In an unexpected twist on the long, long effort to eliminate third-party cookies, Google has instead decided to halt planned cookie deprecation and retain third-party cookies in the Chrome browser.
The updated approach announced in their blog post will provide users an option to make an informed choice across their browsing and whether to allow tracking by third-party cookies, which could be adjusted at any time.
What are cookies?
Cookies track user browsing history and activities to present the user with personalised ads or elevated user experiences. They are generated and placed on a user’s device by a different website other than the one the user is visiting.
Over the last several years, cookies have been widely used by many tech companies, such as Google, to better understand user behaviour, for the purpose of targeting users with more relevant advertising. For example, the use of a Facebook Pixel on an advertiser’s website to track a user who clicked an ad and landed on their website.
Why were cookies on the path to deprecation in the first place?
The use of cookies with digital advertising had been challenged for some time, with more recent developments from regulatory pressure alongside some tech companies restricting cookies (such as Apple’s Safari Browser and iOS changes, as well as Firefox), meaning that they have greatly diminished with the abilities they could once provide for digital advertisers.
Due to these pressures, Google announced they were planning to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome browser with the aim of improving user privacy, and as steps towards an Open Web. This would effectively have meant that third-party cookies would no longer be an effective route for tracking and targeting of users. Together with this plan they also put forth alternative methods using data modelling, the Privacy Sandbox, as well as touting the importance of instead focusing on using first-party (owned) data to target audiences.
The main goal of Google’s decision to announce cookie deprecation in the Chrome browser was to demonstrate their compliance with user privacy, whilst promoting an alternative for tracking with the Privacy Sandbox technologies, which aims to provide a significantly more anonymised audience grouping method for tracking purposes.
Why did Google do a U-Turn away from deprecation?
The cookie deprecation efforts had repeatedly hit challenges with regulatory bodies (such as the Competition & Markets Authority) as well as a lack of industry support with Google’s aforementioned solution, the Privacy Sandbox.
From a regulatory perspective, Google was facing pressure from the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority looking to gain commitments from Google to address competition concerns. Namely, the concerns that advertising spend would “become even more concentrated on Google’s ecosystem at the expense of its competitors”.
Whilst from industry support standpoint, there had been many criticisms about the effectiveness of the Privacy Sandbox technology, both with empowering advertisers and with sufficient protection for consumer privacy.
What is Google’s approach now?
Google’s new approach involves letting users themselves choose between allowing third-party cookies to be tracked and not. Questions remain about whether users could reasonably be truly informed with a decision between third-party cookies or not (and thus might face further scrutiny), however time will tell on how this approach pans out.
The Privacy Sandbox APIs will continue to be available with Google continuing to invest in this solution as their aim to keep inline with privacy regulations.
What does this mean for digital advertising?
Despite this announcement, it is as important as ever to continue to find alternative solutions that can be effective for tracking advertising. Regardless of this move by Google there still remains many restrictions for cookie tracking in the digital marketing landscape, and it is still near-certain that alternative solutions will not suffice to drive the same performance as before. Legal consent remains mandatory, and the use of third-party cookies will continue to decline. As a result, there will be less data available, necessitating the use of technology and ongoing modelling alongside cookies.
Our Data and Analytics team at Threepipe Reply can advise and recommend on how to evolve your measurement framework in light of these changes. With the diminishing of third-party cookies, there is growing importance on collecting and effectively using first-party data; this will be crucial in developing data modelling solutions and helping to better understand signals for audience behaviour.
Author: Victoria Smith
Published: July 25, 2024
