"Tracking protection" sounds more like "alternative tracking."
Google's Privacy Sandbox initiative, just like its name implies, was designed to be an alternative to cookies that will allow advertisers to serve users ads while also protecting their privacy. It assigns users to groups according to their interests, based on their recent browsing activities, and advertisers can use that information to match them with relevant ads.
Lot of time, money, and effort toward a moderate improvement rather than just not perceiving users as products. But...improvement is improvement.
No argument here. There's a global paradigm shift needed to break out of that mindset should it even be possible, but it still boggles my mind in the meantime the resources invested in sustaining this ecosystem.
The downside is it makes Google the de facto owner of all of your online information. You could never use a Google product, but because they have such a large market share they'll essentially force every site and platform to use their solution.