What is Gnatcatcher?

Gnatcatcher is a Privacy Sandbox technology that protects the IP addresses from being used in fingerprinting, a technique tracking users in a covert manner. This is challenging as IP addresses are also used to identify bots, DoS attacks, and SPAM.

According to Google, Gnatcatcher wants to stop the tactics that involve using IP addresses to try and identify someone without their knowledge or ability to opt-out, but it’s also the goal to not interfere with the normal operations of servers.

Gnatcatcher proposes to mask IP addresses without interfering with a website’s normal operations.