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3 minute read
Well, Google has done it again. They have delayed the deprecation of the 3rd party cookie. This time its unclear if its the CMA, legitimate reasoning, strategic posturing or all of the above. Regardless, we overview the why and the possible reasoning and put forth some action items.
Google has delayed the deprecation of third-party cookies in its Chrome browser multiple times, with the most recent postponement pushing the timeline to potentially 2025. This decision has been influenced by several key factors, including user privacy and ad tracking concerns, the impact on developers and marketers, and competitive landscape and regulatory pressure. While these reasons are legit, the reasoning may not be, as some opine. Either way there is a lot of speculation that the Privacy Sandbox will devastate independent publishing.
User Privacy and Ad Tracking Concerns
Google's initial plan to phase out third-party cookies was primarily motivated by increasing concerns over user privacy. Third-party cookies have been widely used for tracking user behavior across multiple websites, enabling advertisers to deliver personalized advertising and retargeting. However, this practice has raised significant privacy concerns among users and privacy advocates. The shift towards eliminating these cookies is seen as a move to enhance user privacy and align with global trends demanding greater data protection.
Impact on Web Developers and Marketers
The delay also reflects the challenges faced by developers and marketers who rely heavily on third-party cookies for targeted advertising, audience measurement, and campaign effectiveness. Google's phased approach, starting with a small percentage of users, is intended to allow the industry time to adjust and test alternative tracking technologies like those proposed in Google's Privacy Sandbox. These alternatives aim to provide privacy-preserving ad targeting solutions, but they require significant testing and refinement to ensure they meet the needs of advertisers and publishers effectively.
Competitive Landscape and Regulatory Pressure
Competitive factors and regulatory pressures have also played a crucial role in the repeated delays. Google faces scrutiny from regulatory bodies like the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which has expressed concerns about the competitive implications of Google's Privacy Sandbox, the proposed replacement for third-party cookies. Regulators are ensuring that these new technologies do not unfairly advantage Google at the expense of other market players. This regulatory scrutiny requires Google to engage in extensive consultations and modifications to their plans, further contributing to the delays.
Conspiracy Theories abound: Strategic Delay for Market Dominance? Pivot? Budget push to higher margin channels?
Theory 1: A popular conspiracy theory suggests that Google's delays are strategically planned to maintain its dominance. By postponing the deprecation of third-party cookies, Google could be buying time to further develop and refine its Privacy Sandbox solutions, ensuring that once third-party cookies are phased out, Google's alternatives are the primary technologies further assert their control and maintain a stranglehold on audience definition for their buyer platforms.
Theory 2: It's also been posited that its rather unimpressive diversity and comprehensiveness of audience segment choices in TOPICS may even be an attempt to force more marketer budget out of display into a far more profitable channels called Google Ads and Youtube. These are moats Google controls more and have much lower risks to them and higher margins.
Theory 3: Google has been so successful recently in its demonstration of why it will win in cloud and AI, that its frankly just not that interested in the mess that is the independent web (see Theory 2) and that they are making display as risk-free as possible to keep the privacy haters at bay and move onto video and fluffing the Golden Goose to fund the Cloud/AI narrative.
What You Can Do About It
NOTE: in a nod to our favorite CTV blog, TVREV and its author, Alan Wolk, we will endeavor to add some clear actionable take-aways for our readers for relevant articles.
- Given the constant change, invest in your own data. Regardless of how long deprecation takes, your first-party data is the cornerstone to all that comes next. Own your own data and ID and you own your destiny.
- Experiment with multiple partners. Please do not rely on only a single or a couple vendors. When you trust a single vendor, data partner or ID partner too much with your future you bear the risks of losing pricing control and being overly beholden to vendors with their own economic incentives. This is a recipe for disaster. What if probabilistic IDs are outlawed? What if legislation starts to effect the use of HEM-based IDs? Publishers and the vendors that support them must 'portfolio" their risks by working with multiple partners to find the winners for their unique situation, then optimize those outcomes
- Don't wait! Don't wait for Google or a single ID vendor to tell you what to do. Build your own strategy and tailor it to your business. Look at this shift to the use of first-party as an opportunity to build new ways to make money.
- Don't look at your first-party data as a cost. Its an investment to maintain your addressability and build new revenue streams. If you see this as a cost, you aren't thinking about the future as an opportunity.