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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.