Google has announced that it will no longer be using third-party cookies when tracking individual users across the web on their Chrome browser.
They have said that digital advertising practices had to “evolve”. This article will give you an overview of what this means for you.
What difference will this make to you?
Third-party cookies allow for you to be tracked and ‘followed’ across the web. This means that a website is able to pick up and ‘remember’ if you were shopping around for products for example.
The action of eliminating cross-site tracking is already available by default on Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers. However, this move by Google is large in the sense that it will force all sites to have no third-party cookies.
How will these ‘third-party cookies’ be replaced?
Google wants to bring in new tools that give advertisers more limited information. The information will also be anonymised and will not be able to be tracked back to the individual.
Advertisers will still be able to view details such as the number of people who have come across the ad, however individual details would not be shared.
What’s the impact this will have on businesses?
Although this is not the default for all browsers, it is still significant as Google Chrome is installed on more than 70% of computers across the UK.
This move is currently being investigated by The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK.
This is because they believe that Google’s plan could have a “significant impact” on news websites in particular and the digital advertising market as a whole.
There is a coalition of small technology companies – Marketers for an Open Web (Mow). They believe that some of their member’s revenues could drop by more than two-thirds.
“Google’s Privacy Sandbox proposals will potentially have a very significant impact on publishers like newspapers, and the digital advertising market. But there are also privacy concerns to consider,” said Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA.
You can read more in detail about Google’s plans and the investigation by the CMA here.
How we can help at O’Brien Media?
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