Caught in the Cookie Jar

Google’s vow to block third-party cookies on Chrome ushers in a new era of the internet

It happens constantly on the world’s most used web browser. A user searches for something, say a restaurant, resort, or concert tickets. A few minutes later they visit one of their favorite websites, and there, staring them in the face is an ad for that very thing. That happens because third-party cookies on the browser track users wherever they go around the internet, recording what people look up and what sites they visit. Some people find it useful, some find it annoying, and some see it as a violation of their privacy.

On Apple’s Safari browser and Mozilla’s Firefox, third-party cookies are already blocked. On the web’s most-trafficked browser, Google Chrome, they’re still there. But their days are numbered. Beginning Jan. 4, Google began a test of a “Tracking Protection” feature for 1% of Chrome users worldwide. The feature blocks third-party cookies, and it’s one Google plans to roll out for all Chrome users in the second half of this year as part of its Privacy Sandbox initiative.

Google aims to make everybody happy, letting users feel that their privacy is being protected without alienating advertisers who depend on cookies to serve targeted ads. Those ads are, not coincidentally, the major source of Google’s revenue.

“As we work to make the web more private, we’ll provide businesses with tools to succeed online so that high-quality content remains freely accessible — whether that’s news articles, videos, educational information, community sites, or other forms of web content, Privacy Sandbox VP Anthony Chavez wrote in a December blog post announcing the move.

As Chavez pointed out, third-party cookies have been a fundamental element of web browsing for nearly 30 years, and effectively ending them will have far-reaching repercussions. Advertisers will have to navigate a whole new way of reaching their intended audiences.

“The industry is nowhere near ready,” IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur told the Wall Street Journal in January.

Google’s plan to appease advertisers is to give them anonymized user browsing data and allow them to use Google APIs to target audiences based on general demographic data such as age range plus a rough location. The Topics API, introduced last year, attempts to identify five of a user’s interests and store them in the browser. Some advertisers fear this will give the tech giant enormous power over them. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority shares those concerns, and Google has pledged to work with regulators to ensure phasing out third-party cookies doesn’t provide an unfair advantage.

“The commitments we have obtained from Google will promote competition, help to protect the ability of online publishers to raise money through advertising, and safeguard users’ privacy,” the CMA’s chief executive Andrea Coscelli said in a statement. “While this is an important step, we are under no illusions that our work is done. We will keep a close eye on Google as it continues to develop these proposals.”

Google scrapped a previously planned alternative, dubbed the Federated Learning of Cohorts, after the CMA objected, as did advertisers and privacy advocates. Google has been adamant that it wants a viable alternative in place before Chrome defaults to blocking third-party cookies for all users.

“When other browsers started blocking third-party cookies by default, we were excited about the direction, but worried about the immediate impact,” the company wrote in a 2021 blog post. “Excited because we absolutely need a more private web, and we know third-party cookies aren’t the long-term answer. Worried because today many publishers rely on cookie-based advertising to support their content efforts, and we had seen that cookie blocking was already spawning privacy-invasive workarounds (such as fingerprinting) that were even worse for user privacy. Overall, we felt that blocking third-party cookies outright without viable alternatives for the ecosystem was irresponsible, and even harmful, to the free and open web we all enjoy.”

There will surely be no pleasing everyone, with privacy advocates wanting even more anonymity and marketers wanting to ensure their ad dollars provide a good ROI. Media agencies like IntentIQ that already provide cookieless advertising solutions will surely be in high demand. Their Identity Graph strives to provide 92-97% accuracy in targeted ads in a privacy friendly fashion.

When Chrome blocks third-party cookies, one era of the internet will be over. But internet advertising isn’t going anywhere. Those who succeed in a cookieless era will adapt, and web surfers will still see ads tailored to them. Maybe just not so narrowly tailored.

One of the ways for marketers to navigate through this cookieless era is by leveraging behavioral data. The sunset of third-party cookies is almost here and marketers need to redirect their priorities toward first-party data and data integration tools such as DataChannel for capturing customer data without compromising their privacy. No need to worry, you can very easily start leveraging your first party data better with a fully automated and no-code tool, DataChannel.