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Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Hello all, and thanks for reading today.
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Hello all, and happy Thursday!
In a last-minute reversal surprising nobody, Google has pushed back the deprecation of third-party cookies once more.
It had seemed like Google was committed earlier this year when they phased out third-party cookies for 1 percent of browser traffic as a test. But for anybody who had been watching closely, the delay isn’t too much of a surprise. Google’s alternative to third-party cookies—the Privacy Sandbox—has faced challenges both from a privacy perspective and from a competition perspective.
Privacy Sandbox is Google’s version of a “walled garden.” Essentially, rather than rely on third-party ad tech networks to track user behavior across the internet and serve targeted ads via third-party cookies, brands can go directly to the platforms their prospects interact with. Through walled gardens, brands can advertise and gain valuable insights without connecting those insights directly to a specific user or device. Instead, the platform targets advertisements for the brand, thus reducing the risk of personal information flowing where it ought not. At least, that’s the idea.
In the case of Privacy Sandbox specifically, it’s been accused of effectively forcing advertisers to rely on Google as a middleman, rather than being able to use the relatively decentralized approach to targeted advertising of third-party cookies. At the same time, it’s still a poor solution for data privacy concerns. For example, an ICO report identified gaps in the Privacy Sandbox that could be used to identify individual users.
Given these ongoing issues, it’s not surprising that the third-party cookie phaseout has been delayed once again. Third-party cookies are likely to disappear at some point, but whether a business as large as Google will be able to do so expeditiously is unlikely.
Best,
Arlo
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