The End of an Era: Preparing for the Impact of Google’s Cookie Deprecation
Update: According to a recent article published by The Drum Google is scrapping the need to eliminate third-party cookies on Google Chrome. They are changing tactics that now includes “a one-time prompt that enables users to set preferences that will apply across Google browsing experiences.”
Here’s what Anthony Chavez, vice-president of Privacy Sandbox had to say “We are proposing an updated approach that elevates user choice. Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time.”
Is Google’s Hand Caught In The Cookie Jar?
What date is it? What year is it? 2024, right? Well, Google needs to catch up.
Way back in January 2020, Google announced its plans to eliminate all third-party cookies on its Chrome Browser “by 2022.”
Then, in June 2021, Google announced that third-party cookies would be phased out from 2023 onwards.
Was that the end of it? Nope. In July 2022, Google once again declared that it would postpone the deprecation of Google Analytics cookies on Chrome — the worldwide web browsing market leader — until the end of 2024.
As of April 2024, Google’s cookie deprecation plans have been scuppered yet again. This time, they’ve kicked the can down the road, promising it will happen in early 2025.
In this post, we’ll discuss the status of the tech giant’s 3rd-party cookie deprecation and how to navigate the upcoming changes.
Should You Accept Cookies?
It’s a daily occurrence—if not hourly—when an item, news article, or product hits your feed, the ubiquitous cookie consent banner pops up. To accept, or not to accept? That is the question.
That depends on your preferences for convenience, personalized web experiences, and how you feel about your privacy. Here are some considerations:
Convenience and Functionality: Cookies often enhance a website’s functionality by allowing it to remember your login details, preferences, and what’s in your shopping cart. Accepting cookies can provide a smoother and more customized browsing experience, reducing the need to re-enter information and helping websites operate efficiently.
Privacy Concerns: There are concerns that accepting cookies — especially third-party cookies — can compromise your privacy because it essentially allows sites to track your online activities. If privacy is a priority for you, you might opt to reject or limit cookies — especially third-party cookies — using browser settings or privacy-focused browser extensions.
On the other hand, Michael Sprague — CTO of GeistM — always clicks yes. He views a cookie as a crumb that allows a server to remember a browser, not a person. Originally invented to enhance browsing, Sprague posits that Google and a few other bad actors complicated things.
Sprague doesn’t view cookies as a violation of privacy.
“The mechanism is much like having — and appreciating — your deli guy remembering how you like your bagels. A violation of privacy enters the ring when this data is coordinated on a massive scale to triangulate your friendships and religions. The better rule would be to stop Google from passing information between its own customers so that Liberty Project (one of GeistM’s owned and operated publisher sites) visitors are announced as such when visiting Fox. Google enables that. Cookies don’t, unless intended.”
Why Are They Called Cookies?
The word cookie sounds so cute, so yummy, so friendly. But in this context, how did it come about? It originates from an internet browsing term that programmers use — a magic cookie. Cookies were devised very early on to establish some continuity between a site and a browser. It describes a piece of data sent by a website and stored on the user’s computer.
This data is exchanged between the web server and the browser to maintain information about the user’s interactions with the website, allowing the server to identify and track the user.
What Are Third-Party Cookies? And Why Should They Be Eliminated?
Third-party cookies are small pieces of data stored on your browser by a website other than the one you’re currently visiting. They’re typically used by advertisers to track your online activities across a number of websites.
Say you visit a news site that features ads served by an advertising network; that network can place a cookie in your browser. When you hit another website using the same network, the cookie can be used to analyze the continuity of your browsing behavior.
According to GeistM’s CTO Michael Sprague, although it’s commonly thought that cookies often track users across the web without their knowledge or consent, this is a false fear that Google “knows” and exploits. Cookies don’t have this capacity.
Please remember, privacy matters. If your personal records are owned by an institution you don’t trust or might transfer to an institution you don’t trust, things can go very wrong. This tension between identity and privacy has been going on forever, and it really underscores the looming cookie crisis.
Again, Google and the industry are pushing to eliminate third-party cookies in order to give users more control over their data and reduce the risk of privacy breaches.
Sprague posits that this is a ruse.
“Your privacy is gone the moment you connect to the internet with an IP address that locates your home. It’s hard for most people to hide that. You order a package delivered to your door, yet the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — the toughest privacy and security law in the world — requires we forget where we sent the message.”
In response to such privacy concerns, major browser developers like Google and Mozilla are phasing out third-party cookies. This shift aims to create a more privacy-focused web environment, where users have greater control over their personal information.
This change ignites the development of new, privacy-preserving technologies for online advertising and user data management.
What’s Going On With Google Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Deprecation?
Google has continually delayed the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome, with the latest date set for early 2025. The timeline keeps getting put off due to industry feedback and regulatory concerns. Ad tech companies and publishers — along with Regulatory bodies like the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) as well as the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) — have significant concerns that Google’s Privacy Sandbox could give Google Ads a competitive edge. This has prompted Google to work closely with these regulators to ensure their new privacy measures do not unfairly advantage their own services.
This delay highlights the industry’s unpreparedness for the removal of tracking cookies in the world’s most popular browser.
“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators, and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June. Given both of these significant considerations, we will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4.”
What Is The Privacy Sandbox?
Google’s Privacy Sandbox aims to replace third-party cookies with greater privacy-preserving technologies while continuing to support online advertising, rather than tracking individual users across websites. The Privacy Sandbox uses techniques like cohort-based targeting, where users with similar interests are batched together. A core component is Topics API, which identifies broad topics of interest based on a user’s browsing history and shares this information with advertisers without revealing individual user details.Privacy Sandbox aims to balance the need for stronger privacy protections, ensuring that users’ personal information remains secure and advertisers can still reach relevant audiences.
How To Prepare For Third-Party Cookie Restrictions
During Google’s testing period, it’s critical for sites and services to start preparing for third-party cookie restrictions, including migrating to more private alternatives.
Subject to addressing any remaining competition concerns of the UK’s CMA, Google envisions proceeding with third-party cookie deprecation in early 2025.
Steps to prepare for third-party cookie phaseout:
Understand third-party cookie phaseout: Learn about the timeline and actions needed to preserve your site’s functionalities.
Audit your use of cookies: Review and list the cookies you need to take action on to ensure they function properly.
Test for breakage: Set up Chrome to block third-party cookies, enable new functionalities and mitigations, and simulate the state post-phaseout.
Privacy is extremely important. When your records fall into the wrong hands, it can be perilous. Ask anyone who’s had their bank card hacked while on vacation in rural Italy.
What’s wrong is that Google has your name, address, family affiliations, and entire browsing history. A company like GeistM only knows that you are somewhere in Kansas shopping for mattresses or signing up for a meal kit.
Cookies are not the only tool for tracking a journey through the Internet. Partnering with our clients and publishers also enables us to create our own first-party relationships. The option to opt out of cookie tracking has always been there. Perhaps Google’s 3-party cookie deprecation is merely a much-ado about cookies.
Get in touch and grow your business with GeistM today.
