Google's Universal Cart shifts retargeting data into its ecosystem

Google has begun rolling out Universal Cart, an agentic checkout tool built on the Universal Commerce Protocol it co-developed with Shopify, spanning more than 60 billion product listings. Analysts flag the data ownership shift: products left in the cart sit inside Google's ecosystem, moving cart-abandonment and retargeting data away from the retailer's site, and PYMNTS' Karen Webster cautions that while Google says merchants keep customer data, "neither the merchant nor the issuer sees the intent data that preceded the transaction. Google sees it all."