Oops, they did it again: Google has — for the third time — delayed the death of the cookie in Chrome, further complicating the promoting industry’s efforts to maneuver beyond a bedrock technology of digital promoting.
The most up-to-date timeline held that the tech giant would phase out the tracking technology for all users within the second half of 2024, following a test deprecating cookies for 1% of users that began in January. However, Google said in a blog posted April 23 that it now hopes to proceed with deprecation early next 12 months.
“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and can proceed to interact closely with your complete ecosystem,” the corporate said within the blog.
The latest delay follows beat back from the IAB Tech Lab, a key standard-setting trade body, and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), U.K. regulatory bodies, over concerns concerning the viability and potentially anti-competitive nature of Google’s Privacy Sandbox proposals. The CMA has asked to review results from industry tests by the top of June, per the blog, making the previous deadline untenable.
Despite the stay of execution, many ad industry figures stressed that marketers shouldn’t use the delay as a reason to slow or cancel their post-cookie plans. Even if Google is eventually in a position to get regulatory and trade body approval of deprecation, the technology is perhaps rendered irrelevant as the corporate faces larger antitrust motion, the growing possibility of a nationwide data privacy law and its own shifting priorities.
“Whether the cookie disappears from Chrome in 2024 or 2025 doesn’t matter: we’re at a decisive turning point within the protection of consumer privacy,” said Wilfried Schobeiri, chief technology officer at ad-tech company Ogury, in emailed comments.
“This journey began way before Google made the choice to modify off cookies, and advertisers can now not look the opposite way,” the manager continued. “This latest delay must be seen as a chance to speculate in tested and proven solutions that may allow for scale without dependency on this timeline or future industry decisions.”
Marketers have moved on
After repeated changes to each timeline and process, the most recent delay to Google’s deprecation plans didn’t surprise many industry figures. Yet despite expecting a delay or the chance that the plan might never come to bear, many professionals have already or are planning to adopt cookieless solutions in the long run.
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of promoting professionals believed that cookie deprecation can be pushed back to Q1 2025, per a March survey of 100 advertisers, publishers, ad tech and data partners conducted by identity solution provider ID5. Still, 72% of industry professionals had already adopted an alternate, with 20% planning to, in response to ID5’s latest State of Digital Identity Report.
“Third-party cookies are obsolete and inefficient, dragging this process is prolonging the inevitable and resulting in more confusion, fragmentation, and frustration,” said Mathieu Roche, CEO and co-founder at ID5, in emailed comments.
Roche claims that cookie deprecation will not be synonymous with Google’s Privacy Sandbox, on account of the preponderance of other identifiers and privacy solutions that have cropped up over the previous few years. While ID5 operates its own cookieless identifier, the probabilistic ID5 ID, his thoughts were echoed by other executives.
“While the industry has been buzzing concerning the pros and cons around Google Privacy Sandbox, I keep asking myself — ‘Isn’t the cookie just soggy at this point?’ Ad tech firms like Liveramp, TTD and Magnite have already began to plant their flag in the bottom with identity-free solutions,” said Lance Wolder, head of strategy and marketing at digital ad company PadSquad, in emailed comments.
Marketing built around first-party data and connected TV promoting — which don’t require cookies — have also gained in prevalence since Google first announced plans to deprecate cookies.
As marketers proceed to check and adopt cookieless solutions, the lesson of Google’s repeated delays is the necessity to avoid a “game of cat and mouse with regulators and large tech providers,” in response to Ryan Stewart, head of publisher acquisition, North America, at programmatic platform MGID.
“The buy-side could learn from the proactivity displayed by publishers and media owners, who’re actively collecting and collating first-party data to construct effective data activation and monetization strategies,” Stewart said in emailed comments. “It’s a protracted road ahead, but at the very least they’re taking strides towards a sturdy post-cookie ecosystem.”
Google’s rocky road
By delaying deprecation, Google will have more time to seek out consensus between its proposals, the ad industry and regulators across the globe. The CMA noted how the Privacy Sandbox could create obstacles for smaller digital promoting players, and, in a draft report, the ICO noted that the framework may very well be exploited to undermine user privacy. The IAB Tech Lab, in a report heavily disputed by Google, noted how the Privacy Sandbox could upend the present programmatic ecosystem and claimed the “industry isn’t ready yet” for the change. In light of the delay, the trade body continues to advocate for a “portfolio approach” to addressability.
“This delay mustn’t be an excuse for the digital promoting industry to be complacent. We must proceed to innovate privacy-preserving addressability and measurement solutions while working with Chrome to enhance upon the critical shortcomings of the Privacy Sandbox,” said IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur in emailed comments.
Ironing out all of those issues within the eight months before 2025 — something Google has not been in a position to achieve within the last four-plus years — seems unlikely. Compounding the problem, Google is ready to face trial in September over accusations by the U.S. Justice Department and a coalition of states that it has monopolized the digital ad market and undermined competition.
Plus, the problem of cookies and digital ad tracking basically may very well be entirely upended as Congress makes progress on comprehensive data privacy laws in the shape of the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA). The latest laws has seen bipartisan support and will standardize what has grow to be a patchwork approach to data privacy as states increasingly pass their very own laws.
And because it faces regulatory motion and industry beat back on several fronts, Google is working to restructure its business around growth sectors like AI and cloud services as promoting growth slows. Parent company Alphabet will announce its latest earnings report on Thursday (April 25), giving investors, the tech industry and ad world an inside have a look at the the evolving ad giant — including, possibly, more details on how its plans will affect marketers.
“As the choice to delay becomes official, my only caution to our industry is that we don’t keep pushing identity down the road — much of the cookie depreciation has already occurred,” said PadSquad’s Wolder. “Marketers who own their data and take a thoughtful approach to reaching and messaging with their customers and prospects are primed to win the most important share of wallets.”
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