It’s Tuesday, 23rd July 2024, and we wake up to the news: ‘Google is abandoning plans to phase out third-party cookies.’ There’s a loud cheer from the digital marketing community, but an underlying nervous feeling: ‘What does this mean?’ Any overnight decision can’t be good… can it?
What are Third Party Cookies?
To understand third-party cookies, we need to first understand what first-party cookies are. Well, imagine you are visiting the local coffee shop. The barista remembers your favourite drink and how you like it - this is like the coffee shop setting a first-party cookie. Now, third-party cookies act slightly differently. Imagine there’s a person from a nearby bakery sitting in the coffee shop. This person watches what you order and where you sit. This person follows you around to other coffee shops as well - creepy, we know. But this is like a third-party cookie, as they are not from the coffee shop you’re visiting, but from another place.
Why Do These Cookies Exist?
Cookies exist for many reasons. The reason we are looking at in this article is their purpose when it comes to tracking and advertising. Cookies help advertisers track your browsing habits across multiple websites and show you targeted ads. However, sometimes third-party cookies are used to track users without their explicit consent, raising privacy issues.
Google’s recent rollout of Consent V2 tackled this head-on and enforced all advertisers to implement a cookie policy and banner that aligned with data privacy laws.
Why Remove Third-Party Cookies?
As mentioned above, sometimes third-party cookies can feel like they are invading your privacy. No one wants a person making note of your coffee order, where you sit, and what you like to read, so why do we allow this online?
Following the rollout of GA4, Google has always made it clear they were moving to a cookieless future to improve user privacy and enhance trust in their platform. They were concerned about tracking without consent and data misuse. They had pressure from governments regarding compliance. Pressure also came from users who felt Google wasn’t a trusted company, and with other competitors offering better privacy options, they had to look at improving their business model.
Changing Their Minds - Why the U-turn?
No one really knows what decisions are made behind closed doors. However, we can guess that challenges and feedback came from stakeholders, such as web developers, publishers, and regulators.
The decision seems to be driven by the need for more time to test technologies, address regulatory feedback, and provide users with control over their cookie settings rather than completely abolishing third-party cookies.
Tribus and other technology companies still don’t understand the full impact that this will have on the digital media industry.
If you’re looking for more information regarding this, please contact our team at hello@tribusdigital.com
