The cookie jar is still full, for now.
On Jan 17, 2022, Google announced that it will stop the use of third-party cookies in Chrome by the end of 2023. For marketers and advertisers, this is definitely huge news, Chrome browser alone has over 63% market share globally. Before we get to why this is so important in the world of marketing, first we need to know: what are cookies?
Unforetunly this is no sweet treat that we all love, Mmmmm chocolate chips, no, these internet cookies, are built specifically for Internet web browsers to track, personalize, and save information about each user’s session. And there are two types of internet cookies: First-party cookies and Third-party cookies. First-party cookies live and stay on the website they’re from, more for user experience rather than for cross-site user tracking, however, these cookies don’t follow visitors across the web. It is the third-party cookies that are the key to the story, it tracks users from website to website. marketers are largely responsible for creating these because the information they collect helps them target specific user audiences. These cookies also paint a more complete picture of you as a user and visitor of many websites that seem to have no affiliation with each other, and this makes marketers push out more accurate advertisements for viewers.
So now you can understand why marketer are panicing when google said they will phase out third-party cookies by 2023. But for now, they can relax just a little bit. Because on Jun 24 Google has announced that they are delaying blocking third-party cookies in Chrome. In the announcement, Google says the delay is “subject to our engagement with the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).” and starting to phase out third-party cookies starting mid-2023 and ending in late 2023. By that time instead of cookies, Chrome will use “Federated Learning of Cohorts” technology or FLoC. It will create groups of demographically similar users in a system that advertisers could use to target ads. But how it will be accepted and adopted is still a question. All we can know for sure is that for now the cookie jar is still full, until 2023.
