Over the last few years, a lot has been said about the deprecation of third-party cookies. Web browser like Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox have already made moves in severely limiting the use of third-party cookies. Google’s Chrome was set to do the same. However, it seems now those plans have been significantly altered, or maybe scrapped altogether.
Our Co-Founder, Rob Ottens, has prepared an article to shed some light on the recent news from Google regarding Third-Party cookies. Interested? Read on!
What is a third-party cookie?
To have a better understanding of the impact of these decisions, it is good to know what a third-party cookie actually is. Cookies in itself are small files placed in the browser to remember some data for certain functionalities (eg. to keep you logged in on a website or to keep your shopping cart while you browse an online store). When the cookie is placed by the website itself, it is a first-party cookie.
In advertising, cookies can store a personal ID, which can then be tied to your user profile in an advertisement system. This means that Google, Amazon and others can build a profile around your browsing behavior and advertisers can use that to target specific personalized ads towards you. A most visible example of this is when you are browsing an online store for shoes and for the next few days you see a ton of advertising around that specific pair of shoes. The cookie with that personal ID is placed by an external script on the site (the R89 single tag is an external script as well) and is a third-party cookie.
Why all the worry about third-party cookies?
With the increasing focus on user privacy, third-party cookies became a focus point over the last years. This is because through the use of them, advertisement systems built personal profiles which is being seen increasingly as a worrying thing.
In order to address this worry, some web browsers have limited third-party cookies, such as Safari and Firefox. In their setup the third-party cookie is more limited in how it can be used and for how long it stays in the browser, effectively removing the possibility to built user profiles and do more personalized ads through this method. The result of this has been that CPM rates have dropped in those browser.
What were Google’s plans?
Google originally wanted to place a similar limitation on third party cookies in 2022. That deadline was postponed to 2023, then 2024 and now it seems the plans might be scrapped altogether.
Since Google itself runs on advertisements (as opposed to Apple and Mozilla), its plan was to replace the third-party cookie with the Privacy Sandbox. This is a system inside the Chrome browser itself which collects certain data based on the users browsing history, sends that to the ad server in an anonymized way and allows advertisers to still do semi-personalized targeting.
Why the change?
The Privacy Sandbox has been in testing since earlier this year. Based on this, it has caused concern with regulators, advertisement groups and publishers that the move to Privacy Sandbox would not properly replace the functionality of third-party cookies in a more privacy friendly way. Tests from Criteo suggested it would increase Google’s market share of online advertisement by a significant amount, while publisher tests saw its income drop from anywhere from 20% to 34%. Regulators (especially in the UK) worried the Privacy Sandbox would mean an unfair advantage of Google in the online advertising market.
The feedback and concerns from these parties seem to have caused Google to shift its position.
So what now?
A lot is still unclear. What we do know, is that Google is proposing to keep third-party cookies around for the foreseeable future. This has been said by its VP of the Privacy Sandbox on the official blog:
We are proposing an updated approach that elevates user choice. Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time.
It seems Google will keep the third-party cookies, but make a more user friendly system to limit it if the user wants to. How this would look is unclear.
A possibility is a message when the browser is installed where the user makes a choice to accept them or not, similar to a consent management message. More details around this will likely appear in the coming months.
What does this mean for our publishers at Refinery?
For the near future this means everything stays as it is and there will be no impact for publishers. No worries, we will keep an eye out and if anything changes we will take an immediate and adequate action. In the meantime, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!
