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Investigation
to third-party cookies, instead it was phasing them out completely. “It’s ultimately a change for
good,” says IAB Australia technology lead Jonas Jaanimagi on the plans to phase out third-party cookies.
“We had pushed cookies out too far, they are too ubiquitous and actually quite amazing in their own way in terms of the ability and the fluidity of them - but they are not secure enough. They are little text files that sit on machines, they were quite leaky, it was not a clean match all the time.”
“So, it’s time for a change. It is good for the industry and it’s obvi- ously good for consumers because there’s almost a version of what feels like surveillance that takes place to do really well-run adver- tising and it shouldn’t. That whole thing needs rethinking - as benev- olent as it might be - and that’s what’s happening.”
First-party cookies, which are placed by the domain a user is visiting, often collect information such as login details and language settings and are used to improve the user’s experience. These won’t be disappearing under Google’s changes.
Third-party cookies, on the other hand, are placed by domains to track users as they browse other sites, gathering information for targeted advertising. These cook- ies have been under heavy criti- cism over the years because of their invasive nature, with many users often unaware of how ubiq- uitous they are.
Many experts argue that regu- latory bodies around the world would have pushed big tech in the direction of phasing out third- party cookies anyway, noting Europe’s GDRP laws which meant users have to give consent to which cookies they want activated.
“You could say that ultimately the legislative pressure that we have seen globally and the drive to put consumer privacy at the core of everything has led to them [tech companies] making these deci- sions,” Jaanimagi says.
“And they have made it early enough so that everyone can test it and get their hands dirty with it. And it just reiterates that priva- cy-first position.”
[Google’s] announcement demonstrates there’s a crucial importance of first- party data Liveramp AUNZ director of addressability
As a result of their demise, there’s been a ‘Space Race’ to find effective solutions to working without third-party cookies from industry players, particularly adtech companies whose data gathering abilities will be impacted by the changes.
According to analysis by marketing trade group MMA Global and Prohaska Consulting, there are 80 identity solutions alone in market as of April this year. But while there are plenty of solutions being put for- ward, experts agree it could take years before the market reaches a con- sensus on the balance between marketers’ and consumers’ needs.
“I think we’re seeing a Space Race,” says Ryan Boh, Oracle product strategy lead, activation and identity. “Now that cookies are gone, what are the customer-centric identity solutions that are going to persist?
“We should expect a smaller scale with those newer identity solutions because it takes a long time for publishers to adopt them. Therefore, alternative targeting methodologies, such as contextual advertising or combinations of audience solutions and contextual techniques, will prob- ably be leveraged post-cookies being deprecated and in between now and then, there’s going to be a lot of stakeholders trying to test all the different options on the table today while there’s cookies available to help ensure that the proposed solutions are working or not working.”
Google added more disorder to the end of third-party cookies when it doubled down in March this year that once third-party cookies are done with, it would not build or support alternate identifiers to track individuals.
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