Third-Party Cookie Ban by Google is Delayed to 2023
Earlier this year, Google announced to ban the use of the third-party cookie by end of 2022 but now they’ve decided to delay until 2023. The reason behind it is so advertisers and web developers have time to test and build alternatives. Similarly, other browsers such as Firefox or Safari is also doing similar things. While Google chrome being one of the most used web browsers, they are taking the lead by announcing the death of third-party cookies on Google Chrome and officially becoming the “more private web”. So you may ask, what exactly is a third-party cookie? What is the main use of different cookies and why is Google doing this? Let’s find out!
What are third-party cookies?
The third-party cookies collect personal information such as age, location, gender, email, race, marital status, your voice and face recognition, your job, your behavior habits on the web such as shopping trends, search history, most visited websites, and a lot more for any marketing purposes. Have you ever had an incident where you were researching for something then the next website you visit, similar products are on there? Something that often happens to me for example is if I was trying to find airfare to New York and the next thing I know, I’m getting hotel advertisements all over my browser. These cookies allow advertisers to track your personal information while you browsing between websites. Which gives the advertisers data of your interest.
Here’s a table summarizing the key differences between first and third-party cookies:
You would be surprised what these cookies are tracking. And through collecting your information, it can be used for personalized advertising and maybe even other unauthorized usages of your personal data. According to Google, thousands of companies are collecting individual user data and this is making users feeling unsafe and no longer trusting the internet or advertisers.
Have you ever wondered about which companies know the most about you? According to this report from Clario, Facebook is the winner knowing 79.49% of your personal information.
So now, what happens to google?
Companies like Google and Facebook already own a large amount of user data. Therefore, with the banning of third-party cookies, marketers will have no choice but to use start relying on Google’s collected data and continue to use their tools such as Google AdWords. Good analytics etc.
So far, Google says that they are only planning to ban third-party cookies on its browser. However, first-party cookies that track basic data about your own website’s visitors are still safe. Even though this might create some problems for advertisers and web developers, it will create a safer Internet for customers. We can worry a little less about our personal data being tracked and used.
What happens to marketers? What other solutions could marketers look into instead of relying on third-party cookies?
The disappearance of third-party cookies doesn’t mean we stop with the measurement or we stop collecting data; it just means what and how we measure is going to change and advertisers will start figuring out the right ways and tools to do so. I mean these companies still own their website and they can start figuring out how to build new tools and track new audiences. By doing so, we can still capture them through our built-in tools. After collecting these first-party data, we can then dive into other actions. Having access to your own list of audiences will help companies make decisions and develop marketing strategies based on these data. It proves that you own your website and you really should drive all traffic there and invest more money, effort, and time into your website. With the extra time Google is giving, companies should look into investing in new technologies, tools, and alternatives to accomplish ad targeting. These companies should definitely start looking into software that tracks and help you leverage the first-party data. These are just my thoughts about Google banning third-party cookies. What is yours?
