Google and Cookies: The Saga Continues, But Not In The Way You Expected
In the wake of a relatively quiet news cycle over the weekend (not), Google made waves by announcing on Monday a significant shift in strategy: they're no longer phasing out third-party cookies in their Chrome browser as previously planned.
This decision marks a pivotal moment for digital marketers and advertisers who have been navigating the evolving landscape of online privacy and data regulation.
Or does it?
For years, marketers have been diligently preparing for a cookieless future, spurred on by the EU’s GDPR practices, waning coverage of cookies, and Apple’s effective privacy-focused strategy. Apple’s Safari browser has not supported third-party cookies since 2017, and it nonetheless commands almost 18% of global browser traffic and 32% in the United States. Those stats show that Apple’s privacy standard has reach, and we’ve seen many other publishers and platforms mirroring the company’s approach to cookies.
Reality Check
Make no mistake, Google is still team #nocookies, but somewhere along the way, they’ve realized something we all learn the hard way once (or twice) in our lives: for an idea to really stick, you have to make people believe it was their own. This is precisely what they’re going to do. Instead of removing cookies by force, they’ll give individual users the power to control their cookie settings within Chrome.
Sound familiar? It should. This is the strategy Apple used when it launched its App Tracking Transparency initiative. The result? 96% of app users presented with the prompt “Ask App Not To Track” opted out. A 2022 survey of internet users in Germany was less bleak: 49% said they opted to deny the storage of cookies or adjusted the scope of the cookie storage, depending on the website, according to Statista.
Most interestingly, Google didn’t share explicit plans for enabling users to opt out. They could share an update in Chrome that says, “We’ve disabled cookies on your behalf. To reenable, go to settings and click allow.” That’s extreme, but not out of the realm of possibility. It’s more likely to issue a one-off prompt with some sort of privacy-focused message. And as we’ve seen time and again, the language used when prompting for consent is extremely important.
Future of Privacy Sandbox
Despite the stay of execution order for third-party cookies, Google remains committed to developing and improving its Privacy Sandbox. Google says this suite of privacy-preserving technologies aims to reconcile the need for targeted advertising with user privacy concerns. However, reception to the Privacy Sandbox has been mixed. While partners like Innovid are leaning in and currently actively testing it, enthusiasm for its efficacy or impact on digital advertising practices has been muted.
Motivations & Reactions
It’s probable that antitrust concerns also played a role in Google's decision-making process. Recent lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny have highlighted how Google's decisions regarding third-party cookies could potentially be viewed as anti-competitive, leveraging its dominant position to influence digital advertising practices.
The reaction from industry players is varied. Identity, media, and strategy providers who rely on cookies for digital onboarding and identity resolution may be breathing a sigh of relief in the short term, as cookies are still an important piece of their offerings today.
On the other hand, advertisers and publishers will likely find themselves grappling with continued uncertainty. Given the upheaval of the years of delays, the question of trust has come into play. Will Google change its stance again? And if not, when can brands, advertising agencies, media providers, and tech vendors expect Chrome updates that reflect these changes?
Innovid's Perspective
Despite Google’s backtracking on cookie deprecation, any preparations you have made for cookie loss have not been in vain. Those efforts should definitely not be abandoned. While Google's pivot may provide a temporary reprieve for some, the journey toward a more privacy-centric digital ecosystem is far from over.
Innovid still firmly believes that the way forward for identity management is not by working with or building one solution to rule them all but by instead integrating with and enhancing the continuously evolving identity ecosystem. Any strategy beholden to a single signal, partner, or strategy will fail in the long run.
Innovid Key, our constantly evolving identity infrastructure, enables the entire Innovid platform to help brands ensure they are reaching the right audiences. With Innovid’s unique approach to identity, Innovid Key enables advertisers to leverage authenticated IDs, first-party data, device IDs, and probabilistic data.
Innovid Key is forward-thinking and future-proofed, and this may be its most considerable insight and most significant advantage. With our approach, when identity resolution shifts again (which, if history has taught us anything, it will), you won’t have to scrap your whole strategy.
We recently published a new guide, Identity Unlocked: Your Guide to Navigating the Shifting Advertising Ecosystem. This guide outlines our vision for the future of identity and shows how Innovid Key helps advertisers continue to meaningfully connect with their intended audiences online.
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