that users will then be able to choose IP-based personalization on its properties.
Google says advertisers remain responsible for obtaining valid consent. The ICO has advised that consent should remain mandatory for cross-service profiling and says current rules still apply.

Article Details

Event Type: Google plans to use IP addresses for ad measurement and personalization in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland.
Impact: The planned change, scheduled for on or shortly after 2026-08-03, changes the purpose of IP-address use from traffic routing and ad delivery to device identification and ad personalization. The article says this raises consent and fingerprinting concerns under GDPR and UK rules; Google says users on its own properties will receive a choice later in the rollout.