Google shifts third-party cookie phaseout to 2023
Google has announced a delay in its initial plans to phaseout third-party cookies in 2022.
The Microsoft-owned company said in an official statement: “Chrome will phase out support for third-party cookies over a three month period finishing in late 2023.”
Google had previously disclosed its intentions to axe third party cookies in 2022; although the elimination of these cookies will increase user privacy and security, it also posed a big challenge for consumer tracking and ad serving firms, as marketers may no longer be able to track potential customers, retarget users, and even lose revenue as a result of the overall alteration. Following Google’s initial announcement, the panic-gripped marketing and advertising industry began to seek out alternatives such as The Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0 and Lotame’s Panorama ID.
Speaking on the delay, Google stated: “Today, Chrome and others have offered more than 30 proposals, and four of those proposals are available in origin trials. For Chrome, specifically, our goal is to have the key technologies deployed by late 2022 for the developer community to start adopting them. Subject to our engagement with the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and in line with the commitments we have offered, Chrome could then phase out third-party cookies over a three month period, starting in mid-2023 and ending in late 2023.”
Third-party cookies have continuously played an integral role in the digital advertising industry. The cookies store user data to help improve user experience on a website while tracking user-activity online and serving targeted ads. These hyper-targeted ads are very valuable, resulting in the creation of an ad industry whereby individual user data is proliferated across thousands of companies.
Google backed its decision to phase out the third party cookies by introducing “Privacy Sandbox” as an alternative to the third-party cookies in order to enhance user privacy, the major element in the privacy sandbox is Google’s plan to migrate the user’s data into Google chrome where it will be stored and processed. In the end, digital marketers and advertisers will become more dependent on the Big Tech for advertising, or find ways to better leverage the first-party cookies instead.
The company explained further: “Along with progress on developing alternatives to third-party cookies, we continue to advance another key Privacy Sandbox goal to combat covert tracking like device fingerprinting. For instance, last month we published an update on our plans for User Agent string reduction, a project which aims to reduce the possibility of using this data to fingerprint and track users across the web.”
“We believe that the Privacy Sandbox will provide the best privacy protections for everyone. By ensuring that the ecosystem can support their businesses without tracking individuals across the web, we can all ensure that free access to content continues. And because of the importance of this mission, we must take time to evaluate the new technologies, gather feedback and iterate to ensure they meet our goals for both privacy and performance, and give all developers time to follow the best path for privacy,” the statement concluded.
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