A cookie-less world – An evolution or apocalypse?
A cookie consent form pop-up when visiting a website has become a part of our life, but are their days numbered? Issuing a death-penalty for third-party cookies, Google is ready to change the internet
In January 2020, global tech giant Google threw the internet advertisers by storm with the announcement that it will phase out third-party cookies from its platform by 2022. Though the change is welcomed by customers (because hey, everyone loves privacy!), it raised a question mark for the companies which relied on these cookies for meeting their short-term advertising objectives.
One may, quite understandably, have no clue about how cookies work or even what a cookie is, so here’s a brief preface: a cookie is a data packet that is stored on your browser (Google, Firefox, Duck Duck Go etc.) as a mechanism of recording how you use the site. A ‘first-party’ cookie is one dropped by the site you’re using and a ‘third-party cookie’ is a cookie left from a site you have visited in the past. An innocuous example of this is being shown flight recommendations on a site after you searched for that particular flight on some other platform; or seeing a list of shoes on every next website you visit after you browsed shoes on Amazon! A site can use multiple third-party cookies to collect user information and show customised ads.
Now I sense the obvious question, does this Google announcement affect me? Well, potentially, if you haven’t cleaned your browsing history for a while, there could be a great deal of web usage data on your browser. The site you’re on can use these statistics to ‘personalise’ content, which tends to be advertising, more often than not. It’s rather annoying to feel so exposed! So, yes, if you use google for browsing your random whims or serious debates, this announcement affects you.
But why is Google banning third-party cookies? Seemingly, Google now recognize that users want more clarity and authority over when and how their personal data is harvested and repurposed. Really?
Okay, you got us there! Well, the move is said to have appeared as Ireland's data protection authority started investigating Google's online advertising business and the practice of real-time bidding for online ads. Allegations on Google ads for influencing US elections also boosted the need for a cookie ban.
In fact, Google is very late to the anti-cookie party. Browsers like Duck Duck Go have always blocked third-party cookies; Safari and Mozilla blocked them by default in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Strict new regulations like GDPR legalizes this sentiment, and it’s now in effect.
But hey wait, wouldn’t that influence advertising revenue of Google? Yes, it will! It will raise its revenue! Yes, you read that right!! The introduction of a new, cookie-free design of customer targeting means the walled gardens of Google, Facebook and Amazon will have more leverage than ever, thanks to their ever-growing pantries of logged-in, first-party data. Advertisers will be heavily reliant on large publishers such as these to gain customers, once third-party tracking is no longer possible. In other words, Google will have access to all first party data and third-party advertisers will have to go on Google’s ad network to obtain the inputs that will help them target the right users.
In terms of marketing, there will be a paradigm shift in the way marketers target their audiences and the tools they use to achieve their goals. Strategists have been obsessing over the short-term promises third-party ‘tracking’ cookies bring, at the expense of smart, creative thinking. The change will drive marketers to innovate and create solutions with a long-term view & move past the race of dopamine inducing click-throughs. It will also push marketers to drift towards context-based advertising, focused on harnessing insights from first-party data to communicate with consumers on a human, respectful level while upholding GDPR.
With a 63.6% share of global internet browser market, Google’s new initiative will have a considerable impact on how internet works. And why not? More people use company’s browsing platform than every other service combined. No wonder that the firm commands a large share of online advertising spending than any other entity & is estimated to represent 36.76% of digital marketing sector in 2020. This translates to a $43.74 billion in revenue. Talk about infinite zeroes!!
We’re yet to find out what Google’s ambiguous “privacy sandbox” will encompass in terms of user tracking. Claiming to come up with a democratic methodology of banning cookies in a phased manner in two years, Google is seeking contributions from tech vendors, developers as well as site owners via email or GitHub, to develop an open set of standards to preserve user privacy without harming ad-supported businesses. A global leader owning responsibility to make internet a better place, or a corporate making fuzzy promises of a “healthy, ad-supported network” – only time will tell which category Google falls into.
Till then keep accepting the Cookies popups, but don’t forget to subscribe and share the story if you liked reading it!
By: Anmol Gupta | Isha Garg